Anne Slams Kylie Bisutti As Agent Of Women's Oppression In Her Message That Women Must Cover Up & Be Modest

British Vogue appears to be dailing for page views today, with their headline Former Angel Slams Victoria’s Secret. Thinking I would be reading about a real Victoria’s Secret Angel, I ran into the self-serving, highly-promotional, born again Kylie Bisutti who “has clarified the reasons why she quit as one of the faces of Victoria’s Secet.”

There is no clarification because we read this story before.

“That’s when it hit me,” she recalled. “I was being paid to strip down and pose provocatively to titillate men. It wasn’t about modelling clothes anymore; I felt like a piece of meat. The next day, I broke down and started sobbing. I was in my bedroom and dropped to my knees and started to pray, saying: ‘God, why did you have me win the Victoria’s Secret Angel competition if it was going to make me feel this way? I’m not honouring my husband. I just want answers!’”

Bisutti — now married and living in Montana — is launching the next version of her public face with a book and clothing line designed with modesty in mind. Today’s women have no trouble covering up if they choose to do so, and I pray she’s not launching a line of burqas. I say that — not because I have a deep-seeded problem with burqas — but because I do have a problem with conservative religions that focus on female modesty.

The women of Egypt are living through this very nightmare as we speak, as the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to reintroduce burqas into public life for Egyptian women. In my long-standing involvement in trying to stop the brutal flogging of 40,000 women a year in Sudan for not wearing proper clothing, I assure Kylie Bisutti that her message only fuels the global surge of right-wing radicalism that is taking control of the bodies of American women. Think transvaginal ultrasounds; using an IUD is called murder; and the founder of Eden Foods now facing a boycott for suing the Obama Administration over the contraception coverage piece of the Affordable Care Act. Eden Foods founder Michael Potter believes that people engaging in birth control are unsavory people performing unnatural acts.

Religion & Women’s Oppression

Jimmy Carter on Religion As Agent of Women’s Oppression

Speech by Jimmy Carter to the Parliament of the World’s Religions

Melbourne, Australia, Dec., 2009

I am pleased to address the Parliament of World Religions about the vital role of religion in providing a foundation for – or correcting – the global scourge of discrimination and violence against women. As will be seen, my remarks represent the personal views of a Christian layman and a former political leader.

There are international agreements as well as our own Holy Scriptures that guide us:

Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, origin … or other status …”

The Holy Bible tells us that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

Every generic religious text encourages believers to respect essential human dignity, yet some selected scriptures are interpreted to justify the derogation or inferiority of women and girls, our fellow human beings.

All of us have a responsibility to acknowledge and address the gross acts of discrimination and violence against women that occur every day. Here are some well-known examples: continue

Anne’s Big Fight Ahead

Controlling Women’s Bodies Is A Fight To The Finish

Male-dominated global cultures continue to wrestle with female sexuality. The most repressive forms of Islam are at war with womens’ bodies, throwing head-to-coverage on the female form.

Simutaneously, Western societies, led by the Internet, unveil women’s bodies as never before, rendering us all voyeurs.

Some women do what they are told, having no political or cultural voice in how they are packaged for consumption. Others express their discontent of cultural realities around women’s bodies, making clear that they are ‘good girls’, when others are ‘bad’.

A third group, led by celebrity sensations like Shakira and Angelina Jolie, are using their fame to articulate a holistic essence of womanhood.

Shakira’s vision of woman as ‘she wolf’ outrages some people. But the Smart Sensuality women’s movement is growing culturally in its influence, and Shakira is a strong global voice in articulating this ‘new woman’.

Religions, led by Conservative Islam — but joined by the fundamentalist wings of most large religions — condemn immodesty in women. Just when it seems that we face nothing more than a black hole, a new dialogue is emerging from darkness on two fronts. The Internet dialogue that allows articulate people of diverse cultures to communicate about female sexuality and physicality is making for strange bedfellows. I wrote a life-changing journal essay a few weeks ago about burqas, prompting a rare exchange between Western and Muslim women who choose to veil themselves. (continue right column)

Shortly after that jolt of Internet traffic, I became the lead Western woman’s voice — in terms of expressed Internet support and number of postings — in the Lubna Ahmed Hussein case.

Refocusing my own mind around Khartoum’s intention to flog Lubna Hussein for wearing trousers, I confront the reality of the subliminal, global passions that remain about female sexuality.

