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1. Violence Against Women Act.  If today’s Republican party truly wants to explore its relationship with women, it has an opportunity to do so this week. The Senate voted 85 to 8 on Monday evening to renew its discussions of the Violence Against Women Act.

Renewal of the bill has stalled over Republican concerns that obscure issues like granting visa for abused illegal immigrants, treatment of same sex couples, and passages that strengthen the influence of American courts undermine the bill for the majority of American women.

The bill is expected to get Senate approval this week, with broad, bipartisan support.

In the House, the bill continues to struggle. Another sticking point is a provision in the bill that would allow American Indian women assaulted on reservations by non-Indians to go to trial courts, which currently have no jurisdiction over these assailants. 

Last week, the conservative Independent Women’s Forum said the Violence Against Women Act, passed first in 1994, was a waste of money that could actually be intensifying domestic violence, writes The New York Times.

“Although there is little credible evidence that V.A.W.A. programs are reducing the effects and occurrence of domestic and sexual violence, there is evidence that several of the policies instituted under V.A.W.A. may actually be harming the very victims they were designed to protect,” wrote Christina Villegas, a visiting fellow at the group.

2. 7 Key Facts About Domestic Violence

Villegas refers readers to the website SaveServices.org, with this reports prepared by Stop Abusive and Violent Environments. 

a. One in 10 American couples engages in intimate partner violence each year.

b. Men and women engage in domestic violence at similar rates. If the violence escalates, female are more likely to be injured. However, one-third of those requiring medical attention are male. 

c. Partner aggression is often two-way.

d. Domestic violence tends to be concentrated in Lower income couples, couples not in intact, married relationships, 

e. The US Centers for Disease Control has identified 25 different causes of domestic violence.

f. Since the mid-19702, domestic violence among intimate partners has fallen dramatically. 

g. Many victims of domestic violence face barriers to getting help. 

Due primarily to under-reporting, credible research suggests that mandatory arrest policies may actually increase partner violence.  A recent Harvard study found that such policies actually lead to more intense levels of violence. According to the study, “Intimate partner homicides increased by about 60 percent in states with mandatory arrest laws.” Another study found that women in states with mandatory arrest laws were less likely to report violence and request police assistance.

3. Support for Military Women

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Secretary of Defense Leon Penetta’s outgoing decision to lift restrictions on American women serving in combat has widespread support among American women, reports Pew Research.  

The latest poll results reflect nearly the same findings as two years ago in a Washington Post/ABC News survey. 

4. Ten Things to End Rape Culture

The Nation quotes Jessica Valenti in this piece on rape, one that would probably be rejected by Christina Villegas. 

Rape culture exists because we don’t believe it does.  From tacit acceptance of misogyny in everything from casual conversations with our peers to the media we consume, we accept the degradation of women and posit uncontrollable hyper-sexuality of men as the norm. But rape is endemic to our culture because there’s no widely accepted cultural definition of what it actually is.

“Rape is a standard result of a culture mired in misogyny, but for whatever reason—denial, self-preservation, sexism—Americans bend over backwards to make excuses for male violence.” 

5. GlamTribale Goes to Philly’s Headhouse Market

Anne is super excited to say that she’s joined Philadelphia’s Creative Collective where GlamTribale will be exhibiting on 17 Saturdays starting end of May at a marketplace founded in 1745, very near to Independence Hall!!! 

“I can’t think of a better place than Headhouse Market and Shambles to start my renewed drive for women’s independence, right down the street from the Liberty Bell,” Anne wrote on Facebook. 

 

Philadelphia’s Spittin’ Sister will be selling her art and jewelry while handing out pro-women pamphlets. Abigail Adams would be proud!

No taxation without representation is at the top of Anne’s agenda. For Republicans, Democrats and especially so-called progressive Democrats, Anne’s on record saying: “Don’t tax us if you won’t run women for office or give us major representation at your conferences.” 

6. Helicopter parenting is not good at playtime, reports Science Daily. Researchers at the University of Missouri have found that how direct a mother is and whether she tries to control the content and the pace of play among young children directly affected the attitudes expressed towards her by them. 

