Politics & public policy:

Economists and public interest groups protest proposed elimination of survey on needy families; UN reports developed nations lag in women's representation in government; Commentaries on America's future, more.

Reproductive health & rights:

Men's group wants "Roe v. Wade" -- for men

More news on reproductive health & rights

Elsewhere on the web:

Notable news and commentary on

• work
• women
• gender
• and other topics of note

One Sick Child Away From Being Fired
New report finds workplace inflexibility hits
working class families hardest

Although media reports on the consequences of workplace inflexibility typically focus on the plight of high-earning professional women, a just-released report from The Center for WorkLife Law finds that working-class employees are frequently forced to choose between responding to a family crisis or keeping their jobs. The study, One Sick Child Away From Being Fired: When "Opting Out" Isn't an Option, is based on a review of 99 union arbitration cases in which workers were fired or disciplined for taking unscheduled time off or refusing mandatory overtime to care for a sick child or family member.

As legal Scholar Joan Williams, who heads the WorkLife Law project at University of California Hastings College, explained in a press release, "Most professionals have at least some flexibility. Among the working class, forget about taking an hour off to see the school play -- you can get fired for leaving to pick up a sick child at school."

The cases Williams and her team reviewed included a bus driver who was fired for being three minutes late because her son had a suffered a asthma attack that morning and a packer who was fired for leaving work after she was informed her daughter was in the emergency room with a head injury.

Selected highlights from the study:

• Working class families face inflexible work schedules that clash with family needs, and when family crises strike, these families do not have the resources to hire help or seek out professional care for needy or troubled family members. As the report notes, these worker lack rights that professionals often take for granted, such as the right to make a phone call to check in with children or an ailing parent at home alone.

• Mandatory overtime leaves single mothers, divorced dads, and tag team families in jeopardy of losing their jobs. When back-up child care arrangements fall through or there is a family crisis, workers who refuse mandatory overtime can be suspended without pay or fired. The report cites the case of one janitor, a single mother with a disabled teenage son, who failed to report to work on a Saturday. The mother, who had been working 60 hour weeks for months, was fired after 27 years of service.

• Working class men often are unable or unwilling to bring up their family needs with their employers. Instead, they suffer in silence or to try to "come in under the radar screen." One UPS employee was terminated for "time theft" after taking an extra hour and fifteen minute off on two separate days without telling his supervisors. As the worker explained during arbitration, he had been working 50 to 60 hours a week with as little as eight hours off between shifts. With a new baby, a sick wife and an ailing toddler at home, he used his lunch breaks to check in on his family. "I was getting by on 2-3 hours of sleep a day… I didn’t know whether I was coming or going… [I went] home and spen[t] my lunch and breaks there to make sure every one at home was okay. But I lost track of time… My intention was [to be] there for my family but not to steal time." The employee had taken three weeks of vacation at the time of his younger son's birth, but could not afford to take a longer, unpaid leave.

• Employers’ inflexibility may well defeat their own business needs. "The business case for family-responsive policies, almost always framed in terms of the need to retain highly trained professionals, may be even more pressing in the working-class context," the study concludes. "The business case for family-responsive policies in the working-class context includes: improved quality and consumer safety; improved worker engagement and commitment, which has a direct link to profits; enhanced customer service and productivity; reduced stress, which drives down health insurance costs; cost savings due to enhanced recruitment and decreased turnover and absenteeism; and avoiding a loss of employer control in unionized workplaces."

Noting that most employers believe it's simply impossible or too costly to implement working time flexibility for nonprofessional workers, the report recommends five steps all employers can take to reduce work-family conflict: providing family leave as required by law; creating additional leaves to address work/family conflict rather than leaving workers only with the option of calling in sick when they need to care for family members; designing family-responsive overtime systems; providing reduced hours and other flexible work options, and recognizing that workplace inflexibility hurts the bottom line.

Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings
www.worklifelaw.org

One Sick Child Away From Being Fired:
When “Opting Out” Is Not an Option
Center for WorkLife Law, 15.mar.06
Press release (pdf)
Full report, 83 pages in .pdf

Blue Collar Blues
A interview with Joan Williams on NPR's Marketplace, 14.mar.06

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Report provides data on incarcerated mothers
and their children

A newly available report from the Urban Institute focuses on the development and wellbeing of children with incarcerated parents:

The imprisonment of nearly three-quarters of a million parents disrupts parent-child relationships, alters the networks of familial support, and places new burdens on governmental services such as schools, foster care, adoption agencies, and youth-serving organizations. …Little attention has focused on how communities, social service agencies, health care providers, and the criminal justice system can work collaboratively to better meet the needs of the families left behind. This policy brief is intended to help focus attention on these hidden costs of our criminal justice policies.

More than half of the 1.4 million adults incarcerated in state and federal prisons are parents of minor children. The vast majority of incarcerated parents are male (93 percent); among the men held in state prison, 55 percent report having minor children. Among women, who account for 6 percent of the state prison population, 65 percent report having minor children. Over half (58 percent) of the minor children of incarcerated parents are less than 10 years old.

The Urban Institute
www.urban.org

Families Left Behind
The Hidden Costs of Incarceration and Reentry
Jeremy Travis, Elizabeth Cincotta McBride, Amy L. Solomon,
The Urban Institute, June 2005
Full report, 12 pages in .pdf

Related resources:

Girl Scouts Beyond Bars
As a step toward nurturing and maintaining parental bonds, the Girls Scouts Beyond Bars (GSBB) program was initiated by the National Institute of Justice in 1992. This program provides a supportive environment through which incarcerated adults can continue and learn to be parents as well as being involved in educational programs geared toward providing a strong family foundation when participants are released. As Girl Scouts, the daughters of these individuals are empowered to “grow strong in mind, body and spirit.” At this time, there are approximately 40 Beyond Bars programs in existence nationwide.

Documentary: Troop 1500
Directed by Ellen Spiro and Karen Bernstein, 2005
Meeting once a month at Hilltop Prison in Gatesville, Texas, this innovative Girl Scout program brings daughters together with their inmate mothers, offering them a chance to rebuild their broken relationships. Intimately involved with the troop for several years, the directors took their cameras far beyond meetings to explore the painful context of broken families. Broadcast on PBS stations, March 21 (check local listings).

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New study finds more working families need
emergency food assistance

A new study of food insecurity and hunger in the U.S. reports that 36 percent of the members of households receiving emergency food assistance from food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters are children under 18, and that for 36 percent of households receiving assistance, one or more adults was employed. 68 percent of assisted households had incomes below the poverty line in the previous month. Among households with children, 73 percent experienced food insecurity (not knowing where the next meal would come from) and 31 percent experienced hunger (completely without a source for food). More than 40 percent of people receiving assistance reported having to choose between paying for utilities or heating fuel and food; 35 percent said they had to choose between paying for rent or a mortgage and food; 32 percent report having to choose between paying for medical bills and food.

The study was conducted in 2005 by America's Second Harvest—The Nation's Food Bank Network, the nation's largest charitable hunger-relief organization. A2H provides emergency food assistance to over 25 million Americans a year, including 9 million children and 3 million seniors.

Hunger Study 2006
www.hungerinamerica.org

• Key Findings from America's Second Harvest 2006 Hunger Study
• Fact sheet on America's Second Harvest

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Mommy Wars without end

We're still seven weeks out from Mother's Day and the media is already heating up with more inane and divisive reporting on the "Mommy Wars." In the last three weeks, Good Morning America, NBC's Today Show, Newsweek and Time Magazine have entered the fray, causing average mothers across the nation to put their heads in their hands and moan à la Prufrock, "No that is not it, at all."

Part of the heightened attention has been generated by the PR campaign for a new anthology from Random House, Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families, edited by Leslie Morgan Steiner, an advertising executive at The Washington Post. In an interview with Salon, Steiner touches on the heart of the real problem facing today's mothers when she admits, "It's almost impossible in today's world to have two people work and raise kids unless they're self-employed or one's an entrepreneur or they have a very understanding employer." She goes on to note: "In this country we love to blame women; it's part of our culture. We deify motherhood but then women are the first ones we blame when it comes to family life. You'll never hear a man called overprivileged; you only hear women and children called overprivileged because it's easy to single them out as a target -- they can't fight back as effectively, they're not part of the dominant culture. Women bashing is a sport."