The very cultures cutting out the female clitoris are huge consumers of Internet porn. I have seen the statistics — no the IP addresses — with my own eyes. A male colleague showed me, and I was astonished. And women are dying because a glimpse of ankle has dishonored the family in these same countries.

Screaming that female sexuality must be contained, men also can’t get enough of it. This is a very dangerous, pathological reality for global women.

In America, Too, Hypocrisy Rules

Just this week I took a look at porn subscriptions in America.

As you might surmise, even in America, the states that yell the loudest about the need for women to ‘cover up’ and control their animalistic urges, sign up monthly in numbers that exceed New York, California and more liberal states — the ones with ‘no morals’.

This is the abyss of hypocrisy threatening women’s lives on a daily basis.

From my perspective, female sexuality is front and center, in the ‘battle for civilization’, even though the fight is clothed in religious identities.

One wonders if there is any light at the end of this tunnel.

As the women of Khartoum yell to the world that they’re not returning to the Dark Ages, and young female converts to Islam in America, Canada and France willingly take up the veil — often against the wishes or recommendations of their husbands and mothers — a strange voice came out of Khartoum the other night.

Roba Givia, a male Sudan Tribune journalist, reflecting on the whipping of women in Khartoum, wrote a superb piece Sudan is still living in an era of Arabs before Islam.

Many Local Sudanese Horrified By Flogging Woman Video Dec. 11, 2010

The horror of flogging in Sudan reared its head this week in a video that’s no less riveting in its inhumanity than the details of Lubna Hussein’s indencency hearings that went on for months in 2009. For new readers at Anne of Carversville, I became very involved in Lubna’s case in the summer of 2009, after being contacted by a loosely-confederated group of concerned men in the region.

My closest ally in that 2009 group returned to Facebook this week and contacted me with the video that frankly causes me nightmares. I have played this video over and over in my head awake and asleep.

There aren’t words to express my revulsion at the administering of ‘justice’ Sudan style to this young woman and the 40,000 more that will probably be flogged in 2010, based on Sudanese court records of 40,000 floggings in 2008.

Nesrine Malik wrote about the flogging for The Guardian today: Sudan’s public order laws are about control, not morality.

After being pulled down repeatedly on YouTube, with complaints coming fast and furious from the believers in flogging episodes like this one, the video is now alive on AOC. It is also on CNN and Al Jazeera, says my friend, although I can’t find it in the international editions.

GOP Ices Sanford Campaign | Judge Keeps Jackson Abortion Clinic Open | Teen Sex Primarily Uses Contraception

1. GOP ices Sanford Campaign. The House GOP’s campaign committee announced Wednesday that it will no longer have any involvement in the comeback bid for Congress from former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.

The decision comes after yesterday’s news that Jenny Sanford, the former governor’s ex-wife, has accused him of trespassing at her home more than once and in violation of their divorce settlement. The couple is due in court two days after a special House election on May 7 between Sanford and Democratic challenger Elizabeth Colbert Busch. Busch is a businesswoman and older sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, who is helping her campaign.

The couple divorced in 2010 after Mark Sanford admitted to having an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina. The then governor disappeared for days, leaving his wife, staff and voters clueless as to his whereabouts. Sanford is now engaged to Maria Belen Chapur. Jenny Sanford has custody of the couple four sons.

“I am doing my best not to get in the way of his race,” Jenny Sanford told the AP this week about her ex-husband’s race. “I want him to sink or swim on his own. For the sake of my children, I’m trying my best not to get in the way, but he makes things difficult for me when he does things like trespassing.”

2. Judge keeps Jackson abortion clinic open. The Jackson Free Press reports that a celebratory mood turned quickly to panic yesterday at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization “when a young bearded man wearing a military-style waist pack entered the abortion clinic unescorted and without an appointment.” After putting his hands in the air, proclaiming that he was unarmed, a police officer escorted him out of the clinic.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III halted a process that seemed likely to close JWHO, making Mississippi the first state without an abortion clinic. Jordan ruled that the state cannot close the clinic before the conclusion of a pending federal lawsuit over a 2012 state law requiring all abortion doctors to obtain admitting privileges from a local hospital.

The Republican-appointed judge Jordan said that Mississippi was attempting to create a patchwork of law in which constitutional women’s rights apply in some states and not others. JWHO is owned by Diane Derzis, who finds herself engaged in a similar lawsuit in the state of Alabama.

