http://www.opednews.com/articles/Victoria-Law-Explores-Res-by-Joan-Brunwasser-100211-942.html
February 11, 2010
By Joan Brunwasser
In late December, I interviewed Ramsey Kanaan of PM Press. In the process, I perused their catalog. One of the books that caught my eye was Victoria Law's, which I subsequently read. It was equally fascinating and harrowing. Welcome to OpEdNews, Vikki. Please tell our readers how you came to write Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women?
~
In college, I had spent a semester researching post-Attica prisoner organizing and resistance. At the end of that semester, I looked back at what I had found and realized that every instance, except for one, was about male prisoners. I talked this over with my professor and spent the next semester exploring incarcerated women's issues and their ways of resisting or challenging their conditions of confinement. I also explored why their actions weren't as well-documented (or remembered) as their male counterparts.
To do this, I set aside all preconceived notions of what I thought of when I thought of prisoner organizing and started reading books and articles specifically about women in prison. I found a LOT of literature that covered specifically female issues like motherhood and pregnancy behind bars. Issues of parenting (and, of course, pregnancy) are often not even mentioned in books and articles about male prisoner organizing leading people who are looking for instances of prisoner resistance to ignore how people in prison organize around parenting and family issues. Battering and abuse is another issue that comes up in literature about incarcerated women, but again, since that's not an issue that we see impacting men going to prison, it isn't perceived as as a "prison issue."
I also scoured the news (and alternative media, mostly prison-related zines) for mentions of actions by incarcerated women. Once I found that someone had done something (filed a lawsuit, complained to the press, launched a hunger strike, etc), I used the websites of either that state prison system or the federal Bureau of Prisons to find the woman's contact information and sent her a letter explaining who I was and what I was researching. I asked if she would be willing to share her stories and experiences with me.
Not wanting to take without giving back, I offered what I could: I offered to look up lawsuits for them and send them copies of court decisions; I offered to look up other resources for them; I offered to send them books via the Books Through Bars program that I helped start here in NYC; I sent stamps so that they could not only respond to me, but also write letters to other groups or people; in one cases, I offered to call the woman's children when she was unable to call.
I got a lot of reading, researching and writing done in those four months. That one semester really opened my eyes about the gendered perceptions that we, as a society, have about prisons as well as about what resistance looks like (both inside prison walls and outside).
I also want to add that a huge part of my ability to get so much research and writing done in four months was because I had had a baby daughter 6 weeks before the semester started; being stuck inside during the winter with a newborn gave me a LOT of time to read, respond to letters, contemplate ideas and issues (mostly while nursing), and revise draft after draft. I doubt I would have had the same ability to concentrate (and write) if I had still been as a childfree person rushing off from one political event to another at various hours of the day and night or if my daughter had been older, more mobile and needing more direct attention.
photo: Maggie Wrigley
That was the start of what became Resistance Behind Bars. After the semester ended, I kept in contact with most of the women and continued to add their stories and experiences to my paper. I sent the paper to a man named Anthony Rayson, who publishes many many zines of prison writings. He, in turn, photocopied the paper and brought it with him to a talk he gave about prisoner organizing; someone at his talk took the paper and turned it into a pamphlet and started distributing it.
I continued to add stories and facts to my original paper as I came across them. I also started taking sections of my paper, like the part about women's organizing for better health care and women creating their own media, and sent them to activist publications like Clamor Magazine, Punk Planet and off our backs.
Almost 8 years after I had first started exploring this subject, I met Ramsey Kanaan at PM Press. He was interested in publishing my work as a book. I wrote to the women who had shared their stories with me and told them about the opportunity to spread their experiences to wider audiences. All of them agreed to have their stories published, although a couple of them asked that their real names not be used.
Following the example of a few other articles by activist groups on the outside written about women in prison, I decided that I would share my drafts with the women whom I was writing about. Every woman got multiple drafts of the chapter(s) that her stories and experiences appeared in. Each woman had the opportunity to add, correct, update or remove anything that pertained to her.
That must have been incredibly time-consuming.
In a couple of instances, women also commented on some of the material and information in that chapter. For instance, when I sent the chapter on education to RJ, she commented extensively on a study about higher education in women's prisons, pointing out that the study made prison seem like an idealized environment for women to pursue a higher education and highlighting some of the harsher daily realities for incarcerated students.
I also had incredible help from several people on the outside who read my entire manuscript at various stages, gave feedback and asked questions that forced me to explore the issues further.
And, being the mother of a small child (although she might disagree with the characterization of herself as "small"), I want to stress that a book-length work would not have been possible without the huge amount of support I received from both my friends and the people with whom I organize. I realize that not all mothers get this type of support, although they should, and that I'm extremely fortunate to have such a wonderful support system.
That's the long answer. When I told her about the interview and this question, my daughter, now age 9, suggested a shorter response: "There are some things in the world that I disagree with. Also, many people don't think about women when they think about prisons and so I wanted to write a book that brought attention to them."
If we look at the imprisoned as being at the bottom of the totem pole, women prisoners are, in general, even lower. Women face many disadvantages that men do not. Could you talk about that a bit, Vikki?
When prisons were first built in the U.S., they were designed for men. Women were not thought about when prisons were designed. When women were incarcerated, they were stuck in the attics or basements of the penitentiaries. Sometimes they were even stuck in the cells next to male prisoners (and then were blamed for any disturbance that their presence caused among the male prison population). They were given less access to the few programs and activities that the men were allowed, such as access to the chapel, medical care or to go outdoors. They were also in danger of sexual abuse from the male prison staff.
Keeping that in mind, we can see how, even centuries later, incarceration is still gendered as male and thus prisons are designed with men in mind. For instance, prison health care is geared towards men. This is not to say that men in prison have excellent medical care, mind you. Health care in prison is atrocious for all genders, but it also does not take into account the specific health concerns of women, such as menstruation, pregnancy, breast cancer, cervical cancer, etc. (I also want to add that the prison health care system takes into account even less the concerns of transgendered and transsexual prisoners)
Another aspect that affects women much more often than it affects men is parenting. This reflects not only the way prisons were originally designed but the way our society, as a whole, is gendered so that the bulk of parenting falls upon mothers. The majority of people in prison are parents, but when a father goes to prison, often times a female relative (such as a wife, girlfriend, mother or sister) will take on raising his child(ren). When a mother goes to prison, she's much more likely to already be a single parent. Lacking the same support as her male counterpart, her children are five times more likely to end up in the foster care system.
This becomes particularly pernicious because, under the 1997 federal Adoption and Safe Families Act (or ASfA), if a child is in foster care for fifteen of the last twenty-two months, the child welfare agency is required to file a petition to terminate parental rights. Only 2 states have made exceptions for incarcerated parents.
However, most people don't think of parenting when they think about prison. Even incarcerated fathers don't necessarily recognize parenting as a prison issue. Last year, I did a talk at a reentry program for formerly incarcerated men. Half of the men were fathers; all of them had their kids cared for by their wives or other relatives while they had been locked up. None of them had had their children placed in the foster care system because there was no one willing to care for them while their father was incarcerated. The men were startled to learn about the 15-month time line of ASFA because their children were taken care of and so ASFA didn't impact them.