Although Steiner has little to add to more considered analyses of the tensions behind the Mommy Wars -- particularly Miriam Perskowitz's The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars and reporter Tracy Thompson's 1998 article for the Washington Post Magazine, A War Inside Your Head -- at least she seems disinterested in stirring up controversy for controversy's sake. Not so for the producers of ABC's Good Morning America, which recently aired a two part series pairing interviews with Linda Hirshman and Debbie Klett of Total 180 Magazine ("THE magazine for the professional woman turned stay-at-home mom"). The broadcast was so predictably nausea-inducing that it inspired a page-long letter of complaint from NOW President Kim Gandy.

One of the more interesting aspects of the recent "Mommy Wars" coverage is a new (and overdue) focus on the issue of fathers, work and family. Welcome, dear readers, to the dawning of the "Daddy Wars."

The following is a round up of recent
high-profile reporting on the Mommy Wars:

'Mommy Wars': To Work or Stay at Home?
ABC, Good Morning America, 22.feb.06
"I think my kids are as well-behaved and as well-socialized, if not better, than a lot of a fair number of at-home moms," Skolnick said. "I see at-home moms whose children won't separate from them, won't go to school, cry at the door. My children have learned, from an early age, that Mommy will be back. So they kiss me and they say goodbye."

How to Raise Kids: Stay Home or Go to Work?
ABC, Good Morning America, 23.feb.06
"I think it's a mistake for these highly educated and capable women to make that choice [to stay home]," said law professor and working mom Linda Hirshman. "I am saying an educated, competent adult's place is in the office."

"Mommy Wars" Incited by Irresponsible Media
Kim Gandy, NOW, 8.mar.06
"In their ongoing search for controversy that sells, the media are again promoting a false conflict—the so-called 'Mommy Wars.' NOW knows that our opponents are committed to a strategy of pitting women against women. The most recent clash between stay-at-home moms and employed moms is a media-manufactured 'battle' that obscures the very real issues all moms and caregivers face. One of the worst recent offenders was a feature on ABC's Good Morning America with longtime journalist Diane Sawyer."

Home vs. job: Are you fighting a losing battle?
NBC, Today Show, 13.mar.06
"In ‘Mommy Wars,’ Leslie Morgan Steiner of The Washington Post compiles a collection of essays on the tough choices facing mothers." Includes a video clip and excerpt from the book.

Smart Moms, Hard Choices
Peg Tyre, Newsweek, 6.mar.06
"As a new book explores an old question -- to work? To stay at home? -- economists say the answer is in the numbers. "Much has been made of tensions between moms who work and their stay-at-home counterparts. Next month, a new anthology, 'Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families' (Random House), is sure to spark even more controversy and soul-searching. The essays, penned by 27 female authors and journalists, describe the profound ambivalence all moms feel about their choices. The decision to stay at home or not, says 'Mommy Wars' editor Leslie Morgan Steiner, 'is the issue that defines the lives of most mothers.'" With links to book excerpt.

A truce in the "Mommy Wars"
Helaine Olen, Salon, 15.mar.06
Politicians, the media -- and women themselves -- hype the work vs. stay-home issue as a catfight. But a new book says the real war is within each woman.

Bring On The Daddy Wars
Nancy Gibbs, Time Web Exclusive, 27.feb.06
How the younger generation of fathers is starting to wrestle with its own juggling dilemma -- and why that's a good thing. "Somewhere in the background there will always be room for a debate about gender roles and what children need most from their parents. But how much better would our time be spent finding ways to make the challenges of parenting easier for everyone. Watching the way moms treat each other, at least in the Talk Show versions of World Championship Wrestling, you can't blame men for not being eager to join the conversation. But maybe if they did, they could change it."

'Daddy Wars': Fathers Strike Back:
More Fathers Feel Conflicted Over Work and Family
Jen Brown, ABC News, 8.mar.06
"Attitudes about the traditional roles of men and women when it comes to working and raising children are changing. As they do, men are actually experiencing more anxiety about balancing work and family than women, according to recent studies."

Related articles and commentary:

The Mythical Mommy Wars
Amy Anderson, mamazine.com, 23.feb.06
"How stupid do TV producers think we mamas are? Do they really think we won't notice the inflammatory remarks by Diane Sawyer and ridiculous, illogical assumptions that moms who do paid work miss all their kids' soccer games, for instance?"