Children of these corrective and controlling moms were less engaged with her and displayed more negative emotion towards their mothers. 

Researchers argue that highly-directive moms may believe they are helping their kids by correcting them. In actual practice, they are limiting creativity and potentially negatively impact their child’s desire to be with her. 

Findings confirmed existing research that African American mothers are the most directive with young children, followed by Mexican-American moms and then European-Americans.  Although children expressed less positive regard from directive moms overall, the degree to which mothers expressed high levels of warmth towards the children, lessened the negative effect. 

Related

Nearly Half of Preschoolers Lack One Parent-Supervised Playtime Per Day Science Daily

Are Feminism and Attachment Parenting Practices Compatible Science Daily 

Call Us Stupified! Only An ERA Can Protect American Women Against Republican’s Intent to End Birth Control!

 

Sign our Petition NOW!!! Tweet! http://bit.ly/1146RWP

Anne of Carversville has said for several years that Republicans, led by the Catholic bishops, are coming for your birth control. 

Living with and writing about the Republican War on Women every day leaves us typically immune to the latest anti-woman rhetoric from the right wing. But talk show host and evangelical Kevin Swanson, has left us speechless.

Believing that utterly stupid statements like Todd Akins’ assertion that women’s bodies prevent us from getting pregnant as a result of rape were the bottom of the barrel, we simply weren’t prepared for Swanson’s recent assertions about birth control. 

Swanson: I’m beginning to get some evidence from certain doctors and certain scientists that have done research on women’s wombs after they’ve gone through the surgery, and they’ve compared the wombs of women who were on the birth control pill to those who were not on the birth control pill. And they have found that with women who are on the birth control pill, there are these little tiny featuses, these little babies, that are embedded into the womb. They’re just like dead babies. They’re on the inside of the womb. And these wombs of women who have been on the birth control pill effectively have become graveyards for lots and lots of little babies. 

Anne of Carversville has delivered well over 1000 of the 19,000 signatures supporting a renewed drive for an Equal Rights Amendment. Good Goddess, please, please sign our ERA petition before it is too late for American women. Tweet, Tweet, Tweet:  here  http://bit.ly/1146RWP Read Anne’s lucid analysis of anti-ERA arguments. 

 

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Gang of 10 Republican NM Women Want To Jail Rape Victims for 3 Years If They Abort

Republicans Seek Jail Time for Rape & Incest Victims

On Thursday January 24, the unthinkable happened in America. The Republican War on Women hit a new low, as New Mexico State House Rep Cathrynn N. Brown (R) was joined by 9 of her Republican sisters in the New Mexico House in introducing new legislation that would make rape and incest victims seeking an abortion guilty of “tampering with evidence” and facing three years in jail.

Here is a NM State Government facsimile of House Bill 206, Brown’s legislation, co-sponsored by the other nine Republican women posted here.

“The bill turns victims of rape and incest into felons and forces them to become incubators of evidence for the state,” said Pat Davis of ProgressNow New Mexico. “According to Republican philosophy, victims who are ‘legitimately raped’ will now have to carry the fetus to term in order to prove their case.“

We note that NM State Rep Brown now says this has all been a terrible misunderstanding. She didn’t properly read the bill, nor — presumably — did the other nine Republican women who sponsored it.

Perhaps this is one of those “if you believe that, we have a bridge we’d like to sell you” moments.  It’s a well-known fact that women are expected to be more diligent and more qualified to be elected to office in the first place. Such professed carelessness on Brown’s part — an attorney, no less — suggests that the Facebook recall petition facing the legislator may have a valid purpose. Of course, the future of the Republican War on Women Gang of 10 is for the people of New Mexico to decide. Our only purpose is to report the event. 

AOC does believe that boilerplate bills like this one are sitting on the desks of legislators all over America. Remember, that in 2010 Utah had enough votes to pass a bill making miscarriage a felony in the state. Only the threatened Republican governor veto kept the bill from becoming law. In South Dakota, proposed legislation to make it justifiable homicide for a man to kill his wife for aiding their daughter obtain an abortion was withdrawn, after blogs like AOC threw the proposed legislation all over our front page.  