Yet another aspect that disproportionately affects women in prison yet is ignored is abuse. Over half of women in local jails, state and federal prisons report having experienced past physical, sexual and/or emotional abuse. Keep in mind that people tend to underreport experiences of abuse, so that number is, in reality, much higher.
A Bureau of Justice report found that women in prison are three times more likely to have been physically and/or sexually abused before incarceration than men. However, prisons not only lack the resources to help support women in working through past abuse, but often perpetuate the abuse. Under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, gender cannot be considered when employing guards. This means that women have the right to work in male prisons and men have the right to work in female prisons. In many, many cases, this has led to sexual abuse of women prisoners by male staff members, who often have the right to be in sensitive areas such as the toilet area, the shower area, the housing units where women dress, undress and sleep, etc.
I could go on and on about how women face additional problems and dangers than their male counterparts in prison, but I'll stop with these examples. I do want to emphasize though that I am not pointing out these disadvantages to call for more "women-friendly" prisons. The construction of the first women's prison units were the result of well-intentioned reformers' horror at the abuses and depravities that women suffered when they were housed in male prisons.
However, when the first female-only prison unit was built in Illinois in 1859, the number of women being sent to prison tripled because judges became less reluctant to send women to the hellholes that were prison.
More recently, in 2006, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) identified 4500 women who did not need to be imprisoned and instead would be better off in their home communities getting drug treatment, job training, etc. Instead of putting together a plan to release them, however, CDCR proposed building 4500 new beds in what they called Female Rehabilitative Community Corrections Centers, essentially mini-prisons, in the urban areas where many of these women had lived before arrest **without** closing any of the beds in the existing women's prisons. In essence, their recommendation means that 4500 more women could be sentenced to prisons. The existence of these mini-prisons also meant that, lacking many of these treatment programs on the outside, judges would be more likely to sentence women to these Corrections Centers to access these programs.
However, the bill that was finally passed in 2007, AB76, did not address the root causes of rising female incarceration: mandatory sentencing, racial profiling, poverty and the feminization of poverty, or the lack of support systems for women leaving prison. Instead of focusing on reforming the prison system to make it more habitable for women, I'm a firm believer that we should shift these resources back into the communities to address the reasons why women are sent to prison in the first place.
Okay, Vikki. Let's pause here. When we return, you can tell our readers how our prison system mitigates against families staying together and how prisoners' children can be used as pawns to control their mothers' behavior.
***
Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women,
AVAILABLE NOW at http://resistancebehindbars.org
Friday, February 12, 2010
PROMISES, PROMISES: War widows' futile fight
Ironic an English paper would carry this article! It just shows that when the American war machine is done with its soldiers, it throws the widows under the bus!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8938822
PROMISES, PROMISES: War widows' futile fight
AP foreign, Wednesday February 10 2010
KIMBERLY HEFLING
Associated Press Writer= WASHINGTON (AP) — For a decade, war widows in matching yellow suit jackets and hats quietly and persistently have knocked on Capitol Hill doors seeking an end to the "widows' tax," a government policy that deprives them of benefits from their husbands' military service.
They are always warmly received, but that's where the hospitality ends. Despite pledges of help from scores of federal officials — including President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — their long quest remains unfulfilled.
Every year since 2005, the Senate has voted to eliminate the policy that denies widows the ability to collect both a military survivor's benefit and the full annuity bought when their military husbands were alive. But in each of those years, the fix was dropped when House and Senate negotiators wrote the final bill in private.
"What we always hear is that there is just no funding for us. 'Sorry, this is not your year,'" said Vivianne Wersel, chairwoman of the Government Relations Committee at Gold Star Wives of America. Her husband died of a heart attack in 2005, days after returning from his second tour in Iraq. "What happens behind closed doors, we get thrown under the bus."
The widows' tax is a law that won't allow surviving spouses to receive the retirement pay due them when their spouse died from a cause related to military service, and at the same time collect the full annuity — essentially an insurance policy most of their spouses opted to buy. They paid an average of 6.5 percent of their retirement pay in premiums, often $100 or more a month.
Because one benefit is subtracted from the other, affected surviving spouses lose about $1,000 a month on average. There are about 54,000 survivors who are affected by the policy, whose spouses served in conflicts from World War II to Afghanistan, and that number could grow.
The widows say politicians have promised time and time again to help them, but they don't.
Part of the problem is the cost. Eliminating the offset in benefits is expensive, said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who has been the widows' longtime ally. Making good on the promise would cost $6.7 billion over a decade.
But knowing the cost hasn't stopped politicians from promising to help.
Pelosi, as House minority leader in 2005, took up the widows' cause as part of the Democrats' GI Bill of Rights, before her party gained control of Congress.
Two years later, Obama, then a senator, co-sponsored legislation to eliminate the offset just before he spoke at a Gold Star Wives reception on Capitol Hill. In his budget proposal to the Congress last week, he didn't include it.
Kimberly Hazelgrove, 36, of Lorton, Va., whose husband died in Iraq in 2004, said she recalls Obama coming to the reception and promising to help them. The 36-year-old mother of two said she's now left wondering what happened to the promise.
"I have yet to see it, after a year in office, that really being a priority for them," said Hazelgrove, who has lobbied on Capitol Hill with her kids, ages 6 and 9, in tow.
Last June, four military widows showed up before 8 a.m. for a House Armed Services Committee session where their issue was on the agenda. Several hours into the hearing, an aide told them the discussion had been pushed back because of its sensitive nature.
At 10:30 p.m., the matter finally came to a vote. By then, Sandra Drew of Herndon, Va., was the only widow still there. Drew, whose husband was killed in Bosnia in 1995, said she was dumbfounded when Democrats who had co-sponsored the legislation in past years voted against it, while Republicans who had once opposed it were supporting it.
She said some committee members sheepishly looked at her as they voted down the provision, "visibly uncomfortable that I was in the room. It went right down party lines, and it shouldn't be a partisan issue."
Steve Strobridge, a retired Air Force colonel who is director of government relations at the Military Officers Association of America, said something could be done for the widows if the political will existed.
"It requires a vote of the entire Congress or a big emphasis of leadership to say we're going to elevate this priority, and as terrible as it seems, taking care of the widows whose military sponsor was killed by service has not been given a high enough priority," he said.
Congress did take the step of recognizing the widows' plight and gave affected survivors $50 more per month starting in 2008.
"We've had a partial victory and eventually we will continue to pound away and get it done," Nelson said.
Wersel said her group is pleased that so far this year they have enlisted more than 300 co-sponsors for their legislation in the House and more than 50 in the Senate, but they are still not confident that means Congress will pass it.
"The whole process has become rhetoric," she said.
---
On the Net:
Gold Star Wives of America: http://www.goldstarwives.org/
Military Officers Association of America: http://www.moaa.org/
House Armed Services Committee: http://armedservices.house.gov/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8938822
PROMISES, PROMISES: War widows' futile fight
AP foreign, Wednesday February 10 2010
KIMBERLY HEFLING
Associated Press Writer= WASHINGTON (AP) — For a decade, war widows in matching yellow suit jackets and hats quietly and persistently have knocked on Capitol Hill doors seeking an end to the "widows' tax," a government policy that deprives them of benefits from their husbands' military service.