Sugar and Spice
Peg Tyre, Newsweek, 15.feb.06
Three new books tackle the third rail of sisterhood: female competition at work -- with men and with each other. Can a woman play like a girl and win? "For the last 40 years, we've been told what it takes to get to the top: determination and a fierce competitive spirit. At the same time, we're relentlessly reminded that we have to play nice -- and look good doing it. Then there's the hangover from the women's movement when we were admonished not to compete at all but to band together and help each other. Which in turn sets us up for an ugly and lingering shock when, usually in the early years of our careers, we stumble across a woman manager who isn't interested at all in smoothing the way for other women and in fact, undermines them every way she can. The authors of three new books 'Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth About Women and Rivalry', 'I Can't Believe She Did That! Why Women Betray Other Women at Work' and 'The Girl's Guide to Being A Boss (Without Being a Bitch)' set out to help women sort through those conflicting messages about competition and power."

Myth & Reality
Forget all the talk of equal opportunity. European women can have a job --
but not a career.
Rana Foroohar, Newsweek International, 27.feb.06
"For all the myths of equality that Europe tells itself, the Continent is by and large a woeful place for a woman who aspires to lead. According to a paper published by the International Labor Organization this past June, women account for 45 percent of high-level decision makers in America, including legislators, senior officials and managers across all types of businesses. In the U.K., women hold 33 percent of those jobs. In Sweden—supposedly the very model of global gender equality—they hold 29 percent."

The Happiest Wives
John Tierney, 28.feb.06
"Three decades ago, two-thirds of Americans surveyed said it was better for wives to focus on homemaking and husbands to focus on breadwinning, but by the 1990's, only a third embraced the traditional division of labor. The new ideal -- in theory, not in practice -- became a partnership of equals who split duties inside and outside the home. …But it turns out that an equal division of labor didn't make husbands more affectionate or wives more fulfilled. The wives working outside the home reported less satisfaction with their husbands and their marriages than did the stay-at-home wives. And among those with outside jobs, the happiest wives, regardless of the family's overall income, were the ones whose husbands brought in at least two-thirds of the money."

Editors note: I've read the study in question, and it is not nearly as conclusive as Tierney suggests. For example, the authors could not reliably say if more traditional wives felt more loved by their husbands because their expectations of marriage were lower than wives with egalitarian values, although they agree it's a possibility. The detailed data is also presented in way that makes it very difficult to interpret. As feminist blogger Echidne of the Snakes comments, the authors of the study "are into studying traditional marriage, and I'd be very surprised if their findings didn't accord with their premises." More information is available from the Univeristy of Virginia press office:

University of Virginia Study Finds Commitment to Marriage,
Emotional Engagement Key to Wives’ Happiness
University of Virginia (press release) 1.mar.06
"A study by University of Virginia sociologists W. Bradford Wilcox and Steven L. Nock finds that the single most important factor in women’s marital happiness is the level of their husbands’ emotional engagement -- not money, the division of household chores or other factors." Includes a link to the full study.

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U.S. Plan to Eliminate Survey of Needy Families Draws Fire
Abid Aslam, Common Dreams, 2.mar.06
"Researchers and legislators are rallying to block a Bush administration plan to scupper a U.S. survey widely used to improve federal and state programs for millions of low-income and retired Americans. … The proposal marks at least the third White House attempt in as many years to do away with federal data collection on politically prickly economic issues ranging from mass layoffs to employment discrimination."

Economists and Social Scientists Urge Congress to Save Key Census Survey
President's FY07 budget would end "Survey of Income and Program Participation"
Center for Economic Policy Research, Press Release, 2.mar.06
"Launched in 1984, the SIPP is a multi-panel, nationally representative dataset created by the U.S. Census. It was designed to measure economic well-being, including program participation, with in-depth questions on wealth and assets, debt, childcare usage, work schedules, disabilities, medical expenses, detailed educational attainment information, and detailed information on fertility."

Wanted: A High-Road Economy
Holly Sklar, TomPaine.com, 17.mar.06
The minimum wage sets the wage floor. When the minimum wage is stuck in quicksand, it drags down wages for workers up the pay scale as well. Hourly wages for average workers are 11 percent lower than they were in 1973, despite rising worker productivity.

