Save Planned Parenthood

On Feb. 18 the Republican House of Representative adopted an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood, hereby limiting access to life-saving health care services for for women without health insurance.

Last year, the non-profit health provider received about $75 million of its funding from Title X, (10), a program enacted by President Richard Nixon as part of the Public Health Service Act in 1973. Title X is the one and only federal program offering comprehensive family planning, outreach and preventative health services to low income Americans.

A mere 2 percent of PP’s services lead to the termination of pregnancies, but the non-profit organization receives $75 million of its funding from the bill. Conservative, pro-life Republicans like to present the situation save taxpayers’ money and protect unborn life. They don’t, however, mention in their speeches that no federal funds are allocated to perform abortions in first place. Title X money is solely used to provide prevention, education and family planning for families who don’t have the financial means to pay for regular health care.

85 percent of all PP clients are from low income backgrounds and a visit to to the non-profit health care provider is often the only opportunity to see a doctor. Without these funds women who can't afford health insurance will find themselves with undiagnosed cancer, unwanted pregnancies, and other undiagnosed illnesses. Cuts to Title X would not reduce government spending, they increase it: Family planning and primary care is a lot less costly than pre-natal care, children being dependent on Medicare, families living in poverty or chemotherapy.

PP has been educating and empowering women for the past 90 years and is seen by many pro-life activists as a main culprit in providing abortions. This is clearly a misrepresentation -- PP records show that 98 percent of all clinic visits concern family planning, preventative health care, cancer screening, HIV education, etc.

“Our doors are open, but without those funds from Title X we are going to have to close clinics, cut staff and raise our fees,” said Heather Estes, CEO of PP Shasta - Pacific, which includes the San Francisco Bay Area. Her division alone runs 18 health centers, plus additional express sites at public health departments and community clinics and serves about 1 million patients per year. Fees are based on a sliding scale with nobody turned away for lack of funds.

This is not only an attack on the health of women without health insurance, it’s an attack on contraception and on the health of all women and families. If the Obama administration is trying to save money on the fiscal budget, I suggest to take $75 million (or more) from the $671 defense budget for the coming fiscal year.

If this amendment is written into law, PP could lose its Title X funding with the beginning of the 2011 fiscal year. This is not a “women only” issue. If you are a man who has a girlfriend, a wife, a mother or a sister, this concerns you too. It is up to every one of us to stand up for our rights, speak up and join the fight to save to the health care provider that has been educating and empowering women for the past 90 years.

You can find more information here: http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/

The Great Mad Men Debate Part II: Is it really a mad, mad "Mad Men" world?

To many feminists, "Mad Men", the AMC show that opened the world of advertising to a broad television audience and made vintage clothing and martinis cool again, evokes a reaction as unpleasant as biting on a piece of tin foil.

Yes, the leading characters in the show are all male. Yes, they are sexist, racist, homophobic, antisemitic, cheat on their wives, drink hard liquor before 9 a.m. and do whatever they goddamn please. But -- as the title says “Mad Men” is not a show about women. While it would be nice to see at least one powerful, strong, industry-leading advertising wonderwoman, that’s not the case simply because the show is meant to depict a male-dominated cut-throat industry and American society.

The show is set during the 1960s, and that’s exactly how many men acted then. Let’s face it, despite feminism and equal wage laws, women all over the world still experience this kind of treatment from men every day.

Throughout its four seasons, however, “Mad Men’s” writers have done a great job at developing the female characters. Fact is, fifty years ago women had less options and made different career choices.

Being the wife of an influential advertising executive was a desirable “career choice” and included the whole package deal: A big suburban house or apartment in Manhattan’s posh Upper East Side, an expensive new car and dreams of motherhood. An ambitious dream come true for Betty Draper and Trudy Campbell, wives of “Mad Men” accounts manager Pete Campbell and creative director Don Draper.

Their counterparts Peggy Olson, Draper’s former secretary, now senior copywriter and Joan Harris, currently the ad agency’s office manager, work to live and live to work.

To the occasional viewer all of these women seem powerless - mere arm candy and sidekicks to the male characters.