They are always warmly received, but that's where the hospitality ends. Despite pledges of help from scores of federal officials — including President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — their long quest remains unfulfilled.
Every year since 2005, the Senate has voted to eliminate the policy that denies widows the ability to collect both a military survivor's benefit and the full annuity bought when their military husbands were alive. But in each of those years, the fix was dropped when House and Senate negotiators wrote the final bill in private.
"What we always hear is that there is just no funding for us. 'Sorry, this is not your year,'" said Vivianne Wersel, chairwoman of the Government Relations Committee at Gold Star Wives of America. Her husband died of a heart attack in 2005, days after returning from his second tour in Iraq. "What happens behind closed doors, we get thrown under the bus."
The widows' tax is a law that won't allow surviving spouses to receive the retirement pay due them when their spouse died from a cause related to military service, and at the same time collect the full annuity — essentially an insurance policy most of their spouses opted to buy. They paid an average of 6.5 percent of their retirement pay in premiums, often $100 or more a month.
Because one benefit is subtracted from the other, affected surviving spouses lose about $1,000 a month on average. There are about 54,000 survivors who are affected by the policy, whose spouses served in conflicts from World War II to Afghanistan, and that number could grow.
The widows say politicians have promised time and time again to help them, but they don't.
Part of the problem is the cost. Eliminating the offset in benefits is expensive, said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who has been the widows' longtime ally. Making good on the promise would cost $6.7 billion over a decade.
But knowing the cost hasn't stopped politicians from promising to help.
Pelosi, as House minority leader in 2005, took up the widows' cause as part of the Democrats' GI Bill of Rights, before her party gained control of Congress.
Two years later, Obama, then a senator, co-sponsored legislation to eliminate the offset just before he spoke at a Gold Star Wives reception on Capitol Hill. In his budget proposal to the Congress last week, he didn't include it.
Kimberly Hazelgrove, 36, of Lorton, Va., whose husband died in Iraq in 2004, said she recalls Obama coming to the reception and promising to help them. The 36-year-old mother of two said she's now left wondering what happened to the promise.
"I have yet to see it, after a year in office, that really being a priority for them," said Hazelgrove, who has lobbied on Capitol Hill with her kids, ages 6 and 9, in tow.
Last June, four military widows showed up before 8 a.m. for a House Armed Services Committee session where their issue was on the agenda. Several hours into the hearing, an aide told them the discussion had been pushed back because of its sensitive nature.
At 10:30 p.m., the matter finally came to a vote. By then, Sandra Drew of Herndon, Va., was the only widow still there. Drew, whose husband was killed in Bosnia in 1995, said she was dumbfounded when Democrats who had co-sponsored the legislation in past years voted against it, while Republicans who had once opposed it were supporting it.
She said some committee members sheepishly looked at her as they voted down the provision, "visibly uncomfortable that I was in the room. It went right down party lines, and it shouldn't be a partisan issue."
Steve Strobridge, a retired Air Force colonel who is director of government relations at the Military Officers Association of America, said something could be done for the widows if the political will existed.
"It requires a vote of the entire Congress or a big emphasis of leadership to say we're going to elevate this priority, and as terrible as it seems, taking care of the widows whose military sponsor was killed by service has not been given a high enough priority," he said.
Congress did take the step of recognizing the widows' plight and gave affected survivors $50 more per month starting in 2008.
"We've had a partial victory and eventually we will continue to pound away and get it done," Nelson said.
Wersel said her group is pleased that so far this year they have enlisted more than 300 co-sponsors for their legislation in the House and more than 50 in the Senate, but they are still not confident that means Congress will pass it.
"The whole process has become rhetoric," she said.
---
On the Net:
Gold Star Wives of America: http://www.goldstarwives.org/
Military Officers Association of America: http://www.moaa.org/
House Armed Services Committee: http://armedservices.house.gov/
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Turkish girl, 16, buried alive for talking to boys
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/04/girl-buried-alive-turkey
Robert Tait
Guardian.co.uk
Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:20 EST
© Ho/Reuters The hole where a 16-year-old girl was buried alive by her relatives in Adiyaman, southeastern Turkey
Death reopens debate over 'honour' killings in Turkey, which account for half of all the country's murders
Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an "honour" killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys.
The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.
Police made the discovery in December after a tip-off from an informant, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on its website.
The girl had previously been reported missing.
The informant told the police she had been killed following a family "council" meeting.
Her father and grandfather are said to have been arrested and held in custody pending trial. It is unclear whether they have been charged. The girl's mother was arrested but was later released.
Media reports said the father had told relatives he was unhappy that his daughter - one of nine children - had male friends. The grandfather is said to have beaten her for having relations with the opposite sex.
A postmortem examination revealed large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried. Her body showed no signs of bruising.
The discovery will reopen the emotive debate in Turkey about "honour" killings, which are particularly prevalent in the impoverished south-east.
Official figures have indicated that more than 200 such killings take place each year, accounting for around half of all murders in Turkey.
Robert Tait
Guardian.co.uk
Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:20 EST
© Ho/Reuters The hole where a 16-year-old girl was buried alive by her relatives in Adiyaman, southeastern Turkey
Death reopens debate over 'honour' killings in Turkey, which account for half of all the country's murders
Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an "honour" killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys.
The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.
Police made the discovery in December after a tip-off from an informant, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on its website.
The girl had previously been reported missing.
The informant told the police she had been killed following a family "council" meeting.
Her father and grandfather are said to have been arrested and held in custody pending trial. It is unclear whether they have been charged. The girl's mother was arrested but was later released.
Media reports said the father had told relatives he was unhappy that his daughter - one of nine children - had male friends. The grandfather is said to have beaten her for having relations with the opposite sex.
A postmortem examination revealed large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried. Her body showed no signs of bruising.
The discovery will reopen the emotive debate in Turkey about "honour" killings, which are particularly prevalent in the impoverished south-east.
Official figures have indicated that more than 200 such killings take place each year, accounting for around half of all murders in Turkey.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Female genital mutilation causes aggression
http://www.expatica.com/nl/news/dutch-rss-news/female-genital-mutilation-causes- .html
Female genital mutilation causes aggression
06/02/2010
Dutch News
Many women who have undergone female genital mutilation suffer psychiatric problems.
This is the finding of a study by Pharos, which gathers information on refugees and health. In the study 66 Dutch African women, who had been subjected to the practice, were questioned. They were found to be stressed, anxious and aggressive. The study also found that this group of women were more likely to have rows with their partners or in some cases would not dare enter a relationship.
On the positive side, women were more likely to say no to the practice if they knew it was banned in the country where they live.
An estimated 50 women or girls are believed to be circumcised every year in the Netherlands. This is the first time that a study has been carried out into the psychiatric and social complaints associated with female circumcision.
The report has been published to mark the international day against female genital mutilation today.
© Radio Netherlands Worldwide
Female genital mutilation causes aggression
06/02/2010
Dutch News
Many women who have undergone female genital mutilation suffer psychiatric problems.