A Budget Built on Common Sense
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, AlterNet, 8.mar.06
We can repair our threadbare social safety net without a single tax increase or one additional dime in federal spending. (Woolsey's proposed legislation includes $10 billion/year for children's health care and $10 billion/year to improve K-12 school infrastructure).

Report: States tax low-income families
Kathleen Hunter, Stateline.org, 22.feb.06
"The state income-tax burden faced by poor families has declined in the past 15 years, but some low-income families still incurred substantial state income-tax bills in 2005, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities." Summary with links to full report.

Calculating Poverty in U.S. Fuels Debate
Stephen Ohlemacher/Associated Press, Common Dreams, 21.feb.06
"Every year, the Census Bureau uses a 40-year-old formula to determine how many poor people there are in America, a method that many experts think was outdated years ago. …The Census Bureau acknowledges the issue by also announcing alternative poverty rates based on different measurements of income and poverty. This approach has fueled an academic and political debate, but has yet to produce policy changes."

Political Women See Open Door in 2006 Elections
Allison Stevens, Women's eNews, 17.mar.06
Droves of women are running for state and national office in the mid-term elections, a signal that the glass ceiling in Washington is starting to crack. Some female Democrats are hoping to exploit voter disapproval of the administration.

UN: Women Denied Representation, Making War on Poverty Hard to Win
Maxine Frith, Common Dreams, 8.mar.06
"To mark International Women's Day, the UN has published a report that says rates of female participation in governments across the developed and developing world are still appallingly low. The report says that for women to be adequately represented in their country, at least 30 per cent of parliamentary seats should have a female representative." The U.S. ranked 69th in gender equity in government.
 
United Nations: Press conference on women in parliament
Press release, 8.mar.06
"A look at the list of the 20 or so countries with the highest number of women parliamentarians revealed that, of those, just 10 were in Europe, the Union’s Secretary-General, Anders B. Johnsson, said. Of those 10, nine were in northern Europe, with the only exception being Spain. Of the remaining 10, five were in Africa, and of those five, almost without exception, all were countries that had emerged from conflict. The remaining five included Iraq and several countries in Latin America. There were lots of countries that prided themselves on being the old, established democracies, which, when analysed from a gender perspective, “were not democratic at all.” For example, the United Kingdom ranked number 50, the United States, number 69, France was 85, and Italy was number 89."

Saving Our Democracy
Bill Moyers, AlterNet, 27.feb.06
"The great progressive struggles in our history have been waged to make sure ordinary citizens, and not just the rich, share in the benefits of a free society. Yet today the public may support such broad social goals as affordable medical coverage for all, decent wages for working people, safe working conditions, a secure retirement, and clean air and water, but there is no government 'of, by, and for the people' to deliver on those aspirations. …So powerfully has wealth shaped our political agenda that we cannot say America is working for all of America."

America: Utopia Lost
Andrew L. Yarrow, Common Dreams, 25.feb.06
Fifty years ago, America's future was limitless. So what happened to optimism? "According to the National Opinion Research Center, American happiness peaked between the mid-1960s and 1973. Today, nary a politician nor a public intellectual — not even the cybergeeks — dares predict soaring incomes, limitless leisure or technologies to make our lives pure bliss."

Suffer the Little Children
Nick Gillespie, Reason Online, 2.mar.06
"Into the open-air prison that is contemporary childhood come two recent books—just in time, god help us all, for the midterm elections later this year—designed to root out and crush the last few remaining vestiges of carefree youth. Why Mommy Is a Democrat and Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! are misguided—and, one hopes, unread—attempts to politicize and indoctrinate tykes, to force future voters to choose between Red and Blue America."

Real Simple Starvation
Elizabeth Chin, AlterNet, 7.mar.06
"Simplifying, for the wealthy, has become a task, a burden, an end in itself. …For so many people in wealthy worlds, simplifying has also become an industry which, ironically, turns out an array of alluring products: toxin-free paint so wholesome it's known as "milk"; clothing woven from hemp fibers; even the fat, glossy magazine Real Simple. But conscious simplicity is not what it appears to be. After all, Thoreau's idyll at Walden Pond was made possible by the fact that someone else did his laundry. Which is to say: for most people, living simply is a luxury, and one that still ends up consuming a great deal -- whether new categories of goods, other people's labor, or both." A must-read article by the author of "Purchasing Power: Black Kids and American Consumer Culture" (2001).