But are they really?

Pregnant with her third child and tired of her husband’s philandering Betty Draper takes charge of her life. She meets a successful politician, divorces Don and remarries.

Peggy Olson, formerly known as Don's secretary, is a glowing example for the transformation from gray mouse to successful businesswoman. As the only female copywriter, she has her own accounts, oversees an all male creative team, treats her former boss as an equal and is confident enough to criticize the men she works with. Free from living at her oppressive mother’s house, the new Peggy chooses the men she sleeps with and the women she fools around with.

And what about Rachel Menken? Powerful, rich and Jewish, her affair with Don made history during the first season. When he wants to run away with her, she refuses and eventually withdraws all of her father’s department store’s business from the ad agency. Sorry Mr. Draper, this time your charme didn't get you everything you wanted.

Despite occasional tender moments of true friendship and respect between men and women, “Mad Men” depicts a world where women are generally not equal to men. The simplified message here is that such behavior is acceptable and goes unpunished. Considering the time and the cultural background, however, it comes down to one thing: That’s they way things worked back then.

Just like “Sex in the City” is a show about women in the in the early years of the new century, “Mad Men” is about men during the middle of the last century.

Of course I’d love to see some nice guys or at least some eye candy in the show, but for now I am content to be entertained by a scenario far, far removed from my own world view.

Don't Touch OUR Junk Either

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, many women will be subjected to pat-downs and full body scans when they fly in American airports. This is nothing new really. Women and minorities have been treated this way by airports for years. If you wear a skirt that is too billowy, or if you--gasp--are wearing a turban, you are considered "fair game" for a full body frisk.

Nevermind that this loss of control over one's body can have extremely damaging and triggering effects on someone who has suffered sexual abuse or rape. The feeling that your body is out of your control can be devastating to both past victims and well, anyone.

Including white, able-bodied men.

It is somewhat amusing and sad that the system is just being questioned now that men are complaining about it. The plethora of T-Shirts and paraphernalia available on the Internet proclaiming "Don't Touch My Junk" seems to have exploded in the past week alone. But for women, this feeling of helplessness and rage is as old as time. After all, when in history has there been a time when our bodies weren't viewed as public property?

The most infuriating aspect of these TSA pat-downs is that there are no clear regulations--no set rules specifying who gets subjected to this treatment and who doesn't. The window for unnecessary harassment is wide. For instance, let's just say that a woman is unfairly singled out because she is attractive and the guy doing the pat-down is a giant perv. How are these types of situations going to be avoided without clear cut regulations and rules?

I have to fly next Tuesday, and I can tell you--I am not looking forward to it. I will not be wearing a turban, and I will not be wearing a billowy skirt, but who knows what I might do to warrent this kind of violation. As a woman, I should just get used to it, right?

Internet Meme Uses Domestic Violence as a Punchline

Trigger Warning: Disturbing imagery after the jump.

So, some out there may have been alerted to today's internet meme, The Time of the Month Tiger via Jezebel.com. The meme is pretty silly, though entertaining, and it's hosted on memegenerator.net, a site that lets you "make your own memes" using basic templates. Basically, it's for lazy internet people who don't use photoshop. Harmless fun though, right?

Um, I guess. But one of the memes on the site seriously made me do a double take.

The Great Mad Men Debate, Part One

For all of you Mad Men fans, stay tuned for a counter-argumentative piece by Liska, my fellow Looking Glass contributor!
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I should preface this piece by stating that I have not watched all of this show, nor am I up to date on the current season. I watched most of the first season, but gave up around the 13th episode. If things change drastically after this point, in other words, if there is some sort of "payoff," for all of the unbearable sexism, then I will gladly eat crow.

While I came to the party late (I just watched most of the first season on itunes), I also came with high expectations. I'd heard really good things about this show from friends who normally share my taste. I really enjoyed the first four or five episodes. I'm a sucker for vintage 60's style, and though the misogyny that the male characters displayed was irritating, it was also so over-the-top that it was comical...at first. After a while, though, it just started getting old. If I were to use this show as a gauge for all humankind, I would have to conclude that there are no men in the world who view women as equal—or at the very least anything other than something for them to project their own insecurities/desires onto—whether its the constant humiliation of Don Draper's meek secretary, Peggy, or the more blatant objectification of sexpot Joan Holloway (who is, admittedly, quite fabulous...I'll get back to her in a bit).

