The Miles Foundation, a private nonprofit organization that tracks sexual assault within the armed forces has been seeing  an upward trend in the number of reported cases of sexual assault in the military.

Sexual violence against women in the military is a horrific problem that is too often being glossed over by the mainstream media. In Salon, Benedict wrote an in-depth piece on this grave subject matter. Benedict is also working on a book dealing with the issue of sexual assault in the military; The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq is due to be published on April 2009.

The blog Jezebel brings attention to the story of Private First Class LaVena Johnson. Much evidence suggests that Johnson was raped, abused and murdered in Iraq. She was found with a broken nose, black eye, loose teeth, acid burns on her genitals (perhaps to eliminate DNA evidence of rape), and a bullet hold in her head. Despite this, the military has been insisting that Johnson’s death resulted from suicide, even though Johnson had no recorded history of depression or suicidal tendancies. Johnson’s father has been working for almost three years now to get someone to investigate the death of his daughter; but hasn’t had much success.

Johnson’s story is not an isolated one. If the public does not hold the military accountable to these acts of assault and neglect, we can only expect the issue to persist if not worsen.

Today, the New York Times breaks a disturbing story. According to the story, the CIA’s current interrogation methods were taken by verbatim from an Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners. So ironic, and too tragic.

The Times Reports:

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after reviewing the 1957 article that “every American would be shocked” by the origin of the training document.

“What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions,” Mr. Levin said. “People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don’t need false intelligence.”

Anna Grzebian is a LPGA tour member, and is part of the Wilhelmina 7.

They are being referred to as the “Wilhelmina 7” or the “W7”. Seven golfers from the LPGA are being dawned in bikinis, lingerie and evening gowns. The modeling agency Wilhelmina Artist Management is representing them, and working to seek sponsorship and endorsement deals for the women as a group and as individuals. But I don’t care to dwell too much on the W7. The sexualization and feminization of female athletes is nothing new, but the issue generates a number of viewpoints and controversies.

On one side, you have those in full favor of sexing up female athletes—they have hot bods, and it would be a disservice not to show them off. On the other hand, you have those in full opposition—it’s degrading, and these women are losing credibility as serious athletes. And you have some on the middle of the fence arguing that it’s the athlete’s individual choice, end of story.

Sure it’s an individual choice, and there is no reason to single out any individual athlete for their decision to pose or not to pose in lingerie. But there are many more female athletes than males choosing to market themselves and being marketed as both athletes and swim suit models, which suggests that this matter is more complex than one of free choice. It would be naïve not to acknowledge the gender disparities and double standard that is playing out not only in the “W7” case, but in the realm of sports in general.

I’m not saying that sexy is sexist; nor am I saying that bikinis, evening gowns and lingerie are symbols of women’s oppression. What I take issue with is the lack of media coverage sports women receive, and when they do get coverage the media too often sexualizes and objectifies their bodies. While male athletes receive attention primarily for their athletic ability and merit, female athletes have to demonstrate both athletic and supermodel abilities.

Photographs of male athletes often depict them in action, while females are more often shown in still poses, and wearing revealing outfits or nothing at all, according to The Boston Women’s Health Collective. Try google-ing images of Danika Patrick, Serena Williams or Venus Williams. According to sports media researcher Margaret Duncan, Sports Illustrated’s photographs of swimsuit models can hardly be differentiated from its photographs of female athletes—both are often positioned sexually and submissively.

It is not the amount of nudity itself that degrades female athletes; but the disproportionate emphasis on female athletes’ physical (and heterosexual) beauty rather than their athletic abilities and strength gives off the message that a woman’s physical appearance is of more value than her strength and abilities.

Gender disparities in sports are well and present, and go beyond the sexualized depiction of female athletes. But perhaps the root cause of it all is a societal discomfort with strong women, and a stubborn adherence to a gender binary. There seems to be such a panicky need to prove that female athletes, despite their strength and ability, are still 100% women and feminine.

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The exhibit features charity cookbooks from the mid-1800s to today. Charity cookbooks are cookbooks published and sold for the purpose of benefiting a certain philanthropic cause. Janice Longone, Curator of American Culinary History at the Clements Library, organized the exhibition. According to Longone, the first wave of the women’s movement was already active before mass media, communication, and transit via the most ordinary of objects—the lowly cookbook.

The above image is from the book Kritters of the Kitchen Kingdom and How to Make Them, a children’s how-to book published in 1922. On page 20, the “Militant Corn Ella Cob” is shown holding a sign that reads “Votes for women”.