Of Crafts and Causes
Phoebe Connelly, AlterNet, 23.feb.06
The DIY craft movement is back; is it a new form of consumption or a subversive political act? A "strand of the craft movement, one that views itself as overtly political, utilizes DIY (do it yourself) as a means of subverting disposable consumption, and questions the ghettoizing of crafts as women's work. It's grown up in conjunction with postfeminist magazines Bitch, Bust and Venus, and has ties to various activist communities."

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Men's group demands legal right to
"decline" fatherhood

As reported by the Associated Press and Salon, the National Center for Men -- a men's rights groups which claims "only women have the extraordinary freedom to enjoy sexual intimacy free from the fear of forced parenthood" (unless, of course, they live in South Dakota), but nonetheless hawks bumper stickers proclaiming "KIDS NEED BOTH PARENTS" -- has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Michigan man who wants to be exempted from the obligation of paying support for a child "he never intended to bring into the world." This is first in a series of legal actions planned as part of the NCM's "Roe v. Wade -- for Men" campaign. (Just in case you were thinking about ripping off that catchy title, the NCM has it trademarked.)

The group argues that at "a time of reproductive freedom for women, fatherhood must be more than a matter of DNA: A man must choose to be a father in the same way that a woman chooses to be a mother." Like abstinence or always using effective contraception. And if the condom breaks, well there's this thing called Plan B. You'd assume the Center for Men would be lobbying for over the counter distribution of emergency contraception or safe, effective birth control for men. But no. Instead, the organization promotes the view that "In many ways women receive special privilege and protection while male pain and suffering are trivialized or ignored by our society." Yeah, and in many ways the reverse also holds true.

Legal experts believe the Michigan case is bound to fail because society would have to bear the cost of supporting any legally unfathered children. But the tension here is an ancient one -- how can men maintain status and power in a world where women ultimately control the outcome of male fertility? The answer, of course, has been to systematically oppress women and limit their reproductive freedom by every means possible. But it's also true that women's resistance to that oppression has resulted in a much clearer definition of women's reproductive rights than those of men. That biology leaves men "choiceless" when it comes to sexual freedom without reproductive consequences must surely rankle. Welcome to our world, guys.

My final thought: The current burst of interest in redefining fathers' financial responsibilities for children born in and out of wedlock probably has less to do with women's access to abortion or mothers' increased earning power than with the government's desire to cut social spending through tougher enforcement of child support awards. Men always have, and still do, disown their children by withholding financial and other support, but these days "deadbeat dads" run the risk of liens on there wages or jail time for non-support. Like the fathers' rights agenda, the "pro-choice" movement for men is primarily about male privilege and money. -- JST

Men's Rights Group Seeks Exemption From Financial Responsibility in
Event of Unplanned Pregnancy
David Crary, The Associated Press, ABC News, 9.mar.06
"The National Center for Men has prepared a lawsuit nicknamed Roe v. Wade for Men to be filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Michigan on behalf of a 25-year-old computer programmer ordered to pay child support for his ex-girlfriend's daughter. The suit addresses the issue of male reproductive rights, contending that lack of such rights violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause."

Roe for men?
Rebecca Traister, Salon, 13.mar.06
The National Center for Men filed suit to establish reproductive rights for men. Is a father's right to choose an idea worth debating, or just a distraction? " But is this really the moment to start a discussion about a case that looks like a non-starter designed to generate more publicity than legal traction? Now? Within weeks of the confirmation of Samuel Alito and days of the South Dakota abortion ban? It's hard not to see it as just a novelty act and maddening distraction tactic -- so we don't have to read and write and think about the 18 states about to enact further limitations on abortion, or about the rising insurance costs for the pill, or the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act that would allow insurance companies to get out of laws requiring them to pay for birth control, or about pharmacists who refuse to sell legal contraception to paying customers. Is this really the moment to be discussing whether paying child support is an injustice? Because we really don't need this now!"

The Men's Bill of Rights:
No taxation without ejaculation
William Saletan, Slate, 15.mar.06
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of mandatory parenthood, or prohibiting the free avoidance thereof; or abridging the freedom of masturbation, or of non-procreative mutual gratification; or the right of the people peaceably to cuddle, and to petition one's partner for a redress of grievances."

