GynocraticGrrl

This is the blog of a transhumanist, postgender, feminist who enjoys geeking out over a variety of things.


Got Any Questions?    Got Something You Think I Might Be Interested In...Submit


Reblogged from stfusexists
Because I am a Woman: stfusexists: I, and many mothers of my generation, thought that when...

stfusexists:

I, and many mothers of my generation, thought that when our daughters came of age, they would enter a world of unprecedented equality, with autonomy over their own bodies and life choices, and the guarantee they would be paid according to their value in the workplace, not by virtue of their genitalia. So how does reality stack up to that twenty-year-old belief?

To borrow from a movie title from those early 90s, reality bites. Not only haven’t rights and opportunities for women in this country improved, they are on the decline. The world our daughters are inheriting looks like the one in which our mothers or even our grandmothers came of age. In 2011, the year my daughter graduated from college, state legislatures enacted 83 laws to restrict or even eliminate access to abortions. In the first three months of 2012, 944 bills were introduced in state legislatures related to reproductive health and rights, targeting access to birth control as well as abortions.

Not content to limiting their attacks on women to the female body, several states have moved onto the workplace, with Wisconsin Republicans leading the charge to eviscerate federal statutes, including the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, that require equal pay for equal work.

—Thoughts For Our Daughters (and Sons) On Mother’s Day



Reblogged from dynamicafrica
Africa's Two Female Presidents Join Forces for Women

dynamicafrica:

The only two female heads of state in Africa, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Malawian President Joyce Banda, have just committed to using their positions to improve the lives of women across the continent.

Both Sirleaf and Banda have long championed women’s rights. And on Apr. 29 in Monrovia, two years into what the African Union (AU) has declared the “Women’s Decade”, they pledged to work together to accelerate those efforts.

“Today is a day African women must rejoice,” Banda said as Sirleaf stood by her side. “This is our day. And this is our year. And this is our decade!” And Sirleaf affirmed her - and Liberia’s - commitment to empower women.

“The two of us have great strength,” Sirleaf said. “Together, we can do more to empower women and to ensure that women’s role in society is enhanced.” She added that her country would work with the new Malawian government to advance women’s empowerment.

To be sure, the challenges before them are great. Using the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as a barometer, Liberia and Malawi generally score low in the areas of gender equality and women’s empowerment, education for girls, and maternal health.

According to 2010 U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) reports on the two countries, Liberia is only likely to meet certain goals on equality and education, and Malawi remains unlikely to meet its targets for any of the three MDGs that focus on women.

But as Banda noted during her speech, there has never been a better time to advance women’s rights in Africa.

Sirleaf, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was elected as Africa’s first female president in 2005 and reelected in 2011. While her first term in office focused on reconstructing a country devastated by two civil wars, one from 1989 to 1996 and the second from 1999 to 2003, she has set out to use her second term as president to make women’s rights and health a national priority.

Banda succeeded former President Bingu wa Mutharika after his sudden passing on Apr. 5. After she was elected vice president in 2009, she had a falling out with Mutharika, and was subsequently expelled from the ruling Democratic People’s Party and essentially barred from participating in government.

However, she remained vice president, and in 2011 she formed the opposition People’s Party. Since Mutharika’s death a number of MPs have left the former ruling party to join her.

(cont. reading)

(via cool-whatever)



Reblogged from samsonismydog
ETCETERA, ETC.: I am reposting this because I had made it slightly private before and...

samsonismydog:

I am reposting this because I had made it slightly private before and didn’t hear back from many people. I think we need to share our stories, our rage, our passion and our fight for women’s rights with each other:

Thursday, May 3rd:

I recently discovered that I am four weeks pregnant. At first I was shocked, then I was scared, then I felt ashamed.. and now I am enraged. I think that unwed pregnancies need to stop having such a fucking taboo attached to them. I don’t know how our culture can shove sex in our faces through food and clothing ads, television shows, movies and the like.. and then shame us when we .. what? get pregnant? the result of having sex.. which is encouraged in so many aspects of our lives. I need to talk to other women about this. Other women need to talk to other women about this.. Today at planned parenthood I learned that 1 in every 3 women will have an abortion. 1 IN EVERY 3 WOMEN WILL HAVE AN ABORTION. I was so fucking shocked to hear that because YOU WOULD NEVER GUESS. PART OF TEACHING PEOPLE ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS IS LETTING OTHERS KNOW WHO IS TAKING ADVANTAGE OF REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS. 

Update: Monday, May 7th

I scheduled the procedure for ten days from now. At first I was having a difficult time dealing with my emotions, but it has been getting easier. Surprisingly, K has been very supportive and has continued to be there for me since we found out. I am not sure how long that will last, so I’m not getting my hopes up that he has changed. I have opted for an in-clinic abortion because when the different processes were described to me I felt as if it would be the fastest and seemingly most affective way. Some of the information I’ve read has me questioning whether I am actually okay with the idea of having an abortion or if I have just buried whatever I was feeling the first two days after I found out. Oftentimes people who are not good at dealing with loss will experience it in extreme ways whenever they come across it. Unfortunately, I did not do a very good job of dealing with the death of my mother and I am worried that everything will attack me at once after I have had the abortion.

