For as much complaining as I do about living in New York, (The taxes! The school systems! The general inanity! ….that also might just be a Rochester thing), there are days I feel really lucky to live here.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed in his State of the State address in January an attempt to step up the efforts to protect New York women, our families and our ability to pursue our lives and interests as equals here. The Women’s Equality Agenda is a gutsy tn-point measure that seeks to remedy many of the points of discrimination women feel every day, more specifically to correct the wage gap, housing discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, human trafficking, reproductive health law and family status discrimination, among others.
I think what is so excellent about this entire agenda is the tacit understanding that these issues are intertwined with each other. It’s disingenuous at best to say the persistence of the wage gap, persistence in discrimination against pregnant women, the inability to afford safe housing for the myriad of reasons that women are unable to afford it and the right to choice aren’t interrelated. Not one of those single ten points can be discussed by themselves, without elements of the others working their way into the conversation.
The convergence of poverty, violence, and discrimination affect many women, and to think that you may not be affected by these things is myopic. Of course, we pay for inequality in our taxes, but we also suffer in the overall quality of life for everyone. Dismissing or ignoring the problems of literally half the population only exacerbates them. Linda Stephens in her op-ed points out that a woman will make 500 thousand less dollars in her lifetime than a man would, and twice as likely to become a single parent living in poverty and to live out old age in poverty. There are consequences to poverty that we’re seeing now, and these agenda will hopefully alleviate them.
Some of them feel icky to talk about— I don’t know a person who’s like, “Hey let’s talk about the perks of domestic violence” or “YES! Drug abuse!” or “HUZZAH perks of being in prison and how that affects your ability to be a member of society when you’re out!” To many who live this every day, the reaction is “Well…duh.” Those are all horrible. That I’m writing them out like that is skeeving me out. But still, they must be talked about, they must be addressed and I think the WEA is a good start in doing all of those things.
We obviously need to have a larger cultural conversation about how we view women. Discussions about why violence against women (and men!) is wrong, about consent, about body policing, about other-izing women and those who do not fit into the rigid gender roles we’ve been socialized to accept need to happen. We’ve internalized a culture that routinely objectifies women and demonizes them for choices that deviate from the “norm.”
The Women’s Equality Agenda won’t change everything that we need to work on, but it gives us the structures and the law that make discrimination unacceptable, and mechanisms to prosecute those who do discriminate. Creation of space and allocation of the resources to make New York more equal is a positive step forward.
I think Jamie Saunders probably sums it up the best: “Isn’t all of this just common sense?... It’s basic human rights. All of us deserve to be safe.” In light of news from other states in regards to women’s equality, I’d say this is one giant step in a positive direction.
Lauren
PPRSR VOX Intern
Monday, April 29, 2013
The Women’s Equality Agenda
Tags:
equal rights,
equality,
Lauren,
WEA,
Women's Health,
Women's Rights
Thursday, April 18, 2013
How society talks about rape
April is
Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and some interesting things came up at the end
of March that definitely fall into the category of “Let’s talk about sexual
assault awareness.”
When
someone comes to you and says that they have been raped, or tells you “I don’t
know what happened,” say “I am so sorry that this happened to you; I’m here to
listen to you.” If you are unable to do this, direct them to the person that
can.
PPRSR
has a phenomenal Rape Crisis Service team in Rochester. Their job is to help
victims ascertain what exactly happened to them, what steps legally can be
taken, what medical steps should be pursued and offer counseling to help start
the healing process. It’s also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365
days a year. Literally, whenever you need someone, they are there for you.
Conversely,
do not ask “Well, why didn’t you tell anyone?” “Why were you there so late at
night?” “What did you think was going to happen?” “Why didn’t you fight back?”
Rape is hard enough to talk about without judge-y questions. It’s also natural
to want to know more. Resist the urge to put your curiosity/ need to know above
the emotional/mental/physical needs of the person who is coming forward and
telling you about what happened to them.
Don’t rape is a little trickier. Posters
like this mean well enough:
Consent
is awesome, for sure. But there’s more to “not raping” than that
When we talk about “don’t rape,” this is
what we are talking about:
That’s what makes these examples so compelling; those are real situations people find themselves in.
Perhaps
one of the most powerful things we can do is create safe spaces for victims to
come forward and share their experiences. Rape is something that was not talked
about for a very long time, especially if the victims were children when the
abuse was happening. As it stands right now, approximately one in four children
under the age of 18 are sexually assaulted by someone they know. This statistic
is almost certainly higher than that, considering how underreported these
crimes are. The statistics for other kinds of rape similarly suffer from this
kind of distortion, because it is so difficult to get justice and to face the
stigma in one’s community.