This is the finding of a study by Pharos, which gathers information on refugees and health. In the study 66 Dutch African women, who had been subjected to the practice, were questioned. They were found to be stressed, anxious and aggressive. The study also found that this group of women were more likely to have rows with their partners or in some cases would not dare enter a relationship.
On the positive side, women were more likely to say no to the practice if they knew it was banned in the country where they live.
An estimated 50 women or girls are believed to be circumcised every year in the Netherlands. This is the first time that a study has been carried out into the psychiatric and social complaints associated with female circumcision.
The report has been published to mark the international day against female genital mutilation today.
© Radio Netherlands Worldwide
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Saving the lives of women and children
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/saving_the_lives_of_women_and_children/
Brian Lilley | Monday, 1 February 2010
Saving the lives of women and children
The G8 appears set to take on the issues of child and maternal mortality. Can they do it while saving lives, not destroying them?
Upon hearing the statistics it is hard not to be moved, to feel that something must be done to change this. Each year, in the developing world, more than 500,000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth, some 9 million children die each year before their fifth birthday. It was these grim numbers that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper used in a keynote address at the Davos World Economic Forum to call for concerted action by G8 countries.
The problems of heightened infant and maternal mortality in the poorer countries of this planet are not news, they have been known for sometime. In 2000, leaders gathered at the United Nations headquarters to endorse the Millennium Development Goals, which included reducing child mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015. In the years since, not much has happened.
So in an open letter published in the Toronto Star, Montreal’s La Presse and Le Figaro in Paris, Stephen Harper announced that as president of the G8 this year, Canada will host the G8 and G20 this June, he will push leaders to make a tangible difference for the women and children of the developed world, saying relatively simple health-care solutions could alter the outcomes.
"The solutions are not intrinsically expensive. The cost of clean water, inoculations and better nutrition, as well as the training of health workers to care for women and deliver babies, is within the reach of any country in the G8. Much the same could be said of child mortality. The solutions are similar in nature – better nutrition, immunization – and equally inexpensive in themselves."
The plan laid out by Prime Minister Harper is hard to criticize and it was good to hear, during his speech at Davos, that he has spoken with other G8 leaders and they appear willing to take on this neglected Millennium Development Goal. "It is therefore time," says Harper, "to mobilize our friends and partners to do something for those who can do little for themselves, to replace grand good intentions with substantive acts of human good will."
Yet, when Harper does try to reach out to other nations and get them on board he will face several challenges in bringing about the type of change most of us think of when a world leader says they want to improve the health outcomes of the world's poorest people. The first challenge surfaced in Ottawa at the same time that word of this plan was spreading through the frozen Canadian capital; some development agencies see abortion as the key to reducing infant and maternal mortality.
The change in policy towards family planning in Washington is well documented; abortion is back on the agenda as an acceptable public policy tool for the United States to export around the world. The case in other counties of the G8, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan plus Russia is less well known.
One of the key advisors to Britain's Labour government, or at least Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is Jonathon Porritt of the Optimum Population Trust. Porritt is the man who wants Britain's population cut in half to 30 million people. In conjunction with the United Nation's Population Fund, the OPT also wants to see Africa's population reduced for environmental reasons using family planning, which is often now a program well beyond contraception and includes abortion.
My reason for pointing this out is not to engage in an overall argument about abortion but to set the stage for the argument that what you and I hear when a politician promises something may not be what actually happens. When Prime Minister Harper, as president of the G8, speaks of infant and maternal mortality rates and says, "Far too many lives and futures have been lost." Most of us think his goal is to lower the mortality rates by saving the lives of pregnant women and children under five by improving access to clean water, primary health care, vaccines. That may be what Mr. Harper has in mind and those are in fact what he lists in his speech, but the policy people have other ideas in mind.
Shortly after Harper's push for the G8 to take on this issue became known, a media event was held with Canada's minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda. Ms. Oda gathered several non-governmental groups around the table for a chat on the issue, a brainstorming session of sorts and invited the media to attend. Several well known names were there, UNICEF, CARE, Plan International and World Vision, there was also a group I had not heard of until that day, Action Canada for Population and Development. One of the goals of Action Canada, as I discovered after chatting with their official afterwards, is to promote abortion around the world as a human right.
Now I don't really care which side of the abortion debate you are on, I think we can all agree that when a politician says we should reduce the number of children that die before their fifth birthday, one of the solutions you automatically think of is not abortion. Most reasonable people would think of improving health outcomes. After calls to the offices of Prime Minister Harper and Minister Oda, I've been assured that is what they mean when they speak of this problem, saving lives. Still, they will have a fight on their hands at the G8 from not only the worldwide coalition of NGOs who back Action Canada's viewpoint, but also from other G8 members, like Britain and the United States who may take a different view.
One of the other challenges Harper will face in getting his G8 partners to "replace grand good intentions with substantive acts of human good will," is that what has been tried over the past 15 years or so has not worked. Reducing the mortality rate among mothers and young children may have been a UN Millennium Development Goal but politicians have been speaking about it much longer than the last 10 years. Go back just a bit further and you find these same goals as central to the 1994 Cairo Conference.
Clearly what has been happening so far has not worked. Whether this lack of progress is due to a lack of funds or poorly designed programs is not clear but with billions having been poured into this field over the last decade and zero progress, I'd put my bet on the latter. That won't stop activists for the status quo from trying to ensure their current methods prevail. Stephen Lewis, the former U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS is chastising Harper for coming to this issue late, "It takes a lot of chutzpah to pretend that somehow you're championing something that others have championed so vigorously before you."
We can only hope, for the sake of the women and children whose lives are at risk, that Mr. Harper can convince his fellow G8 leaders not only to get on board with his initiative, but to look at it with fresh eyes, which will take chutzpah, and possibly also include ignoring Stephen Lewis.
Brian Lilley | Monday, 1 February 2010
Saving the lives of women and children
The G8 appears set to take on the issues of child and maternal mortality. Can they do it while saving lives, not destroying them?
Upon hearing the statistics it is hard not to be moved, to feel that something must be done to change this. Each year, in the developing world, more than 500,000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth, some 9 million children die each year before their fifth birthday. It was these grim numbers that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper used in a keynote address at the Davos World Economic Forum to call for concerted action by G8 countries.
The problems of heightened infant and maternal mortality in the poorer countries of this planet are not news, they have been known for sometime. In 2000, leaders gathered at the United Nations headquarters to endorse the Millennium Development Goals, which included reducing child mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015. In the years since, not much has happened.
So in an open letter published in the Toronto Star, Montreal’s La Presse and Le Figaro in Paris, Stephen Harper announced that as president of the G8 this year, Canada will host the G8 and G20 this June, he will push leaders to make a tangible difference for the women and children of the developed world, saying relatively simple health-care solutions could alter the outcomes.
"The solutions are not intrinsically expensive. The cost of clean water, inoculations and better nutrition, as well as the training of health workers to care for women and deliver babies, is within the reach of any country in the G8. Much the same could be said of child mortality. The solutions are similar in nature – better nutrition, immunization – and equally inexpensive in themselves."
The plan laid out by Prime Minister Harper is hard to criticize and it was good to hear, during his speech at Davos, that he has spoken with other G8 leaders and they appear willing to take on this neglected Millennium Development Goal. "It is therefore time," says Harper, "to mobilize our friends and partners to do something for those who can do little for themselves, to replace grand good intentions with substantive acts of human good will."