This unique exhibition shows that the significance and practical purposes of cookbooks go far beyond teaching its readers how to prepare foods. Longone found that a common theme emerges from America’s collection of charity cookbooks. “Book after book told the hard work and joy of women bonding together to raise funds for a multitude of purposes”, Longone writes in the introduction to the exhibit.

Proceeds from a majority of charity cookbooks benefited churches, but very early on other societal and community problems were also addressed. The exhibition features cookbooks that were made to raise support and funds for the suffrage movement, the temperance movement, for the military during war time, and for women’s educational pursuits and career development.

The exhibition makes a convincing case that cookbooks are inseparable from politics. And it may precisely be the cookbook’s apolitical façade that made it an advantageous and effective political tool for women, according to Longone. Not only do they serve as warehouses of recipes, but the featured cookbooks are rich historical texts that gives today’s readers intimate glimpses of the lives of women—their conviction, anger, sense of humor, wit and political savvyness.

In these cookbooks you will find quotes, wry humor and in some causes song lyrics supporting political and altruistic causes interspersed between recipes. Some of the cookbooks have ads for academic tutors, women’s colleges and scholarship opportunities. Some have prologues that provide readers with some background on the particular issue at stake.

But no matter the charitable cause for which these cookbooks were raising funds for, they all collectively tell a story of “women helping women to help themselves, and then to help other women, which blossomed into women taking on the task of helping to solve other social ills,” Longone said. These charity cookbooks are products of women gathering together and employing the knowledge they already had to innovate new ways to get their views heard and their needs meant.

Though much has been written about the beginning of the women’s movement, there have been very few examinations of the role culinary matters and cookbooks played in that revolution. Whether or not you like to cook, The Old Girl Network is a rare exhibit that is guaranteed to intrigue.

The Old Girl Network: Charity Cookbooks and the Empowerment of Women
June 2—October 3, 2008
William Clements Library

For more information, call 734-764-2347 or email Janice Longone.

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The Washington Women’s Cookbook, published in 1909, is one of the first books featured in the exhibit. It is acclaimed as both a splendid cookbook and a milestone in the suffrage movement. It’s dedication is written out to “the first woman who realized that half of the human race were not getting a square deal…”. The book’s prologue gives a brief historical explanation of how the vote had been given to the women of Washington in 1883 through state legislation but then taken away three and a half years later. During the three and a half years Washington women were enfranchised, they came out to the voting booths in higher proportions than male voters.

The Woman Suffrage Cook Book was published in the 1890s.” It was among the first charity cookbook to be sold at suffrage-supporting fairs and bazaars. Within its pages are recipes from contributors such as Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth W. Stanton and Lucy Stone, all suffragettes. The book also contains this quote from John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the U.S.: “The correct principle is that women are not only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue when they enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their God.”

The Suffrage Cook Book was published in 1915 by The Equal Franchise Federation of Western Pennsylvania. The cover features Uncle Sam holding a balanced scale with a man sitting on side and a woman sitting on the other. The spokes of the wheel in the left corner contain the names of states and territories where women have won the vote. The spoke representing Illinois is broken, signifying that the women of Illinois only have the right to vote in school elections.

On the evening of June 19, over two-hundred residents of Washtenaw County filed into the First Congregational Church of Christ in Ypsilanti for a community meeting about recent federal raids on the local immigrant community. The event, organized by the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights (WICIR), was billed as a public discussion with representatives from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the division of the US Department of Homeland Security that has been conducting the raids. However, just minutes before the start of the forum, it was announced that the representatives from ICE had cancelled and would not be present.

The seats reserved for ICE agents Rebecca Adducci and Vincent Clausen remained empty during the community forum.

Anti Immigration Violence in Washtenaw County: Washtenaw County has become one of several US communities affected by a countrywide wave of government crackdowns on immigrants that began late last year. Since March, WICIR has reported 19 known cases of federal agents from ICE using tactics such as aggressive and in some instances, warrantless, home intrusion, detainment, and deportation against members of the Latino community, nationals from other countries, and even US citizens accused of being illegal immigrants in the greater Washtenaw area. At least one case, which took place on March 16 in Ypsilanti, involved the use of extreme violence by ICE when a Honduran resident was forcefully dragged from his home and injured in front of his wife and children. He presently awaits deportation.

WICIR coordinator, Laura Sanders, who paid visit to the man’s home shortly after the incident, said the entire house had been “ransacked” adding that there was blood on the floor and a hole punched in a door to the bathroom, where the victim’s wife and children were hiding during the raid.

