[Mb-civic] International Women's Day + What IF???

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Via Ed Pearl:

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Ed

The Independent - 08 March 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article349913.ece


1% of the titled land in the world is owned by women

A baby girl born in the UK is likely to live to 81 - but if she is born in
Swaziland, she is likely to die at 39

70% of the 1.2 bn people living in poverty are women and children

21% of the world's managers are female

62% of unpaid family workers are female

9% of judges, 10% of company directors and 10% of top police officers in
the UK are women

Women comprise 55% of the world's population aged over 60 years old and
65% of those aged over 80

£970,000 is the difference between lifetime earnings of men and women in
the UK finance sector

85m girls worldwide are unable to attend school, compared with 45m boys.
In Chad, just 4% of girls go to school.

700,000,000 women are without adequate food, water, sanitation, health
care or education (compared with 400,000,000 men)

Women in full-time jobs earn an average 17% less than British men

Women in part-time jobs earn an average 42% less than British men

67% of all illiterate adults are women

1,440 women die each day during childbirth (a rate of one death every
minute)

1 in 7 women in Ethiopia die in pregnancy or childbirth (it is one in
19,000 in Britain)

In the US, 35% of lawyers are women but just 5% are partners in law
firms

In the EU, women comprise 3% of chief execs of major companies

12 is the number of world leaders who are women (out of 191 members of the
United Nations)

Men directed 9 out of every 10 films made in 2004

***

Long Arm of Law Reaching Up U.S. Women's Skirts

By Kimberly Gadette - WeNews commentator

(WOMENSENEWS)--The latest miscarriage of justice comes from the 
lawmakers
of South Dakota.

Last week, they passed a bill that bans all abortions except those in
which the mother's life is in mortal danger. All that's left is one
pregnant pause before Governor Mike Rounds--who has expressed his 
support
for the bill--gives full-blown birth to the bill by signing it into law.

Under the shield of the Fourteenth Amendment, guaranteeing a citizen's
right to privacy, I had the 1973 court ruling of Roe v. Wade to protect
me, allowing me to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy.

But given the current climate in Washington, accompanied by the maelstrom
of this new South Dakota law slated to take effect July 1, I hear a
ticking clock. No longer biological, this particular clock is wired to a
shiny new bomb.

If one possessed a better view than the South Dakotan Walleye (the
official state fish), one could have seen this coming. Between Medicaid
programs that refuse payment for abortions, various state laws requiring
parental notification, self-righteous pharmacists who refuse to fill
"day-after" pills and debates over inconclusive evidence as to whether the
fetus feels pain, abortion rights are eroding fast and furiously.

If signed into law, doctors in South Dakota would face up to five years in
prison for performing an abortion unless it was absolutely necessary to
save the woman's life.

Even more appalling, per Krista Heeren-Graber of the South Dakota Network
Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault, "If a woman who is raped
becomes pregnant, the rapist would have the same rights to the child as
the mother." Wow--family court as we've never seen it before.

Abortions in Back Alley Near You

If Roe v. Wade is overturned--and it's pretty clear that proponents of the
South Dakota bill have designed it as a missile aimed straight at the
Supreme Court--medical abominations are heading to women in a U.S. back
alley right near you.

When one man puts an uninvited hand up a woman's skirt, it might be
considered harassment, molestation, assault, perhaps even rape.

But when one U.S. government puts an uninvited hand up all women's skirts,
these days it's considered business as usual.

Whether it's Sam Alito trying to get the nod from the Senate Judiciary
Committee, or a candidate vying to win an election to represent a tiny
constituency somewhere in this country, the One Big Question, repeated
until we're blue in the ovaries, is "What are your views on abortion
rights?"

Abortion, abortion, abortion.

Like prospective home buyers during a Sunday open house, it seems
everyone's entitled to barge on into women's private parts and take a
good, long look around. It's "a womb with a view." However, the view is
theirs, not mine. My property, yet their view.

Open to Public View

If this were terra firma, I'd be able to call on the Fourth Amendment to
legally defend my property rights. But since this is terra "femma" I'm
expected to simply lie there, gracious hostess to the last, while all
manner of judges, legislators and doctors probe at will. Gracious me,
there's so much traffic going on, I'm surprised they haven't put up a
stoplight.