It’s
easy to get someone to agree that raping someone else is wrong, because duh,
yeah, bodily/mental violations and things. It’s much harder to unlearn
destructive behaviors that lead to rape. It’s possible. The education and
outreach teams here at PPRSR do some great things within the community, but
it’s possible to do more, and it might be as simple as letting the people
around you know that you’re safe person to come and talk to. Healing is
obviously a more involved process than that, but giving someone the space to
speak up is a tremendous start.
Lauren
PPRSR VOX Intern
I didn’t
want to take the U of R professor’s blog post seriously. I really didn’t. I get
the premise, and after talking to a lot of people and doing some reflecting on
it, I get the creeps about a thought experiment about rape. At first, I could
accept the premises of it – why not analyze our values about rape and why it’s
wrong? But we live in a rape culture, and those experiments perpetuate the idea
that the violation of rape is somehow acceptable. There is no benefit to be
reaped from rape— society gains nothing from that kind of sexual deviant.
There’s also
no such thing as a harmless rape. It is simply not possible, even in the land
of hypotheticals; at the very least reputations are at stake and with the
reported suicides of two more bright young women, I think this only drives that
point home.
I also would
like to point out that one in four women on college campuses have been raped,
so there is a strong possibility that in this professor’s classes, there’s a
young woman who has been assaulted. There are better ways to discuss rape, and
there are definitely better ways to frame thought experiments in class.
He does
bring up consent (and the victim’s lack of it), and I think that has equally as
much to do with the situation he describes. There’s been a lot of talk about
teaching men not to rape, and not victim-blaming and that’s all awesome.
Really. That’s a huge step forward for how we talk about rape.
Jeff Pier,
the director of Rape Crisis Service at Planned Parenthood of the Rochester/Syracuse
Region (PPRSR) said education about rape and healthy relationships must start
young. Campaigns to “not rape” are great news, and have finally come into the
conversation at a great time. He’s finding that in his work with survivors of
rape and sexual assault, there is still a lot of confusion as to what actually
constitutes rape and lack of consent. He says education on consent, healthy
relationships and positive life choices are the key to combating rape.
I asked him
what he thought about the “don’t rape" campaigns, and the thing that stood out
to me the most is the emphasis he placed on the education, and not victim-shaming.
The concepts of “don’t victim blame” and “don’t rape” are useless without the
education of what they actually mean.
When we say “don’t victim blame,” that means:
·
Just listen. And listen without judgment.
·
Believe the person who is telling you that they
have been raped.
·
Assure them that they are not alone, and that
it’s not their fault.
·
Don’t blame what they were wearing.
·
Don’t blame their assault on how much they had
to drink. Or where they were, or what they were doing, or anything else that
one can think of that in some way would make it the victim’s fault.
·
It is NEVER the victim’s fault.
·
Obtaining consent. Bluntly stated, this means
that the person who you are attempting to have sex with has consented to having
sex with you, and continues to consent throughout the entire act.
·
Passed out unconscious does not mean yes. No
does not mean yes. She said yes, and then changed her mind to no does not mean
yes. Telling you they don’t want to/ are uncertain/too tired/whatever is not consenting.
·
If you see someone with another person who is
clearly incapacitated and unable to consent, DO be that person who steps up and
intervenes to ask if he/she knows them, and actually wants to go home with
them. Bystanders can be tremendously powerful in preventing rape, and in making
it socially unacceptable to take advantage of those unable to consent or make
their wishes known.
·
We should teach our young men and women to see
women as completely autonomous creatures with desires and minds of their own.
These desires and whims should be respected as the autonomous decisions they
are.
That’s what makes these examples so compelling; those are real situations people find themselves in.
Lauren
PPRSR VOX Intern
Tags:
Consent,
Lauren,
rape,
Rape Crisis Service,
rape prevention,
RCS,
SAAM,
Sexual Assault
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
OMG! GYT, BFF.
“Down there? I haven’t been down there since 1953. And no, it had nothing to with Eisenhower.”
This essential sums up my approach to getting tested for STIs/ going to the doctor in general. It’s willful ignorance, really. Do I honestly want to know what’s down there? I totally should. I get it, I volunteer at Planned Parenthood, which is, like, y’know, a huge proponent of getting yourself tested and knowing what’s what with yer “down there”… and… yeah.