While local ICE representatives deny charges that the agency has been using excessive force, their tactics are having undeniably adverse effects on the immigrant population of Washtenaw County, which has seen numerous individuals harmed psychologically, emotionally, and physically by raids, as well as entire families separated by detentions and deportations. The use of such harsh methods should leave residents of the area, and the US as a whole, asking fundamental questions about just how we want our government to be interacting with immigrants living in our country—documented or not.

A meeting deferred: The June 19^th forum was designed to provide concerned citizens and victims of recent ICE abuse with an opportunity to do just that. Months of work went into planning and organizing the event, during which, WICIR members were supposed to present ICE representatives with questions submitted by Washtenaw County residents via e-mail, but when ICE called to cancel roughly 24 hours before the discussion, the group reacted and the plan was changed.

WICIR coordinator, Margaret Harner, said that Rebecca Adducci, a representative from ICE’s Detention and Removal division who was supposed to be part of the discussion, first called her on the evening prior to the forum to tell her that ICE offices across the country were instructed not to send representatives to any speaking engagements on June 19^th . Adducci explained that the date coincided with the “Evening of a Thousand Conversations” campaign—a project aimed at encouraging citizens throughout the US to participate in dialogue on that night, about the Department of Homeland Security’s role in undermining the civil liberties and human rights of people in America, particularly immigrants. For Harner and the rest of WICIR, it was a very inconvenient time to break the news.

In a later phone conversation about rescheduling the meeting, Adducci told Harner that she and her colleague, Vincent Clausen (who was also supposed to be in attendance), would prefer to be provided with the discussion questions in advance and that they would be unwilling to attend a future forum until they first met with the leadership of the organization.

Harner said this might have been the actual reason for their absence stating, “ICE wants questions in advance and quite frankly, I think that’s why they didn’t come.” Still, one has to wonder why WICIR was not informed of these demands over a month ago when the event was first scheduled. Regardless, coordinators of the organization decided to move forward with the forum, minus ICE.

Sanders addressed attendees at the beginning of the meeting to let them know that their presence was the foremost priority, stating, “It would have been interesting to have ICE present but it is more important to have the community here for discussion of these issues.” Michael Beasley, WICIR member and moderator of the event, also commented on ICE’s decision saying, “They have removed themselves from an opportunity to speak to a public forum…it is worrying when a governmental agency decides it is not accountable to its citizens.” WICIR and those in attendance were left to demand explanations from an empty table, fitted with two placards for Adducci and Clausen, about why so many members of Washtenaw’s immigrant community–as in so many others across the country–are suffering at the hands of our government. (more…)

Happy Juneteenth! Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States! On June 19, 1865 Union soldiers landed at Galveson, Texas with news that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved were now free. This was two years after Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation which had become official January 1, 1863.

Juneteenth was made an official Michigan state holiday in 2004. Celebrations are taking place throughout the state. This evening, a commemoration ceremony will be held in Lansing at the Capitol Building. The Ann Arbor branch of the NAACP will be hosting a “Celebration of Freedom” this Saturday from noon to 6pm at Wheeler Park. The event is free, and will include performances by local musicians, a cake walk, children’s activities and food.

From www.Juneteenth.com:
From its Galveston, Texas origin in 1865 the observance of June 19th as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond.

Today Juneteenth commemorates African American freedom and emphasized education and achievement. It is a day, a week and in some areas a month marked with celebrations, guest speakers, picnics and family gatherings. It is a time for reflection and rejoicing. It is a time for assessment, self improvement and for planning the future. Its growing popularity signifies a levelof maturity and dignity in America long over due. In cities across the country, people of all races, nationalities, and religions are joining hands to truthfully acknowledge a period in our history that shaped and continues to influence our society today. Sensitized to the conditions and experiences of others, only then can we make significant and lasting improvements in our society.

For more information, and ideas for how to celebrate, go to www.juneteenth.com.

Envision Kenya was founded by Michigan alumna Annalisa Leibold and her sister Nikola Leibold after they traveled to Kenya last summer. Annalisa and Nikola were volunteers at the Olorien Primary School, a rural impoverished government school in the Kaijiado District of Kenya. The two were impressed, charmed and touched by the students at Olorien.

“These students succeed in learning despite the fact that classes are overcrowded and teachers are overworked…The students have a deep motivation to continue learning and often walk more than an hour each way to the school to take advantage of their free primary education,” Annalisa said.

During their month-long stay in Kenya, it became evident to Annalisa and Nikola that Kenya’s school system is in desperate need of repairs. “Many students cannot afford to continue their education past the eighth grade because secondary school in Kenya is too expensive for poorer members of the community,” Annalisa said, “Some of the brightest students at Olorien, for example, are HIV/AIDS orphans with little to no means of subsidizing their education.”