Yet, when Harper does try to reach out to other nations and get them on board he will face several challenges in bringing about the type of change most of us think of when a world leader says they want to improve the health outcomes of the world's poorest people. The first challenge surfaced in Ottawa at the same time that word of this plan was spreading through the frozen Canadian capital; some development agencies see abortion as the key to reducing infant and maternal mortality.
The change in policy towards family planning in Washington is well documented; abortion is back on the agenda as an acceptable public policy tool for the United States to export around the world. The case in other counties of the G8, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan plus Russia is less well known.
One of the key advisors to Britain's Labour government, or at least Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is Jonathon Porritt of the Optimum Population Trust. Porritt is the man who wants Britain's population cut in half to 30 million people. In conjunction with the United Nation's Population Fund, the OPT also wants to see Africa's population reduced for environmental reasons using family planning, which is often now a program well beyond contraception and includes abortion.
My reason for pointing this out is not to engage in an overall argument about abortion but to set the stage for the argument that what you and I hear when a politician promises something may not be what actually happens. When Prime Minister Harper, as president of the G8, speaks of infant and maternal mortality rates and says, "Far too many lives and futures have been lost." Most of us think his goal is to lower the mortality rates by saving the lives of pregnant women and children under five by improving access to clean water, primary health care, vaccines. That may be what Mr. Harper has in mind and those are in fact what he lists in his speech, but the policy people have other ideas in mind.
Shortly after Harper's push for the G8 to take on this issue became known, a media event was held with Canada's minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda. Ms. Oda gathered several non-governmental groups around the table for a chat on the issue, a brainstorming session of sorts and invited the media to attend. Several well known names were there, UNICEF, CARE, Plan International and World Vision, there was also a group I had not heard of until that day, Action Canada for Population and Development. One of the goals of Action Canada, as I discovered after chatting with their official afterwards, is to promote abortion around the world as a human right.
Now I don't really care which side of the abortion debate you are on, I think we can all agree that when a politician says we should reduce the number of children that die before their fifth birthday, one of the solutions you automatically think of is not abortion. Most reasonable people would think of improving health outcomes. After calls to the offices of Prime Minister Harper and Minister Oda, I've been assured that is what they mean when they speak of this problem, saving lives. Still, they will have a fight on their hands at the G8 from not only the worldwide coalition of NGOs who back Action Canada's viewpoint, but also from other G8 members, like Britain and the United States who may take a different view.
One of the other challenges Harper will face in getting his G8 partners to "replace grand good intentions with substantive acts of human good will," is that what has been tried over the past 15 years or so has not worked. Reducing the mortality rate among mothers and young children may have been a UN Millennium Development Goal but politicians have been speaking about it much longer than the last 10 years. Go back just a bit further and you find these same goals as central to the 1994 Cairo Conference.
Clearly what has been happening so far has not worked. Whether this lack of progress is due to a lack of funds or poorly designed programs is not clear but with billions having been poured into this field over the last decade and zero progress, I'd put my bet on the latter. That won't stop activists for the status quo from trying to ensure their current methods prevail. Stephen Lewis, the former U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS is chastising Harper for coming to this issue late, "It takes a lot of chutzpah to pretend that somehow you're championing something that others have championed so vigorously before you."
We can only hope, for the sake of the women and children whose lives are at risk, that Mr. Harper can convince his fellow G8 leaders not only to get on board with his initiative, but to look at it with fresh eyes, which will take chutzpah, and possibly also include ignoring Stephen Lewis.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The 6 Weirdest Things Women Do to Their Vaginas
This shows that patriarchy still controls the world! Er, is this writer a male? If so, what makes him qualified to write about vaginas?
By Andy Wright, AlterNet
January 30, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145461/
What's wrong with your vagina? If you answered "nothing," you're probably wrong. According to the beauty-industrial complex, it's ugly, and it smells bad. But don't worry-- there's nothing that money can't fix.
1. Problem: Your Vagina Smells Bad
Solution: Vaginal Deodorant
In the seventies, Massengill tried to marry feminism and its vaginal deodorant spray ("With Hexachlorophene") in an ad that declared the product to be "The Freedom Spray." It was "...the better way to be free to enjoy being a woman. Free from worry about external vaginal odor." Because you're going to need that time you used to spend worrying about your vaginal odor to flirt your way through the glass ceiling. Oh, and Hexachlorophene? It's a disinfectant that can be lethal when absorbed through the skin. In 1972, it was added to baby powder in France due to a manufacturing error and killed thirty-six children.
In case you think vaginal deodorant is a relic of the past, just take a trip to the drug store. (I did, and I took notes. The staff of my local Walgreens is convinced that I'm both very thorough and that my vagina smells really bad.) There are several kinds of vaginal deodorants still for sale (Walgreens even manufactures a generic version). You can buy scented vaginal suppositories called Norforms in Island Escape and Summer's Eve Deodorant Spray in Island Splash. (Norforms contain something called Benzethonium chloride, which is also used as a hard surface disinfectant for fruit and classified as a poison in Switzerland. Exotic!) And you can buy FDS (Feminine, Discreet, Sensual) Spray ("For the woman who cares.") in a myriad of scents including Sheer Tropics and Fresh Island Breeze.
Because if you really cared, you'd make your vagina smell like a poisonous island.
2. Problem: Your Vagina is Dirty
Solution: Douching
Douching, the act of forcing a mixture of fluids up into the vagina with a tube and pump, was first promoted as a form of birth control (it doesn't work) and has continued to be used for vaguely medical reasons: to prevent STIs (sexually transmitted infections), to clean the vagina after menstruation and, of course, to rid it of that disgusting vagina smell. Douching has been repeatedly discouraged by the medical community, which not only doesn't attribute any health benefits to the act, but believes that it can actually harm women. A government Web site run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services discourages douching by answering a series of hypothetical questions, one of which is: "My vagina has a terrible odor, can douching help?" The answer: No. Get thee to a doctor.
Despite health concerns, manufacturers still churn out vaginal douches. Pick up a box of Summer's Eve Douche, and you'll find warnings that douching has been associated with PID (Pelvic Inflamatory Disease), ectopic pregnancy and infertility. Right next to the suggestion that women douche after their menstrual period, after using contraceptive jellies and creams and to "clear out any vaginal secretions." So basically, any time your vagina isn't as dry as a British sitcom.
3. Problem: Your Vagina is Too Loose
Solution: Vaginal Rejuvenation
Let's face it. Nature really screwed up when it made the vagina. Never mind that that it accommodates the birth of a child or that it's fundamentally better designed than male genitalia. (Who wants to carry their most sensitive reproductive organs on the outside?) While nature was busy dishing out things like multiple orgasms, it forgot to make vaginas vice-tight. Luckily, plastic surgeons have stepped in to put an end to womankind's collective suffering.
Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation is a trademarked phrase that refers to a practice developed and popularized by Dr. David Matlock, who's made several appearances on the E! channel's plastic surgery reality show, Dr.90210. Matlock and other doctors who carry out LVR claim that the $4,000 to $20,000 procedure makes women's vaginas tighter, thus increasing sexual pleasure.
