Housework

According to this article, (http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/06/17/housework.relationships/index.html) men are doing more than they used to. This article says that "in 1976, men did about six hours of housework per week; in 2005, that had increased to about 13 hours. Women, meanwhile, decreased their weekly housework from 26 hours in 1976 to 17 hours in 2005. Researchers based their conclusions on economic, health and social data collected on 8,000 American families since 1968".

However the article also states that there is a downside, "Now, the bad news: The same research found that men create, on average, seven more hours of housework a week for women. That extra work may not be as obvious as doing the dishes or mowing the lawn. So-called "emotional labor" -- tasks like writing holiday cards, scheduling doctor appointments and planning family gatherings -- is too often left to wives, says University of Michigan sociologist Pamela Smock."

Is our division of housework labor becoming more balanced? What do you think?

The main focus of this article is about housework and how it relates to sex, but I just figured that I would shift the focus just a little bit..

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/06/17/housework.relationships/index.html

Withdrawal as a Method of Contraception

Recently, an article was published in the journal Contraception about the effectiveness of withdrawal during sex as a birth control method. According to this study, written by Rachel K. Jones of the Guttmacher Institute, this method of birth control is not as ineffective as previously thought.

"The best available estimates indicate that with "perfect use," 4% of couples relying on withdrawal will become pregnant within a year, compared with 2% of couples relying on the male condom. More realistic estimates suggest that with "typical use," 18% of couples relying on withdrawal will become pregnant within a year, compared with 17% of those using the male condom. In other words, with either method, more than eight in 10 avoid pregnancy" (http://jezebel.com/5259554/can-we-stop-shaming-women-who-practice-withdrawal-now).

These statistics tell us that the difference in effectiveness between the two birth control methods, using a condom and withdrawal, are really not that large.

I am surprised to find this statistic out. Sure, of course I knew that women were not fertile all month long, so of course withdrawl could be effective at times. But what about if he has some pre-ejaculate? This has been a long standing question of mine.

According to Dr. Debby Herbenick (mysexprofessor.com), the chances of getting pregnant through pre-ejaculate is highly unlikely. On her website, Dr. Herbenick writes, "Pre-ejaculate itself doesn’t contain sperm (however, if a guy has recently ejaculated and not yet peed, then there is the chance that the pre-ejaculate could pick sperm up and carry them out of the body, which would be a pregnancy risk). However, assuming there are no sperm in a man’s urethra because he has recently peed after this last ejaculation, then there should be little to no risk of pregnancy occurring from pre-ejaculate which would make the withdrawal method - when used perfectly - a highly effective choice for pregnancy risk reduction.

I guess my next concern would be, what if he does it wrong? According to Dr. Herbenick, "Many men cannot control the timing of their ejaculation (about 20-25% of men come very quickly and with little control)" (www.mysexprofessor.com).

While this study is just about the effectiveness of withdrawal on pregnancy, I must admit that a big concern of mine when it comes to relying on withdrawal is about the transmission of STDs. This study asks health educators to talk about the effectiveness of withdrawal as a birth control method. Yes, it is great that it could be effective. Yes, I do support talking about this. And of course, there is no doubt in my mind that the conversation of STDs will be covered. But I also think that many teens and young adults place the chance of pregnancy as higher priority than the chance of getting an STD. I worry that many will use withdrawal with little hesitation and will show disregard for the chance of getting an STD. I cannot support this theory with any literature or statistics, but it is my belief that pregnancy prevention comes before STD prevention for a lot of adults. I base this off of personal experience with those who are close to me.

I guess you can say that I'm still skeptical. I don't expect there to be some sort of sexual revolution in which everyone just starts using pulling out as the one and only birth control method given this information. I just worry that effective or not, withdrawal is not necessarily a safe or healthy one.

R.I.P. Dr. George Tiller

Dr. Tiller was an inspirational and courageous man, and his death is a great loss for the many lives he has touched. I admire what he has done and his fearlessness in the face of opposition for a cause he believed in. His life, legacy, and work lives on through the many that have been touched and inspired through him.

Dr. Tiller's murder is disgusting to me. I don't understand how a person can claim to be "pro-life" and then actually take the life of another, a 67 year old man who was only practicing what he believed in and ensuring safe abortions for women. How is this man's life not significant to you?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/us/01tiller.html

This isn't a sole event. Not only was Dr. Tiller attacked once before, but there have been a series of attacks on those who provide late term abortions for years now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/31/recent-cases-of-abortionr_n_209528.html

"We dated abstinence, but we're marrying science"

Intimate Partner Violence

The whole Chris Brown beating Rihanna story may be yesterday's news, but violence against intimate partners is not. I don't believe that any man should hit a woman, or vice versa really. What makes me the most angry about this situation is the number of people who have said to me, "I wonder what she did to deserve it."

I never once thought about that before someone asked me. Probably because I know that often if someone hits a woman like that, he or she may have a temper streak that is not often warranted, or perhaps just learned from parental modelling. I suppose it is understandable to wonder why he was so angry, but I don't think it is okay to wonder "if she deserved it."

Does she have to have done something wrong? She could have been yelling and screaming, accusing and cussing, or even cheating and I would STILL say that she did not deserve to be hurt by her ANYONE, male or female, like that. Violence is not okay regardless of who does it.

It is my personal wish that Rihanna would speak out about her incident. I understand that now may not be the time, but I hope that one day she will be a positive role model for men and women who have been abused by family members and lovers.