I don’t have a great excuse. But you know… I’m really busy; I’m poor and can’t afford the co-pay; my dogs need to be let out; I have homework; getting tested is weird; but really I don’t want to know; but really, I’m fine. Any of these sound familiar?
I’m a champion of making excuses to avoid getting preventative anything done.
April is Get Yourself Tested month, and Planned Parenthood has literally dozens of ways to get information, literally get yourself tested (do as I do, and get thee to a health center!) and get treatment if something does come up.
Many of our services are free or low cost to people who qualify as income eligible, via the Family Planning Benefit Program. Even better, dudes can get tested too, so there goes that excuse of “dunno where to go do that thing at the place.”
Everybody has time for that. Srsly tho.
It’s not exactly a secret that half of adult Americans will get an STI before they’re 25. An estimated three million Americans are infected with chlamydia every year; roughly one in six has herpes. About 50,000 new HIV/AIDS infections occur each year, with an estimated 1.2 million people already living with HIV. Additionally, more than 50 percent of sexually active people will get HPV at some point in their lives. An estimated six million new cases occur each year, with at least 20 million people already infected.
We also don’t really talk about older people, those who cannot get pregnant and eschew condoms and other forms of contraceptives, because who needs em? Well, good sirs and dames, you should, because your age bracket currently faces an increasing STI rate.
Just because you can’t have kids doesn’t mean you can’t contract something else. According to the CDC, roughly 2,550 cases of syphilis among adults ages 45 to 65 were reported in 2010, up from 900 a decade earlier. And cases of chlamydia among that group of Americans jumped to 19,600 in 2010, compared to 6,700 in 2000. To which I want to say “yes!” to getting it on, but for the love of gravity as a constant, be safe!
There’s definitely a stigma in talking about getting tested (it’s awkward!) and finding out that you may have something (I don’t know a single person who would enjoy that conversation). It’s normal, but the more we address the issue and stop making everyone feel bad about the weird things our bodies do/contract, the easier it becomes to identify, treat and prevent it. There’s no doubt that untreated STIs can wreak havoc on your physical and emotional well being. So let’s chat, and get down and get tested. PPRSR, hold me to it!
It comes down to this: getting tested means being responsible, taking care of yourself and your sex life. That’s pretty flippin’ sexy.
Some wonderful resources beyond the awesome that is Planned Parenthood:
Go Ask Alice
The STD Project
Lauren
PPRSR VOX Intern
Tags:
condoms,
Get Tested,
GYT,
Lauren,
Planned Parenthood,
Safe is Sexy,
safe sex,
Sexual Health,
STDs,
STIs
Monday, April 1, 2013
Women's History Month - Dr. Grace Murray Hopper & Biddy Mason
Image via http://americanhistory.si.edu. |
While an instructor at Vassar, she earned an MA in 1930 and a PhD in 1934 at Yale, one of four women in a doctoral program of ten students. In 1930, she married Vincent Foster Hopper. (He died in 1945 during World War II, and they had no children.) She joined the United States Naval Reserve in 1943 and was assigned to the Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard University, where she worked at Harvard's Cruft Laboratories on the Mark series of computers. She also served as a senior mathematician, and as consultant and lecturer for the United States Naval Reserve.
She was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. She conceptualized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, one of the first modern programming languages.
Hopper is credited with popularizing the term "debugging" for fixing computer glitches. After retirement from the Navy in 1986, she became a senior consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation, and continued working well into her eighties. Basically she helped write the basis for the languages that we, as consumers of digital media, take for granted and know exists…because the internet! And cats! Cats on the internet!
Oh, and in 1973, she became the first person from the United States and the first woman of any nationality to be made a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society.
_ _ _ _ _
Biddy Mason was a freed slave who did the majority of her social work in California. She was owned by a man named Robert Smith, and was freed by a judge as Smith moved to Texas, a state that still allowed slaves. Mason wound up in Los Angeles, and worked as a nurse and midwife.
She was one of the first African Americans to purchase land in the city. She also amassed a small fortune of nearly $300,000, which she donated much to other charities. Interestingly enough, part of the lot of land that she initially bought would be developed into the THE hub of commercial activity in Los Angeles. Biddy also fed and sheltered the poor, and visited prisoners.
Called by many, "Auntie Mason" or "Grandma Mason," she also was crucial in the foundation of a black children’s elementary school, and was a founding member in 1872 of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, the city's first black church. The organizing meetings were held in her home on Spring Street, and she also donated the land on which the church was built.
Lauren
PPRSR VOX Intern
Wrapping up Lauren's series on Women who ROCK for Women's History Month.
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