But many doctors disagree. The American Urogynocology Society won't endorse it. And the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists cautioned in a 2007 statement that women seeking "designer vaginas" should be "informed about the lack of data supporting the efficacy of these procedures and their potential complications, including infection, altered sensation, dyspareunia, adhesions, and scarring." Sexy!
4. Problem: Your Vagina is Ugly
Solution: Labiaplasty
If your vagina is tight enough (and let's face it, it's probably not) you've still got to deal with the labia. And by "deal with," I mean remove. Labiaplasty drastically reduces the labia, the protruding lips that surround the opening of the vagina. Why would you want to do this? Because your labia are "unequal," "elongated," "large," "irregular," "floppy," and "unfeminine." These are just some of the unflattering adjectives bandied about on the Web sites of surgeons who offer this procedure. Luckily, with the use of lasers and scalpels, your vagina can be made "prettier," "better proportioned," "youthful," and achieve "the true Playboy aesthetic look." How much will it cost you to make your labia proportional and feminine? About $5,000 or more.
5. Problem: Your Vagina Tastes Bad
Solution: Vagina Mints
If your partner is reluctant to give you oral sex, it's not because of pervasive cultural belief that cunnilingus is complicated to the point of being impossible and that vaginas are inherently icky (thus the need to uncomplicate them and un-ickify them with, oh, say, labiaplasty) it's because your vagina tastes bad. Enter the Linger Internal Vaginal Flavoring, or Altoids for your vagina. Linger assumes you already feel bad about your nether regions, stating on its Web site that the mint-flavored pill "decreases self-consciousness" and tosses out the unattributed statistic that 72 percent of women feel self conscious about their taste and odor. Dubious marketing practices aside, the Linger mint isn't just a harmless, if asinine, oddity. Mother Jones magazine did some digging into the origins of Linger and discovered that the vagina mint is no different from a regular mint. In other words, it's made out of sugar. And putting sugar-based mint directly into your vagina is a recipe for a mint-flavored yeast infection.
6. Problem: Your Vagina is the Wrong Color
Solution: Vaginal Bleaching and Dying
Many women are under the impression that it's OK to have a vagina colored vagina. They're wrong, of course. They should be pink, and exceptionally so. What's a woman with a vagina colored vagina to do? Bleach it. Accomoclitic Laser and Wax Studio in Lakewood, Colorado, purveyors of an anal bleaching product called "Pink Wink," also sell something called Bleach Babe, a cream that promises to do away with the "natural discoloration surrounding the exterior of the vagina." Bleach Babe contains Kojic acid, the same ingredient that keeps salmon meat pink. South Beach Solutions sells a similar lightening product with Sodium hydroxide, which can also be found in drain decloggers and septic tank cleansers.
If bleaching fails to render your vagina the color of a Barbie Dream House, you can try My New Pink Button, billed as a "Genital Cosmetic Colorant that restores the "Pink" back to woman's genitals." Because vaginas that aren't vibrantly pink are old and sad. My New Pink Button is meant to be painted onto the vagina (it comes in powder form and must be scooped up with a moist Q-tip like device) and lasts 48 to 72 hours. After which, one supposes, users must reapply in order to maintain the youthful status of their genitals.
By Andy Wright, AlterNet
January 30, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145461/
What's wrong with your vagina? If you answered "nothing," you're probably wrong. According to the beauty-industrial complex, it's ugly, and it smells bad. But don't worry-- there's nothing that money can't fix.
1. Problem: Your Vagina Smells Bad
Solution: Vaginal Deodorant
In the seventies, Massengill tried to marry feminism and its vaginal deodorant spray ("With Hexachlorophene") in an ad that declared the product to be "The Freedom Spray." It was "...the better way to be free to enjoy being a woman. Free from worry about external vaginal odor." Because you're going to need that time you used to spend worrying about your vaginal odor to flirt your way through the glass ceiling. Oh, and Hexachlorophene? It's a disinfectant that can be lethal when absorbed through the skin. In 1972, it was added to baby powder in France due to a manufacturing error and killed thirty-six children.
In case you think vaginal deodorant is a relic of the past, just take a trip to the drug store. (I did, and I took notes. The staff of my local Walgreens is convinced that I'm both very thorough and that my vagina smells really bad.) There are several kinds of vaginal deodorants still for sale (Walgreens even manufactures a generic version). You can buy scented vaginal suppositories called Norforms in Island Escape and Summer's Eve Deodorant Spray in Island Splash. (Norforms contain something called Benzethonium chloride, which is also used as a hard surface disinfectant for fruit and classified as a poison in Switzerland. Exotic!) And you can buy FDS (Feminine, Discreet, Sensual) Spray ("For the woman who cares.") in a myriad of scents including Sheer Tropics and Fresh Island Breeze.
Because if you really cared, you'd make your vagina smell like a poisonous island.
2. Problem: Your Vagina is Dirty
Solution: Douching
Douching, the act of forcing a mixture of fluids up into the vagina with a tube and pump, was first promoted as a form of birth control (it doesn't work) and has continued to be used for vaguely medical reasons: to prevent STIs (sexually transmitted infections), to clean the vagina after menstruation and, of course, to rid it of that disgusting vagina smell. Douching has been repeatedly discouraged by the medical community, which not only doesn't attribute any health benefits to the act, but believes that it can actually harm women. A government Web site run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services discourages douching by answering a series of hypothetical questions, one of which is: "My vagina has a terrible odor, can douching help?" The answer: No. Get thee to a doctor.
Despite health concerns, manufacturers still churn out vaginal douches. Pick up a box of Summer's Eve Douche, and you'll find warnings that douching has been associated with PID (Pelvic Inflamatory Disease), ectopic pregnancy and infertility. Right next to the suggestion that women douche after their menstrual period, after using contraceptive jellies and creams and to "clear out any vaginal secretions." So basically, any time your vagina isn't as dry as a British sitcom.
3. Problem: Your Vagina is Too Loose
Solution: Vaginal Rejuvenation
Let's face it. Nature really screwed up when it made the vagina. Never mind that that it accommodates the birth of a child or that it's fundamentally better designed than male genitalia. (Who wants to carry their most sensitive reproductive organs on the outside?) While nature was busy dishing out things like multiple orgasms, it forgot to make vaginas vice-tight. Luckily, plastic surgeons have stepped in to put an end to womankind's collective suffering.
Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation is a trademarked phrase that refers to a practice developed and popularized by Dr. David Matlock, who's made several appearances on the E! channel's plastic surgery reality show, Dr.90210. Matlock and other doctors who carry out LVR claim that the $4,000 to $20,000 procedure makes women's vaginas tighter, thus increasing sexual pleasure.
But many doctors disagree. The American Urogynocology Society won't endorse it. And the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists cautioned in a 2007 statement that women seeking "designer vaginas" should be "informed about the lack of data supporting the efficacy of these procedures and their potential complications, including infection, altered sensation, dyspareunia, adhesions, and scarring." Sexy!