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More news on reproductive health & rights

South Dakota's New Murderers
Lynn Paltrow and Charon Asetoyer, TomPaine.com, 8.mar.06
"This week South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds signed a law that bans almost all abortions in the state. Neither the governor nor the law's supporters have been honest about what the effect of the law will be. …Rather than admit that this law will hurt pregnant women and mothers, South Dakota's legislators pretend it protects them. Indeed, the authors of this bill call it the “Women's Health and Human Life Protection Act.” In another age we might expect that legislation so named would address such urgent women's health problems as breast and cervical cancer, the fact that 88,350 South Dakotans—12 percent of the state's population—are without health insurance or the fact that South Dakota guarantees no paid maternity leave for the many mothers who must continue working in order to feed their families." Lynn Paltrow is the executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women and Charon Asetoyer is the executive director of the Native American Women's Health and Education Resource Center in South Dakota.

Planned Parenthood's Pricey Pills
Kara Jesella, AlterNet, 27.feb.06
For young women, access to low-cost birth control is more important than ever. So why's it so hard -- and expensive -- to get it from Planned Parenthood?

Missing Daughters on an Indian Mother's Mind
Kavitha Rao, Women's eNews, 16.mar.06
Kavitha Rao is pleased to have a daughter. She just wishes more middle-class educated parents in her native India--where 500,000 girls are aborted each year -- felt the same.

Open adoption, broken heart
Dawn Friedman, Salon, 8.mar.06
I knew it would be hard for my daughter's birth mother to give her up. I just didn't expect to feel so guilty for taking her.

Adoption politics: What's best for the kids?
USA Today, 9.mar.06
The Issue: The state of adoption in America. What role, if any, should sexual orientation or race play in adoption decisions? Discussing this issue are conservative columnist Cal Thomas and liberal strategist Bob Beckel.

Bob: Do you really believe that it is better for a child to be shipped from foster family to foster family every few years, or months in many cases, than to be with caregivers who will commit to raising the child for his or her entire childhood and adolescence? Are you saying that a child has a better chance to prosper and succeed moving from family to family?

Cal: …The scientists and sociologists who study these things have sufficient data to persuade me that children fare best when they grow up in a committed heterosexual marriage. That the divorce rate remains far too high is no reason to broaden the definition of marriage or make arrangements for "alternative lifestyles."

The Study of Sex
Amy André, AlterNet, 14.mar.06
A unique college course on African-American sexuality is shaking up the world of academia. " Baham's challenge is to get students to step out of their comfort zones, as they cover topics such as BDSM, black LGBT issues, sex work, media hype around the 'down low,' marketing of black female bodies on television, representations of black sexuality in pornography, interracial sexuality and black male patriarchy."

Sex and the Septuagenarians
Lakshmi Chaudhry, AlterNet, 9.mar.06
Gail Sheehy's new book, about sex and the 'seasoned' woman, ignores the idea that some women might not want to have sex in later life. "When it comes to women's sexuality at any age, the line between emancipation and oppression is wafer-thin. The sexual revolution may have liberated our appetites, but it has made it far more difficult for women to say no to sex -- whether it's because we feel too young, too old, too tired, too pregnant."

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Work:

Womenomics 101
Joshua Holland, AlterNet, 16.mar.06
"Life for women in the American workplace is far from paradise -- they face economic punishment for almost every aspect of their biology." A must read.

Americans work more, seem to accomplish less
Ellen Wulfhorst, Reuters, 23.feb.06
"Most U.S. workers say they feel rushed on the job, but they are getting less accomplished than a decade ago, according to newly released research" conducted by Day-Timers, Inc. "The biggest culprit is the technology that was supposed to make work quicker and easier, experts say."

For complaints, phone home
Julie Forster, Knight Ridder, BostonWorks.com, 5.mar.06
A growing number of workers "toil in the comfort of their homes, logging sales orders, processing transactions, taking travel reservations, or perhaps explaining the ins and outs of health plans. In many cases, the pay is better than you'll find in a typical call center. But there is a cost. Benefits are rare and workers for some firms are expected to train on their own time or even pay for the privilege."