Leslie Hanks, a pro-life demonstrator from Colorado, says she recently helped put Personhood on the ballot for the fourth time in Mississippi.

3. CA Gay Conversion Ban in Court. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is hearing arguments for and against a new California law banning gay ‘conversion therapy’ for minors. The new law which is the first of its kind in America, bars licensed therapists from trying to change the sexual orientation of people under the age of 18.

A small group of therapists — frequently conservative Christians — challenge scientists, arguing that reparative therapy intervenes where gender confusion is caused by childhood trauma, resulting in reshaping one’s sexual orientation.

Large numbers of gay men say they suffered deep harm over reparative counseling that left them guilt-ridden and anguished.

The lawsuits to be argued on Wednesday were brought by two conservative legal groups, the Pacific Justice Institute, based in Sacramento, and Liberty Counsel, which is affiliated with Liberty University in Virginia, reports the New York Times.

The state of California’s brief argues that the law “prohibits licensed mental health professionals from treating children and teenagers with a discredited, ineffective, and unsafe therapy in a misguided effort to change their sexual orientation.” 

Similar bills have been introduced in New Jersey and Massachusetts.

4. Women = ‘vaginas’. New Hampshire state rep Peter Hansen is under severe criticism after referring to women as ‘vaginas’in an email sent on New Hampshire House internal email. Hansen was arguing with Republican Rep Steve Vaillancourt, who defended retreating from violence, rather than confronting the force with force. Hansen said that his colleague hadn’t considered the case of women and children. Choosing not to use those words, Hansen initially wrote:

‘What could possibly be missing from those factual tales of successful retreat in VT, Germany, and the bowels of Amsterdam? Why children and vagina’s [sic] of course,’ he wrote. 

The comments were imemdiately picked up by Democrat State Rep Rick Walrous, who wrote: ‘Are you really using ‘vaginas’ as a crude catch-all for women? Really? he wrote.

‘Please think before you send out such offensive language on the legislative listserve.’

Local political blogger Susan the Bruce reported the exchange adding ‘That the representative chose to describe women as ‘vagina’s’ is certainly an affront to half the population. That he failed to properly pluralize the word adds insult to idiocy.’

View chart larger.

5. Teen Sex Survey. “Policymakers and the media often sensationalize teen sexual behavior, suggesting that adolescents as young as 10 or 11 are increasingly sexually active,” writes lead author Lawrence Finer, about his new study of sexual activity in America’s youngest adolescents. “But the data just don’t support that concern. Rather, we are seeing teens waiting longer to have sex, using contraceptives more frequently when they start having sex, and being less likely to become pregnant than their peers of past decades.”

Among adolescents were did report having sex said that it was coerced. Sixty-two percent of females who had sex by age 10 said it was coerced, as did 50% of those who experienced sex by age 11.

Contraceptive use is common among teens, according to the study, with use among girls as young as 15 similar to that of older teens. More than 80% of 16-year-olds used a method at first sex. A year after having first sex, 95% of those teens had used contraceptives. via Guttmacher Institute

Related: 2008 State-Level Teen Pregnancy Data Now Available. (Yes, 5 yrs. later)

Scarlett Johansson Smolders, Lensed By Txema Yeste for Marie Claire May 2013

Helena Christensen’s Jaw-Dropping Beauty By Xavi Gordo For Elle Spain May 2013

Serena Williams Aces Body Confidence in Beach Shoot & Readers Agree

Rep Allyson Declares PA Governor Run | Republicans Say Americans Have No Stake In Educating Any Kids But Their Own

French Roast News

Anne is reading …

FEMEN Strikes Again

Russian President Vladimir Putin had a bad day with the ladies yesterday. Standing next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Putin was chastised with Merkel’s government’s disapproval of the way nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are treated by the Kremlin. The New York Times writes that Merkel’s comments make her the first Western leader to have confronted Putin publicly on this issue.

Two of Germany’s most important and respected foundations have been searched by Russian police.

“I made it clear that a vibrant civil society can only exist when the individual organizations can work without fear or concern,” Merkel said.

To emphasize the growing frustration with Russia’s crackdown on free expression, a group of female protesters bared their breasts while shouting that the Russian leader was a ‘dictator’. 