Where's the legislation that concerns itself with men's reproductive
anatomy? Perhaps I'm being walleyed, but I can't find a thing.

The big issue is, well, "issue." It's about who issues the babies into the
world (that would be women), but who controls that process (with the
executive, legislative and judicial branches currently dominated by males,
that would be men).

When we look to treatments of the female anatomy in other countries, we
gasp with shock at descriptions of female genital mutilation.

"In some cultures, girls will be told to sit beforehand in cold water, to
numb the area and reduce the likelihood of bleeding. The girl is
immobilized, held, usually by older women, with her legs open. Mutilation
may be carried out using broken glass, a tin lid, scissors, a razor blade
or some other cutting instrument." That description is brought to you from
the Amnesty International Web site.

It's cruel. It's grotesque.

But where is the audible gasping over what would happen to women right
here in the land of the free if abortion rights are lost? Mutilation
exacts the same toll, whether in a developing country or in New York, New
York.

Primitive Gender Politics

I know that many men are just as horrified by the attack on choice as I
am. But given the current domination of our political offices by men who
oppose choice, it's hard not to see a primitive form of gender
politics--even hatred--at work.

I took my concern to many female friends, and their reactions boiled down
to one word: "control." At this late date, there is still the overarching
need for the male to control the female, even if it means laying hands on
her most private of possessions.

Why should I be surprised? Women only achieved the right to vote 86 years
ago. Before the middle of the 19th century, the property rights of a U.S.
woman went to her husband upon her marriage. It wasn't until the years
between 1839 and 1895 that this tradition was gradually reversed by a
series of Women's Property Acts passed in each state. Yet right of
separate ownership of women's most "real" of individual real estate is now
under severe scrutiny once again.

We're advancing so far, we're coming full circle. I can't wait to see the
results when we attempt to reinvent fire.

When I was young, when both Roe v. Wade and I were in early bloom, there
were nights of passionate wrestling with my boyfriend in his VW bug.
Sixteen years old and as excited as he was, I knew myself, and knew I
wasn't ready. While his hands kept groping me, mine kept slapping them
away. When I was finally ready--and when it was entirely my choice--I
stopped slapping.

What I'd give to be able to slap those government hands away today.

To the boys who currently dominate Washington, here's a message from one
of the girls: It's my choice, not yours. You can legislate and adjudicate
till you drop, but you can't control me. Control yourself. Seriously.

[Kimberly Gadette is a humor writer based in Portland, Ore. Working on her
second novel, her columns and articles entail a deep dismemberment of
topics including politics, sex, pop culture, dating, male sports and dogs.
Currently juggling seven columns, she's been published over 60 times in
the last year in publications from the West Coast to the East, as well as
internationally.]

For more information:

"Why Dressing Up for Halloween Is Wearing Thin": -
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2503/

Copyright 2006 Women's eNews.

***

** International Women's Day **

Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)
American feminist leader and suffragist

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do
because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B.
Anthony.

In 1896, Susan B. Anthony stepped down from the chair and addressed
the National-American Woman Suffrage Association meeting when a
resolution was offered to repudiate Elizabeth Cady Stanton's "Woman's
Bible." Aunt Susan's impassioned appeal was directed more at religious
freedom and the rights of individuals.

"The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was
claimed to be the command of God."-Susan B. Anthony, from Rufus K.
Noyes, "Views of Religion," quoted from James A. Haught, ed., "2000
Years of Disbelief"

Source: Positive Atheism
http://www.positiveatheism.org

***

[March 8th is not only International Women's Day but also the anniversary
of the 1948 McCollum v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Today
we honor Vashti McCollum, the courageous woman who brought this 
important
case challenging government-sanctioned school prayer, resulting in a major
victory for separation of church and state, 58 years ago today. McCollum,
now in her nineties, is an honorary officer of the Freedom from Religion
Foundation. -NY Transfer]

Today in History - March 8, 2006

Anniversary of McCollum v. Board of Education Decision

Historic 1948 Supreme Court Decision on School Prayer

On this date in 1948, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision,
McCollum v. Board of Education, barring religious instruction in
public schools, was handed down, with a vote of 8 to 1. The dramatic
case was brought by Vashti McCollum, a mother in Champaign, Ill., on
behalf of her son, Jim.