4. Problem: Your Vagina is Ugly
Solution: Labiaplasty
If your vagina is tight enough (and let's face it, it's probably not) you've still got to deal with the labia. And by "deal with," I mean remove. Labiaplasty drastically reduces the labia, the protruding lips that surround the opening of the vagina. Why would you want to do this? Because your labia are "unequal," "elongated," "large," "irregular," "floppy," and "unfeminine." These are just some of the unflattering adjectives bandied about on the Web sites of surgeons who offer this procedure. Luckily, with the use of lasers and scalpels, your vagina can be made "prettier," "better proportioned," "youthful," and achieve "the true Playboy aesthetic look." How much will it cost you to make your labia proportional and feminine? About $5,000 or more.
5. Problem: Your Vagina Tastes Bad
Solution: Vagina Mints
If your partner is reluctant to give you oral sex, it's not because of pervasive cultural belief that cunnilingus is complicated to the point of being impossible and that vaginas are inherently icky (thus the need to uncomplicate them and un-ickify them with, oh, say, labiaplasty) it's because your vagina tastes bad. Enter the Linger Internal Vaginal Flavoring, or Altoids for your vagina. Linger assumes you already feel bad about your nether regions, stating on its Web site that the mint-flavored pill "decreases self-consciousness" and tosses out the unattributed statistic that 72 percent of women feel self conscious about their taste and odor. Dubious marketing practices aside, the Linger mint isn't just a harmless, if asinine, oddity. Mother Jones magazine did some digging into the origins of Linger and discovered that the vagina mint is no different from a regular mint. In other words, it's made out of sugar. And putting sugar-based mint directly into your vagina is a recipe for a mint-flavored yeast infection.
6. Problem: Your Vagina is the Wrong Color
Solution: Vaginal Bleaching and Dying
Many women are under the impression that it's OK to have a vagina colored vagina. They're wrong, of course. They should be pink, and exceptionally so. What's a woman with a vagina colored vagina to do? Bleach it. Accomoclitic Laser and Wax Studio in Lakewood, Colorado, purveyors of an anal bleaching product called "Pink Wink," also sell something called Bleach Babe, a cream that promises to do away with the "natural discoloration surrounding the exterior of the vagina." Bleach Babe contains Kojic acid, the same ingredient that keeps salmon meat pink. South Beach Solutions sells a similar lightening product with Sodium hydroxide, which can also be found in drain decloggers and septic tank cleansers.
If bleaching fails to render your vagina the color of a Barbie Dream House, you can try My New Pink Button, billed as a "Genital Cosmetic Colorant that restores the "Pink" back to woman's genitals." Because vaginas that aren't vibrantly pink are old and sad. My New Pink Button is meant to be painted onto the vagina (it comes in powder form and must be scooped up with a moist Q-tip like device) and lasts 48 to 72 hours. After which, one supposes, users must reapply in order to maintain the youthful status of their genitals.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Robin Givhan zeroes in on debate over plus-size women in fashion
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/21/AR2010012105260.html?hpid=topnews
By Robin Givhan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 24, 2010; E01
The conversation about plus-size women and their relationship to the fashion industry has taken on new contours recently thanks to the current issue of V magazine, the celebrated young actress Gabourey Sidibe and a first lady who has decided to make combating childhood obesity her signature issue. The rumblings about physiques -- rotund and petite -- should get even livelier beginning Feb. 11, when ready-to-wear designers in New York unveil their fall 2010 collections over the course of a week. (Their counterparts in Milan and Paris will follow soon after.) And that means attention will once again turn to the proportions of the models who walk their runways and who serve to define our culture's beauty aesthetic.
For several years, fashion observers have complained on blogs, in letters-to-the-editor and over cocktails with friends about the spindliness of models -- lollipops wrapped in silk or cashmere is how they have derisively been described. And industry insiders have debated the cause and effect of these profoundly skinny mannequins on our self-image. Do they push women to be more prone to eating disorders? Are they an insult to womanhood? Are they merely part of a designer's creative prerogative? Or are they the product of lemming-like style-makers who feel compelled to follow trends? It would be a welcome relief if the majority of those designers who put their wares on the runway in the coming months took a stand and refused to use models whose ribs are plainly visible and whose countenance cries "ill-health." What is the point of creeping out consumers, after all?
To be fair, a bit of headway was made in plumping up models when designers presented their spring collections a few months ago. The models were often still quite thin -- much slimmer than they were back in the 1980s heyday of women such as Cindy Crawford or Naomi Campbell -- but rarely did they look as though a strong wind would send them rolling down the catwalk like glittering bits of tumbleweed.
But after a volley of exhausting complaining, defending, finger-pointing and declaring one's right to creative license, a new conundrum has presented itself: It's hard to even know what an acceptable-size model is supposed to look like anymore. How big is big enough? And when does plus size, in a profoundly overweight population, become just as distressingly unhealthy an image as emaciation?
The niche fashion publication, V magazine, has received a significant amount of attention among style aficionados because of its "size issue," which features photos of women who measure in at size 12. The star of the issue is arguably the model Crystal Renn, who captures the same air of detached, unattainable glamour as any size 0, perhaps even more so because Renn is classically pretty rather than startlingly odd. But some of those readers who have seen the photographs of her have complained that she's only a size 12. She really isn't large enough to be considered a plus size, which despite the fashion industry's definition, most people consider to be a size 16 or larger, which is the threshold at which women typically find their fashion choices abruptly limited.
Just how big does a model have to be before folks are satisfied that she represents some ever-shifting vision of what a "real" woman looks like? Must she be precisely 5-feet-4 and a size 14, which is the fashion industry's accepted stats for the average woman? And if she is, will that transform the fantasy photographs in fashion magazines into the equivalent of catalogues? After all, a large part of our fascination with Hollywood is because it's populated with absurdly stunning men and women who are so far from average they ignite our wildest desires and persuade us to pay good money to go to bad movies.
The most compelling spread in V is the one in which the same ensemble is photographed on a skinny model and on a larger one. The lesson to a lot of women who have an insecure relationship with fashion is that they, too, can participate in the world of Dolce & Gabbana and Proenza Schouler. And the lesson to designers is that all sorts of women can make their clothes look good. Attitude often counts more than body size. Although, there are certainly times when no matter how good you think you look, reality tells another story. See: Mariah Carey at the Golden Globes.
The recent awards show also provided an opportunity to see the plus-size actress Sidibe, who stars in "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," all glammed up. She has been dazzling interviewers with her charisma and Valley Girl patois. (She was also photographed for V.) And she has been a marvel of self-confidence in an industry that values thin. We have all seen the fan magazines with their sad tales of incredibly shrinking actresses. They shrink, in part, because they want to fit into the teeny-tiny clothing samples that they borrow from designers. They shrink for fashion.
The L.A.-based designer Kevan Hall created the gown that Sidibe wore to the Globes, a deep green, flowing floor-length dress with soft, short sleeves and beaded embellishment at the waist. He has worked with a lot of actresses who are what he describes as "special sizes" and the reality is that "it's all about picking the right silhouette for her shape."
