Daughter of No Comment -- June 2000

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The politicians continue to blather boringly, while issues important to women are still not being addressed. There is no commitment to make women's lives as free and equal as white men's have been since the founding of the Republic. We need to roll up our sleeves to make sure that every candidate knows what we want and that we want it NOW. In Jefferson's view, property was a precondition for happiness, and under this assumption most Americans were left out. Women did not qualify because they were barely allowed to own anything, and slaves, by definition, were forbidden to own even themselves. The happiness of women and slaves was considered inferior, rising only to the level of the frivolity of childhood. We need to remember that even today people in power everywhere assure themselves of the happiness of others (people with less power). So much for the power of assumptions. Remember what the word assume means. It makes an ass out of u and me. Germaine Greer, the Australian feminist author, is recovering after being attacked, bound and held captive in her home (in England) by a young female stalker. This young woman is one who does not get the message. The obstetrician, Allan Zarkin, 61, who carved his initials into Linda Gedz's abdomen after her C-section was sentenced to probation, had to give up his medical license and has to see a psychiatrist twice a week. He also settled her lawsuit for 1.75 million. Too bad peer review didn't find him first. On the other hand there is Dr. Dot Richardson, 38, who is both an orthopedic surgeon and an Olympic Gold Medalist in the 1996 U. S. Women's softball team. This California woman is gearing up to have another go at the gold. When she was 10 years old she was spotted by a Little League coach who asked her to tuck her hair under her cap, call herself Bob and enlist with his team. She declined and later in the day went to watch a practice session of a women's softball squad. She asked the coach if she could give it a try and was enlisted on the spot to play with women whose average age was 22. Her story needs to be told so it can be an inspiration to girls everywhere. The first appointment of a royal harpist since 1871 has gone to Catrin Finch who has been appointed harpist to Prince Charles (and soon Camilla?) Well, the Southern Baptists are at it again. The closed out the last century with a resolution that wives should submit to their husbands. Now they have started this century with a Faith and Message statement that says, While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by scripture..It goes on to state, The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God's creation. Too bad our government grants them the gift of tax exemption. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg North Carolina police record shows that an average of 153 women per year are raped at gunpoint. That's one woman every 2.3 days. And that is just the gun involved reported rapes in one state. Reader Kim B. sent this item. Boxer Riddick Bowe was sentenced to only 30 days for kidnaping his former wife and kids. The judge imposed this light sentence because he thought the boxer was brain damaged from his time in the boxing ring. Kim says it sounds like Bowe wasn't the only one brain damaged. Right on, and thanks. Daughter has reported on Vertebroplasty (injecting liquid cement into fractured vertebrae) and the news now is that it is being done in this country at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. It is the only treatment available for painful compression fractures other than extended bed rest. The study is being done by Dr. Gregg Zoarski who is the director of Diagnostic and Interventional Neuroradiology at the University of Maryland. It is done on an outpatient basis and 80% of the patients get significant pain relief. 10 million Americans have osteoporosis and the disease is blamed for 700,000 vertebral fractures annually. And it is largely preventable. Search firm Spencer Stuart studied about 100 internet related companies and found that only 3% of the new firm's directors were women. It also found that 25% of the directors were under 40. No wonder women are starting their own businesses in record numbers. A 54 year old administrative assistant at Quantum Chemical Corp., Cincinnati, who was replaced by a younger woman after being told she was chronologically challenged, was awarded $178,168 by a federal court in an age discrimination case. New language, same old crap. To a poor Indian family the birth of a girl is considered both a liability and she is also a traitor. Raising a daughter is like raising your neighbor's plant is a south Indian proverb because daughters switch loyalties when they move into their husbands family. Dowry money may take a whole year's income and leave nothing to buy the modern consumer goods that are expensively unavailable to a poor family. What to do with a girl baby is a problem usually solved by the midwife (usually a low caste woman) who has several different ways to murder the newborn. She can snap the baby's spine, shove rock salt down her throat or force her into a clay pot and seal it. Female infanticide is common, there is no penalty, and it explains the male-female ratio in India which is about 900 women to 1000 men. We condone this by traveling to exotic India, we buy goods made there and we do not sanction the Indian government for its lax attitude toward these murders. Women who want to keep their daughters are afraid they will be hurt or killed if they protest. (Wives are usually killed by burning as in Her sari caught on fire while she was in the kitchen). Women's and girls' denigration is institutionalized and cast in concrete for all the world to ignore. From the Federal Weekly...Violence Prevention Slated for all Marines....The Marine Corps' Mentors in Violence Prevention program will train marines to live core values of honor, courage, and commitment by helping other marines in situations which could lead to gender harassment, sexual assault or domestic violence. All Staff NCO Academy instructors are now qualifying as MVP trainers. Graduates will institutionalize the program throughout the Corps, said a spokesMAN. This wins the Better late than never award. Thanks to Connie and Emily. Your eyes are not deceiving you. Miss America is getting skinnier. Benjamin Caballero of the Johns Hopkins School of Public health has studied the pageant from 1922 to present and found the winners body mass (BMI) has declined significantly. Normal is a BMI of 20 to 25. The current crop of beauties fall in to category of undernutrition (BMI 17) researchers said. The obsession with thinness in contemporary society has been cited a as contributing factor for the increase in eating disorders, particularly in young women. The actual influence of pageant competitions on young women's decisions about diet and lifestyle is not well documented, but it is likely to have a strong, if indirect, effect. The media's body perfection craze really adds to the feeling one is never thin enough or beautiful enough. GOP Senator Sam Brownback (KS) is studying sex trafficking for slavery and prostitution and the path has led him right back here to Florida. Worldwide there are millions of women sold, traded and abused, killed, abandoned or who simply disappear without trace. But here in the U.S.? Poor women (mostly Hispanic) come here to work for minimum wage or less so they can send money back home only to find they have been transported to a brothel where they are told they have to work off the money that was spent to bring them here. (The smuggling fee) Girls trapped in this way are often treated like criminals themselves and do not have the right to sue their captors or get crime victims' benefits. Proposed legislation would provide for these needs and also allow them to stay in this country long enough to testify against the sex traffickers. Internationally the girls and women are often kept in slavery (forced prostitution ) until they get sick with AIDS and then they are sent back to their homelands to die. Our State Department does not monitor this activity and there is no sanction against foreign governments which encourage the sex trade by ignoring it. We need to pay attention where we spend out tourist dollars and to speak out every chance we get. Denigration of women affects all of us. Globalism must mean fair treatment for all women. Everywhere. As Maureen Bunyan said Without women's voices (in the media) women's stories cannot be told. Now who was it who said Never another season of silence??? Let us heed her words. Did you know that Rosa Parks and Betty Friedan were born on the same day? Natalie Angier, author of Woman: An Intimate Geography and self described female chauvinist sow describes studies on gender difference as such a mess they're like under the refrigerator: You don't want to know. She is a New York Times science writer who trashes the idea of females as sugar and spice and who places high on the garbage heap the sludge of biological determinism. She writes wonderfully and lets us see some hallowed truths from a wonderful new perspective. Kraft Foods is unusual among American corporations in that over half of the senior vice presidents are women and one has become the new president of Kraft Foods of North America, a unit of Phillip Morris. She is Betsy Holden, 44, who says What's exceptional about Kraft is how the company recognizes the power of a diverse work team and is truly dedicated to maximizing the potential of all employees. Will this make Jello and Philadelphia cream cheese the in feminist snack? Want to help girls age 9-14 get the tools they need to smooth the transition to adolescence? Check out the 4Grownups section of the Girl Power Web site at www.health.org/gpower .