- 65% of women physically assaulted by an intimate partner report having been assaulted multiple times by the same partner.
- Domestic violence is primarily a crime against women; however, men can be abused as well. In 2001, women accounted for 85% of the victims of intimate partner violence and men accounted for approximately 15%.² Gay men, lesbians, bisexual and transgender persons are just as likely as heterosexual women to be abused by their partner.
- Intimate partner violence affects people of all ages. Women 16 to 24 experience the highest rate of intimate partner violence; approximately one in five female high school students’ reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner. Nearly 6% of couples 60 and older experienced physical violence in their relationship within the past year, and of these, 40% reported the first violent incident occurred at least 25 years ago.

These statistics can be found at: http://www.ctcadv.org/WhatisDomesticViolence/MythsFacts/tabid/168/Default.aspx

-Mea

Equal Pay Day!

This is a topic that I can say I am VERY familiar with. My sophomore year of college, in 2005, I was told I had to write a paper on a policy and follow up on the transformation of it over the years. The typical feminist that I am, I decided to write my paper on the Equal Pay Act of 1963. This paper the next year would transform and expand to turn into my Research Methods paper on Discrimination Against Women in the Workforce, which proved to be a much harder paper to write due to a limited number of resources. The following year I followed up on previous papers with my thesis, which was on Discrimination Against Mothers in the Workforce. My thesis was not only the most challenging paper of the three because it had to be about 25 pages long, but mostly because of the lack of resources and published material on this topic.

When I told a relative that my thesis was on this topic, my relative responded with, "It must be a hard paper to write. Discrimination in the workforce doesn't really exist anymore. Women are equals and discrimination is illegal. That's the reason you can't find literature on it. It's not as prevelant as you thought."

I would love to say that he is correct, but I just can't. Discrimination does exist in many forms, the one that I'm most familiar with due to my research being that of equal pay. When I wrote my first paper in 2005, I recall noting that in 2004, women were paid nearly 77 cents to the dollar that every man makes. (http://www.pay-equity.org/info-time.html) As of this year, it is now a whopping 78 cents. Some improvement is always great, but I would also like to point out 2 things. 1)The wage gap has only closed 49 cents since 1963 and 2)It could always go back down again next year. Change is change, however it does not define permanence.

At this rate, the wage gap has closed less than 1 cent a year. This gap shows us that discrimination is living and well. The lack of literature on this topic and the assumption by others that women are considered to be complete equals because "discrimination is illegal" tell me that we still have a lot of work to do before a significant change can take place. The battle is not over. I can only hope that the initiative Obama has already taken and the initiatives that will take place in the next 4 years, along with the work of other men and women who care about this issue, can help us get closer to bridging this gap before another 46 years pass.

~Mea

Hi, My name is Mea and I am a Feminist

"I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute." ~Rebecca West

 

My parents say I was born a feminist.  From the time I was young, I always recognized and questioned the gender rules that were forced upon us as the “norms” of society. “Don’t sit with your legs open, it’s unladylike, “ my grandmother would say.  “Ladies always cross their legs at the ankles.” I’d stare down at my legs spread open, or even crossed underneath me “Indian style,” they way they taught us to sit in a circle at school. The boy sitting across from me in the doctor’s office didn’t have to cross his legs. I blinked in silence, questioning what it even meant to be ladylike and wondered, at the age of six, who decided that just because I was born a female, I had to sit a certain way.

 

So what is a feminist? I’m still trying to understand that myself. I’m proud of calling myself a feminist, and I love studying the history of feminism and hearing the empowering stories of feminists. Yet, I think it’s sad that I must label myself that way, as proud as I am to have that title. If women were truly seen as equals to men, women would not have to declare themselves or have others declare them as “feminists.” Or better yet, there would be a more well known and frequently used term for men who are in touch with their sexuality.

 

I remember my first day in Women Studies 101. It was sophomore year in my small conservative school. The first day of class, our professor asked us, “Raise your hand if you would call yourself a feminist.” It was as though her words fell upon deaf ears. A single hand did not raise that day. Somehow, we were all interested in taking this elective, yet none of us wanted to consider ourselves to be a “feminist.” That was too taboo.

 

I am a feminist. I am proud to say it. But for a long time, I would never dare to use that term to describe myself. I had always felt that women were treated as unequals, and yearned for the day (and still am) when I wouldn’t hear the words “you can’t because you are a girl.” I hated accepting that anything in life was not possible because of my sex. Yet, I believed in the stereotype that to be a woman, you must despise all men, and that men were the enemy.

 

This seemed to be the general consensus of the class. When asked why all twenty-five of us did not consider ourselves feminists, students started calling out “because I don’t hate men.”

 

I laugh at that thought now. I love men just as much as I love women. I now recognize that not all feminists are men-hating, or really any of the stereotypes that may be suggested of them. Just as being a “woman”  or a “man” has it’s own stereotypes, so does the word and the idea of being a “feminist.”

 

To me, a feminist is anyone, male or female, who loves and is proud of women enough to work towards an equal playing field. A feminist does not discriminate or accept the phrase “she can’t because she is a woman.” A feminist may not be standing on the corner holding signs at a rally, but he or she will do his or her own part to educate and inform others to not just accept, but change inequalities based on gender in this country. Even changing the mind of one other person, can make a difference.

 

The truth is, society must be changed as a whole to continue with this feminist movement. We do not have to start with men and change their outlook towards us. We do not have to consider them the enemy. Women need our help too. Many women do not even realized how marginalized they are in society because they have always accepted and never questioned the gender differences that were forced upon us from the day we were born. Males and females can be as equally sexist, or perhaps just equally blind to these unequal gender issues that lie before us.

 

I propose a change. Even if it means changing the mind of  your next door neighbor. America, I ask you to show us why we live in the land of “equality and justice for all.” Speak your mind. Don’t sit back and accept. Fight the fight, one man or woman at a time. Change will be ours tomorrow, but we have to work for it today. I ask you to rise, Feminists of America.

 

~Mea