Note that in South Dalota — like in Utah — like in New Mexico — sponsors of the legislation said “no, no — we would never harm the mother.” You read the bill below in plain English, and you tell me what it says. 

I have myself been in police protection for a year with a deranged pro-lifer determined to kill me for being a supporter of women’s rights. I feel strongly that women like myself —who seek to keep women out of jail in America for exercising a Supreme Court right — not be silenced by other women like this Republican Gang of 10 who seek to put women in jail for exercising that Supreme Court right.

Let us all stand together as public figures with opposing views in this latest volley in the Republican War on Women. ~ Anne

All of the women except Jane E. Powdrell-Culbert (R) were endorsed by New Mexico’s Catholicsvotecatholic.com. Notably her district isn’t even listed on the straight pro-Republican, anti-Democrat Catholics Vote Catholic lineup, wth one exception: Democrat W. Ken Martinez, district 70. 

W Magazine February 2013 Probes Women's Rights in 'Heavenly Creature' Starring Cara Delevingne by Mikael Jansson

American fashion media is notoriously apolitical, making it rare to see editorials like ‘Heavenly Creatures’ coming out of W magazine, let alone American Vogue. For once, we have a Euro style intellectual commentary on real-life issues for American women, rather than the rah-rah aspirational you, too, can be Barbie if you only try hard enough. 

Photographer Mikael Jansson’s ‘Heavenly Creatures’ images of Cara Delevingne hit head-on the conflict between female sensuality and rights to exist as a free person within the Vatican’s perceived role of women in American society. W is about three years late, but I say welcome to the debate and for heavens sake, put some skin in the game, will you please!

Congressman Paul Ryan Introduced Personhood Bill Again

Just last week, Romney vice presidential candidate Congressman Paul Ryan introduced again the personhood bill into the House of Representatives. This bill equates model Cara Delevingne — or any woman standing in her place in these images — with a fertilized egg.

We are the same in Congressman Ryan’s eyes — and that of the entire Republican party. The rights of that one-celled egg and those of Cara Delevingne or any grown woman with three children and a loving husband are the same. They are identical ‘Heavenly Creatures’. 

At a time when America faces total gridlock in Washington and a Republican party threatening to start a global economic collapse unless they get their way on the debt ceiling crisis — which is only an action to pay for the bills that THEY passed — the Republican party is focused on taking away birth control for American women as a top priority. 

Most forms of birth control will be eliminated if Republicans succeed in overturning a 50-year-old Supreme Court decision on Griswold v. Connecticut which said American women are entitled to birth control as a basic right. Today, Republicans seek to turn back that decision at the behest of Catholic bishops and the Vatican who argue that birth control is a sin and women will go to hell for using it.

The Vatican and other right-wing groups want a theocracy in America — a fear that was paramount in the minds of the founding fathers, who banned Catholicism in 10 of the 13 original colonies. 

Former presidential candidate and Southern Baptist minister Micke Huckabee blames birth control -- which he calls abortion — as a reason for 20 innocent children dying in Newton, Conn. God is punishing America, argues Huckabee, Ryan and the entire Republican party who supports the personhood amendment. 

American Fashion Media Needs to Stand for Women

It’s time for American fashion media to take some lessons from Vogue’s in other countries, not only the edgy fashion press. American Vogue is behind Muslim country Vogue Turkey in it’s refusal to stand up for the real world of its citizens and not some glossy abstract of the perfect life. 

I’m thrilled with Edward Enninful’s styling vision and the entire ‘Heavenly Creatures’ team for taking on this topic about three years too late. Without saying a word, the images speak volumes and can’t be criticized by social conservatives.

Perhaps W agrees with the Vatican! In putting the topic out there for public consumption, Mikael Jansson strikes a neutral chord while entering the world of American women and transvaginal probes. 

I expect other controversy-avoiding fashion media to also stand for the hard-won rights of American women before we lose them all.

This attack plan is for real, people, and the assault on American women must stop. Anne

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