The first episode gave me hope that the show would explore sexism in a thoughtful way. When we are introduced to Don Draper's wife, Betty, we can see that on the surface she is the quintessential "angel in the house" figure. There is an underlying sadness to her, however, and a propensity to literally "freeze up"—that is, she experiences a kind of paralysis in her hands, brought on presumably by the specter of a divorced woman who has moved to her neighborhood—a grim reminder of a fate she may one day share if she fails to be the perfect wife to Don—who is already showing signs of straying. We can see that this is a woman that has absolutely no power over her own destiny. This subplot intrigued me. It's saddening, and depressing, but poignant. Possibly they went further with it, but I just couldn't stick it out. I felt more and more as the show went on that there could not be any kind of resolution to this character. Maybe it was just too bleak for me. I can't know, since I haven't continued watching.

Let me say something positive about the show. I love Joan Holloway. I think Christina Hendricks is amazingly talented and amazingly hot, and I love seeing larger women on TV who aren't ashamed to be that way, who celebrate it, and are even admired for it by the people around her (both men and women in her case, seeing as how her roommate has a tragic crush on her). That said, I wish that people would get over her figure and focus on her as an amazing actor and character.

The funny thing about this show is that it's not so much its depiction of women that puts me off—it's the depiction of men. Call me a crazy optimist, but I just have a hard time believing that every single man in sixties acted like that. All it would take would be one positive male character in the show. Just one. But there are literally none—at least in the first season. Every guy on this show is either is cheating on his wife, cheating on his mistress or making it a point to belittle women in the workplace.

I mean come on! Weren't there any nice guys in the sixties?

Star Quotes - Cybill Shepherd

"Having witnessed the segregated south, and the inhuman treatment of blacks where I grew up, and being in Memphis when Martin Luther King was assassinated—that was the moment that I had to become a political activist. And once you look at equality, you can’t draw any line based on sexual orientation, or religion. We just want our children to grow up and flower. The world needs all its flowers."

 -Cybill Shepherd, on being honored at the GLAAD Media Awards in San Francisco, 2010.

Beyond Pink Ribbons

A few days ago I logged onto my Facebook profile, only to be confused by  many of the "risque" updates.

"I like it on the floor," one read.

"I like it on a chair," read another.

What was going on? Had the women in my social network suddenly become super bold and outspoken about their sex lives? Not that there would be anything wrong with that, but it seemed strange.

When I learned what this meme was aimed at, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Apparently, by stating where you like to keep your purse (how does that have anything to do with anything?) YOU TOO can help raise awareness for breast cancer! And titillate (pun unintended) all the creepy guys you went to High School with in the process! Everyone wins!

This sort of "awareness" campaign is nothing new. A few years back we had the charming Save The Ta-Tas campaign, which, while well-intentioned, also makes light of a serious and horrifying disease.

Both of my grandmothers fought against breast cancer during their lives. They both underwent mastectomies. There is nothing playful or sexy about their experience, and though they were strong women who ultimately beat the disease, I could tell that the experience left them scarred emotionally as well as physically.

That's why I think it is so important to remember the harsh realities of the disease, and why I think causes like The Scar Project are so inspiring. The site features beautiful and heart-wrenching pictures of real women, 18-35, who have fought the disease, or are in the midst of various stages.

Photographer David Jay sums up his mission on the website:

Dedicated to the more than 10,000 women under the age of 40 who will be diagnosed this year alone, The SCAR Project is an exercise in awareness, hope, reflection and healing. The mission is three-fold: Raise public consciousness of early-onset breast cancer, raise funds for breast cancer research/outreach programs and help young survivors see their scars, faces, figures and experiences through a new, honest and ultimately empowering lens.

The project makes a good point of not only raising awareness, but also of acting upon that awareness by funding research.