Since I had the revelation I wrote about on third I have been feeling really.. empowered? I don’t know if that is the word I should use to describe it. It’s just that I am a woman and I always knew that my right to reproductive choice was an important one, but now I feel more motivated than ever to connect with other people and ensure that we continue to have this right.  I am going to start looking for opportunities throughout my community to spread the word about the choice I have made, and fight for my and other women’s rights to do so.

 This is just the beginning of my story and my goal is to continue telling it to anyone who will listen. If you can relate, have a story you would like to share with other women or just want to comment, please e-mail me at shookw @ gmail. com. Include your name/tumblr (or anonymous if you prefer),  why you took advantage of your right to choose, what the process was like, how you felt/feel, who you were supported by, and anything else you would like to pass along to me and other women who are sharing this experience. 

As women we should all be able to make decisions about our reproductive health and not have to feel ashamed about choosing a path that will give us the future we want. Please help me forward the message that women considering abortion are not alone.

If you don’t have a story but want to support the women who do, reblog and pass this message on! I will keep posting this for the next week in hopes of hearing back from many of you. 

Thanks so much,

Whitney



“ Federal brochures saluted the hardy working woman as a true patriot. Strong women became cultural icons. Rosie the Riveter was revered and, in 1941, Wonder Woman was introduced. Women welcomed their new economic status; 5 to 6 million poured into the work force during the war years, 2 million into heavy-industry jobs; by war’s end, they would represent a record 57% of all employed people. 75% reported in government surveys that they were going to keep their jobs after the war-and, in the younger generation, 88% of the 33,000 girls polled in a Senior Scholastic survey said they wanted a career, too.

Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York. 1991. (pg. 51)


“ The ability to limit family size has certainly improved women’s situations, but it, too, has only inspired countervailing social campaigns to regulate pregnant women’s behaviour and stigmatize the childless. In periods of backlash, birth control becomes less available, abortion is restricted, and women who avail themselves of it are painted as “selfish” or “immoral.

Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York. 1991. (pg. 55)

“ While American backlashes can be traced back to colonial times, the style of backlash that surfaced in the last decade has its roots most firmly in the last century. The Victorian era gave rise to mass media and mass marketing-two institutions that have since proved more effective devices for constraining women’s aspirations than coercive laws or punishments. They rule with the club of conformity, not censure, and claim to speak for female public opinion, not powerful male interests.

Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York. 1991. (pg.48)

“ Different kinds of backlashes against women’s mostly tiny grains-or against simply the perception that women were in the ascendancy-may be found in the rise of restrictive property laws and penalties for unwed and childless women of ancient Rome, the heresy judgements against female disciples of the early Christian Church, or the mass witch burnings of medieval Europe.

Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York. 1991. (pg. 47)

“ In place of equal rights, lawmakers, labor and corporate leaders, and eventually some women’s groups endorsed “protective” labor policies, measures that served largely to protect men’s jobs and deny women equal pay. The 20s eroded a decade of growth for female professionals; by 1930 there were fewer female doctors than in 1910. When the Depression hit, a new round of federal and state laws forced thousands of women out of the work force, and new federal wage codes institutionalized lower pay rates for women.

Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York. 1991 (pg.50)


Reblogged from worldwidewomen
A brutal manifestation of patriarchy

worldwidewomen:

Abstract: “The involvement of women in anti-war actions and in support of peace activism worldwide is a critical part of modern history, yet the vulnerability of women in conflict situations to violence of all forms is perhaps the most brutal manifestation of patriarchy in modern times. We must probe the areas of ambivalence in women’s activism for peace and human rights, argues Sunila Abeysekera.”

This article was written for the Association for Women’s Rights in Development 2012 Forum which was on the 19th-22nd of April in Instanbul. 

It’s a lengthy read and may be a bit more difficult to get absorbed into because of the wording. (Personally, I’m thrilled, I love some good diction.)

A striking quote from the article: “From the point of view of women, in most cases identity-based political formations are embedded in patriarchy and therefore often reduce women to a reproductive role (socially and biologically) and impose limitations on women’s mobility and on their rights to freedom of expression, opinion and choice, especially with regard to marriage and children.”



Reblogged from historicalslut
Historical Slut: why I study feminist history.

historicalslut:

I was at my women’s studies end of the year/graduation party. My professor/head of the dept asked “what was the best part of undergrad.” Which turned into a speech on my research on Alice Paul and Lucy Burns because no one, besides the head of the dept and the former history major, really knew who either of them were (which is problematic on so many levels) and their contribution to women’s rights… 19th Amendment is kind of a big deal. If anyone ever asks me again why I am doing my research and why it is important, that is why. A room full of feminist and only 3 people (including me) knew who these women were and the fight for women’s suffrage. Why do I study feminist history? That is why. Women need to be educated on their history and feminist need to fucking know their history. Women need to know we got the right to vote less than 100 years ago. I study feminist history because I firmly believe it is important that women know their history and feminist understand their history. We cannot move forward as a movement if we don’t understand our history, the good and the bad. We have to learn from the mistakes of the women who came before us and move forward as a movement.