The well-known, principled activist group Femen posted a picture of the ‘sextremist’ attack on the group’s Facebook page at 10.00 am GMT. The same post said that activists had been shouting “F*ck you dictator!”. The message written- in Russian- across the back of the single topless activist visible, reads: “F*ck off Putin!”. The women were two Germans, two Ukrainians and a Russian. 

(Read: FEMEN & SlutWalks: Body Politics Is On The Move)

The Kremlin has called for the women to be punished as Putin traveled on to The Netherlands, where rainbow flags were flying in protest against a bill pending in the Russian Parliament that would make public events and the dissemination of information about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities subject to fines up to $16,000. The Netherlands legalized same-sex marriage over a decade ago. German politicians have also criticized the bill. 

“Thank god, the gays didn’t strip naked here,” Putin joked at a press conference in Amsterdam. 

Melissa Harris-Perry’s Hot Seat

Are Kids Private Property?

MSNBC chost Melissa Harris-Perry’s recent Lean Forward ad for MSNBC has caused a dust up among Republican right-wing pundits. 

If you thought having a civic interest in properly educating America’s children so that our kids are properly prepared to continue America’s legacy as strong nation in the future, you are probably a communist, according to right-wing pundits like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. If you are a single professional believing that you have a civic obligation to contribute to the educating of America’s kids, you are probably targeting the destruction of America.

So call me a communist, but I am simply stunned by the right’s outrage over Harris-Perry’s comments. 

Glenn Beck told listeners that the Tulane University teacher’s comments reveal the United Nations’ plans to use mind control to establish a communist dictatorship in America. Beck also asserts that the Obama administration is using school testing standards for ‘leftist indoctrination.’ 

Beck doesn’t mention that these testing standards were introduced by the Bush Administration, not Obama, as part of Bush’s No Child Left Behind strategy. 

Sarah Palin tweeted that Harris-Perry’s remarks were ‘Unflippingbelievable’.

The National Catholic Register writes in the headline Proof that Progressives Hate Catholic Schools and Homeschooling Families:

“The media and the public school systems are the greatest vehicles of indoctrination for the progressive worldview. How long do you think they’re going to be ok with homeschoolers? How long will they be ok with Catholic schools filling kids heads with hate about traditional marriage and life beginning at conception? Not too much longer, right?”

Call me dumbfounded. Christianity embraces Aristotle as a founder of Western thought and principles. Note that Aristotle expunged women from being participants in civic society. But all free men brought a collectivist mentality to the concept of civic engagement in creating a thriving society. 

Rep. Allyson Schwartz Files

Rep. Allyson Schwartz will run for governor of Pennsylvania against Republican incumbent Tom Corbett in 2014.US Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) will run for governor of Pennsylvania against Republican incumbent Tom Corbett in 2014. 

Schwartz has established a state campaign committee, “Pennsylvania for Allyson,” which will allow her to raise money for her run and transfer the $3.1 million she’s already amassed from her Congressional account to the new one.

Like Alysson Schwartz Facebook page. 

“I am running because I can’t sit on the sidelines when I have a proven track record of getting results on the issues that matter — growing jobs in the private sector, investing in education, and making the tough choices on budget issues,” Schwartz said in a statement.  “That’s what our campaign will be about.”

Keystone Research Center wrote in July 2012: “In 2010, Pennsylvania ranked 12th out of the 50 states in job growth by percentage, but the state’s ranking has dropped to 36th over the past year (May 2011-May 2012) and 39th over the past six months (December 2011-May 2012), just as state budget cuts have begun to take a toll on the economy.”

The report compares Pennsylvania’s policies under Corbett to those of next-door neighbor New Jersey Republican governor Chris Christie. In New Jersey, public-sector job growth has fueled New Jersey’s resurgence, lifting if from 49th in 2010 to 13th between May 2011 and May 2012.

Allyson Schwartz will not run unopposed for the Democratic nomination to beat Corbett, who is one of the most unpopular governor’s in America. Her most viable challenger presently is wealthy York businessman Tom Wolf, who announced he will put $10 million of his own money and raise another $5 million into the campaign. 

Emily’s List is gearing up in a major way to support Schwartz. “Not only would she make history as Pennsylvania’s first female governor, she would provide a clear contrast to Gov. Corbett, who has led a crusade against women and families while putting job-creation on the back burner,” said Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily’s List.