And so began Envision Kenya. The organization’s main focus is on providing tuition scholarship to students who could not otherwise afford to attend secondary school. While in Kenya, Annalisa and Nikola organized a committee composed of Alex Munyere, the headmistress of Olorien, teachers at Olorien, and some interested parents from the community to help determine which students would benefit most from the assistance, ensuring that the money raised would go to the neediest children.
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For more information, visit Envision Kenya’s website. To donate money to the Olorien Scholarship Project make checks payable to Staff of Hope, with “Envision Kenya” written on the memo line. Send checks to Staff of Hope, 3062 Lone Pine Road, Medford, OR 97504.

Photos courtesy of Envision Kenya.

One of the FAQs for Women’s Studies majors is, “Are there guys in your class?” Or some people don’t bother asking, and just assume that Women’s Studies is for women only. When I tell people, “Yeah, there are a good few men taking Women’s Studies classes—more in the entry levels, fewer in the upper levels.”, they often either don’t believe me or are baffled. One of the more memorable responses I have gotten was from a friend of mine who said, “Yeah, my roommate took a Women’s Studies class. He actually enjoyed it. He’s—you know—a pretty macho kind of guy. But after taking the class, he got more emotional and sentimental.” The remarks my friend made were not meant to be snide; they were sincere, and were made in attempt to be supportive of my interest in Women’s Studies. But his remarks reveal that he is ill informed about Women’s Studies, and he’s not the only one.

Women’s Studies carries a number of negative associations and stereotypes—it’s impractical, it’s a bitch fest, it’s not really academic, it’s a breeding ground for angry feminists, etc. It’s not that I take issue with criticisms of Women’s Studies; but rather with the fact that those who make these charges have never been to a single women’s studies class, glanced at a syllabus, or talked to someone who has taken women’s studies courses. Often times, the only basis for their critiques are their own biases; and when it comes to gender and sexuality, we have a lot of biases. Our strict adherence to an artificial gender binary has made us so unimaginative and dull that when a man takes a Women’s Studies course, our minds are baffled.

But there are many men who house some skepticism toward the common criticisms made against women’s and gender studies; and instead of dismissing that skepticism in exchange for a more absolute and perhaps more comfortable view, they decide to enroll in a Women’s Studies class. Indeed there has been a growing interest in Women’s Studies among men. An article in LSA magazine discusses this trend.

• Since 2002, of the 8,724 students taking Women’s Studies courses at UM, 1,124 were male.
• In the last 10 years, 10 out of 514 students earning undergraduae degress in Women’s Studies were male.
• In the last 10 years, 7 out of 111 UM students, earning Women’s Studies minors were male.

Feminist Men: No, its not an oxymoron. Men can be feminists too, and in fact many men do identify as feminists. Just take a peek at the facebook group “Feminist Men“.

The F-word, a feminist group at the University, launched the “I am a feminist” campaign last winter in an effort to show the different faces of feminism around campus. The group printed and distributed flyers that featured professors and students who identify with the feminist movement for varying and interrelated reasons. Many men were among those who were featured. See for yourself:
(Click for enlarged view)

Is that a reason to vote for her? No, of course not. So don’t get your underwear up in a bunch—there is no underlying “Vote for Clinton!” or “Boycott the election!” propaganda in this post. It is possible to be an Obama or McCain supporter and still admit to yourself that sexism infiltrates the media just as it infiltrates all of our public and private realms.

The Women’s Media Center (WMC) produced a short video “Sexism sells, but we’re not buying it”, which is made up of clips from sexist media moments during the primaries. It’s worth taking a look at. The WMC also started an online petition calling on all major news networks “to stop treating women as a joke; to stop using inherently gendered language as an insult or criticism; and to ensure that women’s voices are present and accounted for in the national political dialogue.

Despite overt sexism in the media, many reporters avoid referring to it as “overt” and many news networks deny it. The charge that sexism exists in the media is seen as exactly that—a charge, an opinion, especially one held by bitter and angry women (worst feminists). The New York Times refers to it as a “perception” increasingly expressed on “internet postings and in conversations among women”. Washington Post refers to it as a “sense” held by female Clinton supporters. But few reporters attempt to explore that perception, sense or opinion—to investigate its legitimacy, and why some women feel so strongly about this matter. Is it because it’s that time of the month? Is it just about identity politics? Is it because when ever they see the media taking a swing at Clinton they are reminded of deeply personal moments in their own lives when opportunities have been missed and dreams deferred all because of their gender? In this matter, reporters seem to be doing more assuming than questioning.

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Nicholas Kristof published an interesting opinion piece calling on Obama to make “the sex speech”.