In her enduring book about the challenge, "One Woman's Fight," Vashti
described how Jim was punished by teachers and teased by students for not
taking part in religious instruction illegally taught in his public
school. Although she lost at the first two court levels and was treated as
"a very unpopular woman," Vashti did not give up. Her appeal to the U.S.
Supreme Court resulted in a stunning victory for separation of church and
state, which is still the prevailing precedent in public school law today.

Vashti, who is now in her 90s, is an Honorary Officer of the Freedom
>From Religion Foundation.

"Separation means separation, not something less. Jefferson's metaphor in
describing the relation between Church and State speaks of a 'wall of
separation,' not a fine line easily overstepped. The public school is at
once the symbol of our democracy and the most pervasive means for
promoting our common destiny. In no activity of the State is it more vital
to keep out divisive forces than in its schools, to avoid confusing, not
to say fusing, what the Constitution sought to keep strictly apart. 'The
great American principle of eternal separation' -- Elihu Root's phrase
bears repetition -- is one of the vital reliances of our Constitutional
system for assuring unities among our people stronger than our
diversities. It is the Court's duty to enforce this principle in its full
integrity." -Justice Frankfurter, concurrence, McCollum v. Board of
Education, 333 U.S. 203, 212 (1948).

To read more, see "The Case Against School Prayer" at
http://www.ffrf.org/nontracts/schoolprayer.php

source: Freedom from Religion Foundation
http://www.ffrf.org


***

sent by Bill McGinnis - Mar 3, 2006

What If President Bush Is A Continuous Political Liar,
Who Cannot Stop And Cannot Help Himself?

And what if the Vice President is also suffering from this same problem
with the truth? What do we do then?

It is starting to look to me like both of them just automatically say
whatever they think they need to say in order to get what they want, all
of the time, whether what they say is true or not.

Here are some examples: These are the exact thoughts they deliberately
conveyed to us, expressed in my words, as shown below; then followed by
the truth, briefly stated.

"Nobody warned us before the 9/11 attacks that terrorists were getting
ready to strike inside the United States." Yes, they did.

"We did everything we could have done to prevent the 9/11 attacks, given
the information we had." No, you didn't.

"Nobody could have thought that terrorists might hijack some airplanes and
fly them it into buildings." Yes, they did.

"We know that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction!" No, you didn't.

"The people of Iraq will greet us as liberators. They will be dancing in
the streets and tossing flowers." No, they didn't.

"We are making good progress in Iraq." No, we aren't.

"The people of Iraq are yearning to be free." Yes, yearning to be free
from us, the invaders.

"We don't torture." Yes we do.

"All electronic surveillance inside our Country is done with a court
order." No, it isn't.

"The economy is strong, and getting stronger." No it's not. We're living
in a false prosperity, financed by huge deficits and foreign loans.

"The Constitution gives me authority to do whatever I think I need to do
in order to protect the American people, even if Congress has passed a law
against what I want to do." No, it doesn't.

"We haven't had any terrorist attacks since 9/11." They are waiting to get
all the parts smuggled into the Country, then assembled. It takes time.

"My Government has conducted a thorough investigation, and the Dubai Ports
deal poses no possible danger to our National Security." No, you didn't.
And yes, it does. And besides, it's not "your government," it's our
government. We have foolishly allowed you temporarily to serve as
President.

And the very latest and most obvious lie, captured on video tape for all
to see: "Nobody told me the levees in New Orleans were in danger of
breaking open and flooding." Yes, they did.

The lies go on and on, maybe forever if we let them.

And so we should all be asking ourselves: "How long are we going to
tolerate this? And why should any sane person permit these lies to
continue? And what can we do to make them stop?"


Blessings to you. May God help us all.

Rev. Bill McGinnis, Director - LoveAllPeople.org

http://www.loveallpeople.org


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