And it doesn't matter if a woman is a size 2 or a size 16, "you're always treading lightly. I've had actresses who are a size 2 stand in front of me and weep. I've had young girls who want to cover their arms and older women who want to cover their arms," he says. The most significant difference in creating a dress for a larger size is that often a designer has to tamp down his ego. He can't as easily force his vision onto the woman since she doesn't have the physique of a hanger. "But at the end of the day, it's always really about the client," Hall says. "Let's be realistic, after all. What is the end-use of these clothes?"
One might also ask, what is the ultimate goal -- on the part of the fashion industry -- in celebrating the confident Sidibe? Is it about her work? Is it a fascination -- a marveling -- over this big girl who doesn't seem to have any existential angst about being big? Is it about a broader definition of beauty?
"I'm hoping that things are changing," says an optimistic Hall.
We all hope that we are getting closer to a less judgmental, more accepting society. But we also are faced with an uncomfortable question: How does a culture celebrate the beauty of all shapes and sizes even when statistics are telling us that certain sizes are unhealthy?
In V magazine's celebration of size, there's a group of photographs taken by Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld of a voluptuous burlesque performer. The way she is depicted is unsettling because it reads as a kind of fat porn -- that tendency to show heavyset women as overly sexed, ribald or just plain sideshow. Fashion fetishizes women all the time and in a host of different ways. But the one thing that fashion loathes is a cliche. And the worst cliche about large women is that they are creatures of insatiable appetites -- both real and metaphorical. And, of course, the stereotype about the ultra-thin is that they are brittle and cold.
Somewhere between emaciation and obesity lies good health. And somewhere between those extremes there is also a definition of beauty that is inclusive, sound and honest.
By Robin Givhan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 24, 2010; E01
The conversation about plus-size women and their relationship to the fashion industry has taken on new contours recently thanks to the current issue of V magazine, the celebrated young actress Gabourey Sidibe and a first lady who has decided to make combating childhood obesity her signature issue. The rumblings about physiques -- rotund and petite -- should get even livelier beginning Feb. 11, when ready-to-wear designers in New York unveil their fall 2010 collections over the course of a week. (Their counterparts in Milan and Paris will follow soon after.) And that means attention will once again turn to the proportions of the models who walk their runways and who serve to define our culture's beauty aesthetic.
For several years, fashion observers have complained on blogs, in letters-to-the-editor and over cocktails with friends about the spindliness of models -- lollipops wrapped in silk or cashmere is how they have derisively been described. And industry insiders have debated the cause and effect of these profoundly skinny mannequins on our self-image. Do they push women to be more prone to eating disorders? Are they an insult to womanhood? Are they merely part of a designer's creative prerogative? Or are they the product of lemming-like style-makers who feel compelled to follow trends? It would be a welcome relief if the majority of those designers who put their wares on the runway in the coming months took a stand and refused to use models whose ribs are plainly visible and whose countenance cries "ill-health." What is the point of creeping out consumers, after all?
To be fair, a bit of headway was made in plumping up models when designers presented their spring collections a few months ago. The models were often still quite thin -- much slimmer than they were back in the 1980s heyday of women such as Cindy Crawford or Naomi Campbell -- but rarely did they look as though a strong wind would send them rolling down the catwalk like glittering bits of tumbleweed.
But after a volley of exhausting complaining, defending, finger-pointing and declaring one's right to creative license, a new conundrum has presented itself: It's hard to even know what an acceptable-size model is supposed to look like anymore. How big is big enough? And when does plus size, in a profoundly overweight population, become just as distressingly unhealthy an image as emaciation?
The niche fashion publication, V magazine, has received a significant amount of attention among style aficionados because of its "size issue," which features photos of women who measure in at size 12. The star of the issue is arguably the model Crystal Renn, who captures the same air of detached, unattainable glamour as any size 0, perhaps even more so because Renn is classically pretty rather than startlingly odd. But some of those readers who have seen the photographs of her have complained that she's only a size 12. She really isn't large enough to be considered a plus size, which despite the fashion industry's definition, most people consider to be a size 16 or larger, which is the threshold at which women typically find their fashion choices abruptly limited.
Just how big does a model have to be before folks are satisfied that she represents some ever-shifting vision of what a "real" woman looks like? Must she be precisely 5-feet-4 and a size 14, which is the fashion industry's accepted stats for the average woman? And if she is, will that transform the fantasy photographs in fashion magazines into the equivalent of catalogues? After all, a large part of our fascination with Hollywood is because it's populated with absurdly stunning men and women who are so far from average they ignite our wildest desires and persuade us to pay good money to go to bad movies.
The most compelling spread in V is the one in which the same ensemble is photographed on a skinny model and on a larger one. The lesson to a lot of women who have an insecure relationship with fashion is that they, too, can participate in the world of Dolce & Gabbana and Proenza Schouler. And the lesson to designers is that all sorts of women can make their clothes look good. Attitude often counts more than body size. Although, there are certainly times when no matter how good you think you look, reality tells another story. See: Mariah Carey at the Golden Globes.
The recent awards show also provided an opportunity to see the plus-size actress Sidibe, who stars in "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," all glammed up. She has been dazzling interviewers with her charisma and Valley Girl patois. (She was also photographed for V.) And she has been a marvel of self-confidence in an industry that values thin. We have all seen the fan magazines with their sad tales of incredibly shrinking actresses. They shrink, in part, because they want to fit into the teeny-tiny clothing samples that they borrow from designers. They shrink for fashion.
The L.A.-based designer Kevan Hall created the gown that Sidibe wore to the Globes, a deep green, flowing floor-length dress with soft, short sleeves and beaded embellishment at the waist. He has worked with a lot of actresses who are what he describes as "special sizes" and the reality is that "it's all about picking the right silhouette for her shape."
And it doesn't matter if a woman is a size 2 or a size 16, "you're always treading lightly. I've had actresses who are a size 2 stand in front of me and weep. I've had young girls who want to cover their arms and older women who want to cover their arms," he says. The most significant difference in creating a dress for a larger size is that often a designer has to tamp down his ego. He can't as easily force his vision onto the woman since she doesn't have the physique of a hanger. "But at the end of the day, it's always really about the client," Hall says. "Let's be realistic, after all. What is the end-use of these clothes?"
One might also ask, what is the ultimate goal -- on the part of the fashion industry -- in celebrating the confident Sidibe? Is it about her work? Is it a fascination -- a marveling -- over this big girl who doesn't seem to have any existential angst about being big? Is it about a broader definition of beauty?
"I'm hoping that things are changing," says an optimistic Hall.
We all hope that we are getting closer to a less judgmental, more accepting society. But we also are faced with an uncomfortable question: How does a culture celebrate the beauty of all shapes and sizes even when statistics are telling us that certain sizes are unhealthy?
In V magazine's celebration of size, there's a group of photographs taken by Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld of a voluptuous burlesque performer. The way she is depicted is unsettling because it reads as a kind of fat porn -- that tendency to show heavyset women as overly sexed, ribald or just plain sideshow. Fashion fetishizes women all the time and in a host of different ways. But the one thing that fashion loathes is a cliche. And the worst cliche about large women is that they are creatures of insatiable appetites -- both real and metaphorical. And, of course, the stereotype about the ultra-thin is that they are brittle and cold.
Somewhere between emaciation and obesity lies good health. And somewhere between those extremes there is also a definition of beauty that is inclusive, sound and honest.
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