Paid Sick Days Improve Public Health by Reducing the Spread of Disease
Institute for Women's Policy Research, Issue Brief, feb.06
Paid sick days can reduce the spread of disease at work and in child-care settings, creating significant public health benefits and a more productive workforce. That’s why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that workers with the flu stay home. Yet many workers cannot do so without losing income or their job.

Barriers for Disability at Work
Catherine Komp, AlterNet, 13.mar.06
According to researchers at Cornell University, the employment rate for people with disabilities peaked around 25 percent in the 1990s before dropping below 20 percent by 2004. Disabled people say their biggest concern in the workplace isn't accessibility; it's attitude.

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Women:

What's so scary about feminism?
'Consciousness raising' just means honest discussion about
our behavior and our choices.
Debra Bruno, Christian Science Monitor, 9.mar.06
"Hasn't everyone at least heard about consciousness raising? A quick survey of the people in my office revealed that no one, male or female, under the age of 30 had even heard of what in my day was so common we called it 'CR.'"

Campus Women Wear Feminism on Their Chests
Hannah Seligson, Women's eNews, 24.feb.06
"This Is What a Feminist Looks Like" is the latest slogan to pop up on the T-shirts of young women on college campuses. While some say the garment helps strike down a stereotype, others say the dialogue is striking a discordant note.

New Online Exhibit on Younger Women and World Change
Imagining Ourselves, A Global Generation of Women reaches out to a new generation of women -- the one billion women in their twenties and thirties -- answering the question, “what defines your generation?” Through an interactive online exhibit, a series of global gatherings and a new book, Imagining Ourselves is a platform for young women to create positive change in their lives, communities and the world. Imagining Ourselves is a project of the International Museum of Women.

Grannies Have Plenty to Rage About
Georgie Bright Kunkel, Common Dreams, 24.feb.06
"I was drawn to this flamboyant group because it gave me the opportunity to rage once more about issues that I had already raged about in the '70s and '80s but without all the seriousness that I put into my earlier activism."

Bang Those Pots and Keep This Movement Moving
Gloria Feldt, Women's eNews, 8.mar.06
On International Women's Day, Gloria Feldt looks back to a recent high-tide of activism at the Beijing global conference on women just over 10 years ago. Now more than ever, she says, we need to tap that same spirit of conviction. "The problem is not the feminist agenda. The problem is that all of us who support it need the political will, courage, commitment, stamina and a never-ending creation of inspiring initiatives that touch real people's lives. A movement, after all, has to move. …We who call ourselves feminists must remember, proudly, that we have changed the world, much for the better in terms of justice and equality. That's exactly what scares our adversaries so much."

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Gender:

'Boy Crisis' in Education Is Nothing But Hype
Rivers and Barnett, Women's eNews, 15.mar.06
A "boy crisis" is boiling up in media coverage of education, based on the perception that girls are outstripping boys academically. Today's commentators argue that the discussion should be about social demographics, not gender.

Uncovering Men's Lives in the Shadow of 'Brokeback Mountain'
Rob Okun, Voice Male Newsletter, Men's Resource Center for Change, mar.2006
"If we choose to listen to its message, Brokeback Mountain will likely be remembered as a cultural milestone, a major work of art that triggered a shift in consciousness, the moment when countless men began lifting off our shoulders the burdens conventional masculinity would have us carry: being the sole breadwinner, the infallible family leader, the ready-for-action stud -- tough, strong, and almost always silent." Plus: other recent editorials from Voice Male.

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Also of note:

Why I Dumped the Baby Doctor
Michelle Cottle, Time Magazine, 27.feb.06
Pediatricians often treat parents like children. That's why I got a new one. "It's not that my exes were incompetent or unprofessional (although I could have done without the multi-hour waits). It's more that they treated me and my husband with the sort of arrogance and unresponsiveness that, upon consulting with other moms, I'm discovering is not uncommon in parent-ped relationships."

One Big Fat Lie
Courtney E. Martin, AlterNet, 2.mar.06
America is allegedly in the midst of an obesity epidemic, but our obsession with weight is the real disease. "Hyperbolic reportage on the expanding waistlines of America's children, in particular, has created a damaging hysteria. Fat camps are flooded with applicants who are solidly within their recommended body weight. …The fat kid in school, once the butt of mean jokes, is now the target of a societal assault. A recent survey of parents found that 1 in 10 would abort a child if they found out that he or she had a genetic tendency to be fat."

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