Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
News
Seattle, WA was the recent site of a conference for people who are researching birth control options for men, including Vitamin A interceptors, a progestin shot, & an oral contraceptive that’s been proven reversible in monkeys.
Considering how hard it can be to get men to use a condom, which is otherwise simple & private & inexpensive to use, I’m not sure if they’re overshooting the goal.
& Of course, birth control still doesn’t protect against STDs – either the male or female forms.
If diversity itself wasn’t a worthwhile goal to some companies, maybe the better financial performance of a diverse board will motivate more companies to getting some women involved:
The study, which looked at three financial measures, found that companies with more women directors outperformed companies with fewer by 53 percent in return on equity, by 42 percent in return on sales, and by 66 percent in return on invested capital.
The study was done by Catalyst, a non-profit research organization whose goal is to expand business opportunities for women.
President Bush vetoed a bill that would include an additional 4 million more American children in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. It’s the 4th veto of his presidency, and nearly got the votes to override, but didn’t as a result of the House vote.
There will be an attempt, on 10/18, to try the override again. Female politicians were in favor 72%, with male politicians coming in at a bare majority of 51%.
from NCTE’s website:
Senate Passes Historic Hate Crimes Bill
The Hate Crimes Amendment to the Defense Authorization Act (S. 1105) was passed on a voice vote of the Senate today, September 27th. Immediately prior to the voice vote, a cloture vote to end debate of the Amendment was passed 60-39 with bipartisan support.This amendment was already passed on May 3rd in the House by a vote of 237-180.  NCTE is calling on President Bush to sign the bill with this historic provision included.
Mara Keisling, NCTE Executive Director, says, “While transgender people still have many obstacles to overcome, we are overjoyed that the hard work of so many people is coming to fruition.”
The Hate Crimes Amendment extends the federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability.
As it turns out, Oprah will be recording a new show about trans – in fact, two shows (again!). We did not, unfortunately, make it on this time either, as the shows are focused on families & children. From what I know, the first will be about families in which there are children who are trans, and the second will be focusing on families where a parent (or both) is trans.
Thus, not us. And while I could rant & rave about the legitimacy of our family, because we ARE one, dammit, even though we don’t have children, I won’t, as the producer we’ve spoken to has been quite lovely and the whole experience very pleasant & encouraging.
I don’t know when the shows are airing, but I assume in not too long.
Santhi Soundarajan, a female runner in India who was stripped of her Olympic medal has, perhaps, tried to commit suicide. She ingested pesticide but it’s not clear that she did so in a suicide attempt, and may have taken it for stomach pain. There are more details in an India Times article.
The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) announced she failed a sex test and implied Santhi had deceived the sporting world by competing as a woman when she was a man, effectively ending her career.
But Santhi, who returned home to live in humiliation, insisted along with her parents and coaches she had done nothing wrong. . .
Seven of the eight women who tested positive for Y chromosomes during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics had AIS. They were allowed to compete.
Because the International Olympics no longer do these tests, exactly in order to prevent this kind of outcome, and The Hindu reports that endocrine test results were probably not in when she was disqualified.
Forbes has just published their list of the Top 100 Most Powerful women. Among them, politicans and CEOs, a couple of Queens (of Jordan, & the UK), a judge (Ginsburg), a few anchors (Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric), and Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, activist and Nobel Peace laureate (who is probably my favorite woman on the list).
Interesting, though, to see “Chairman” so frequently after a name. I guess “Chairperson” just doesn’t trip off the tongue the same way.
The Larry Craig story just keeps going. Tucker Carlson, after saying that he & a friend roughed up a man who hit on him in a DC public bathroom, now says he & his friend only held the man until security arrived. He explains:
“Let me be clear about an incident I referred to on MSNBC last night: In the mid-1980s, while I was a high school student, a man physically grabbed me in a men’s room in Washington, DC. I yelled, pulled away from him and ran out of the room. Twenty-five minutes later, a friend of mine and I returned to the men’s room. The man was still there, presumably waiting to do to someone else what he had done to me. My friend and I seized the man and held him until a security guard arrived.”
“Several bloggers have characterized this is a sort of gay bashing. That’s absurd, and an insult to anybody who has fought back against an unsolicited sexual attack. I wasn’t angry with the man because he was gay. I was angry because he assaulted me.”
Not condoning the use of violence against anyone, much less gay men in public bathrooms (or the ‘not gay men looking for gay sex’ types like Larry Craig, even), but I do think it’s different when you’re not being hit on but assaulted, or when you’re not a peer to the person hitting on you but a minor.
Not that any of that makes Tucker Carlson any less of a bonehead.
The real kicker is that MSHA has made this ruling despite the fact that miners & their families can choose their own representation in a case like this, but because – THE MINERS HAVE TO SIGN THE REQUEST.
This is not a punchline. This is the actual federal ruling when it comes to the families of these miners, since at the time of the cave-in, the mine was not union, so these men were not union members. Had they lived & were able to sign the request, then the UMW could represent them.
As a result, area miners are considering going union again.
A recent working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) of India has posited that rural women in India, who tend not to be literate, learn a lot if they watch cable:
Women who were exposed to cable television over a 6- to 7-month period in India were less likely to report a preference for sons or complacency with domestic violence, and more likely to report autonomy in household decision-making, according to the working paper. In addition, more girls enrolled in school and fertility rates dropped.
But of course they’re talking about Indian television, not American, so let’s not send them Baywatch.