tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18563872784516298922024-03-13T09:16:18.824-07:00FeministSourcesa collection of online sources about feminist topics for research and sharingAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-50007964827311925482013-09-05T14:03:00.001-07:002013-09-05T14:03:37.204-07:00Porn is no substitute for good sex education - LOUISE MCCUDDEN<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Accessed
5<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/porn-is-no-substitute-for-good-sex-education-8799429.html">http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/porn-is-no-substitute-for-good-sex-education-8799429.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/louise-mccudden"><i><span style="color: #fe521b; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase; text-underline: none;">LOUISE MCCUDDEN</span></i></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Thursday 5
September 2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #fe521b; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Porn is no substitute for good sex
education<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 4;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Girls are
learning their sexuality is something they perform for<br />
others, instead of something they own<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">A study by the
NSPCC has found that porn is negatively impacting young people – especially
girls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 6.85pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">The study found that nearly a third of pupils (aged 11-18)
surveyed said porn “dictates how people should behave in a relationship,” and
32 per cent said it “affects how they act” with their partner. But the
most troublesome finding is summarised by the NSPCC’s Claire Lilley, who warns
porn is teaching “boys that girls are for sexual gratification, whilst girls
feel they have to look and perform like ‘porn stars’ to be liked and valued by
boys.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">As people
react to the study, the focus, as usual, ends up being on porn itself (“Can
porn be<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/you-can-be-a-feminist-and-a-sex-worker-8744176.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #009ab4; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">feminist</span></a>?” “Why are we so squeamish about porn?” “I like<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/porn-is-about-fantasy-sex--and-the-truth-is-that-some-women-have-rape-fantasies-but-this-is-very-different-from-the-real-thing-8727971.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #009ab4; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">porn</span></a>and I’m a good person!”), but the porn debate isn’t the
point. The point, according to this study, is that because of whatever porn
they<span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><em>are</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>watching, too many girls are learning
sex is about impressing boys – as opposed to, say, having a good orgasm. Girls
are learning their sexuality is something they perform for others, instead of
something they own. They are learning that sex is about being an object, not an
agent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Feminists get asked about objectification a lot. Or to put it
more accurately, we get a lot of sneering assertions that objectification
doesn’t exist, usually in the same breath as unashamed ignorance about what the
word actually means.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 6.85pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Porn isn’t new but young people having this level of access to
it is, and the line between porn and other media has become so blurred it isn’t
always clear to adults, let alone kids, which is which. Porn and the pornified
entertainment industry are taking the place of informed sex and relationship
education.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">The NSPCC
survey found young people are three times more likely to seek out their sexual
education online than to ask questions of their teachers, parents, or carers.
How curious that the people who call us prudes or sex-haters for questioning
whether a sex education that consists of face-spunking and songs about bubble
butts really gives the healthiest understanding of sexual consent are so often
the same people to reach for the smelling salts when we suggest the radical
idea that parents make sure they<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="color: #009ab4; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/05/06/lets-talk-about-sex-baby/" target="_blank">discuss sex</a> </span>properly with their own kids. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 6.85pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Of course, not all parents will, which is why all this needs to
be part of the school curriculum, too. And by “all this” I mean SRE that
includes not just saying yes and saying no, but also hearing and accepting both
yes and no, without judgment. SRE that includes enthusiastic consent, pleasure,
and the importance of the clitoris. Again, there may or may not be porn like
that. But that’s not what young people are watching, and it’s not the message
they’re taking from what they do watch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">This survey by
NSPCC – a children’s charity, by the way, with no particular axe to grind
against porn in general - shows that young people are learning objectification.
Objectification isn’t about sex or nudity. The difference between being an
object and an agent is the difference between Robin Thicke’s <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/feminist-parody-of-robin-thickes-blurred-lines-removed-from-youtube-for-being-inappropriate-8795998.html"><span style="color: #009ab4; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Blurred Lines
video</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://vimeo.com/70304632"><span style="color: #009ab4; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Ask First
(Consent is Sexy)</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>riposte.
Objectification isn’t actually a tough concept. You know what an object is.
Perhaps you are one of these people who thinks it’s about wanting women to be
chaste or cover up? That inability to distinguish between a culture that nearly
always shows women posing for you to look at, and a culture that embraces women
expressing our own sexualities perfectly exemplifies the mess we’re in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 6.85pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Before you leap into the “porn debate” to talk about how the
only alternative to mainstream, repeated conflation of sex with objectification
is covering women from head to toe and calling us sluts, remember that the
NSPCC didn’t find girls are becoming more sexually liberated, or enjoying more
sexual pleasure. They didn’t find that girls are no longer shamed as “sluts”
because porn broadens everyone’s minds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">They found
that girls “feel they have to look and act like porn stars”, for the pleasure
of boys. In fact, if anything, the consumers of porn, lads’ mags and strip
clubs are often the worst offenders for calling women “sluts” and “whores”. If
that surprises you, it shouldn’t –after all, “slut” is just the other side of the
same sexist coin that calls women “frigid” or “prude”. And if young people pick
up the message that there’s an automatic correlation between consuming<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/forget-morals-its-the-stupidity-of-those-pornwatching-mps-that-should-worry-us-8798170.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #009ab4; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">porn</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and taking
a progressive attitude to sex, if young people get the impression that sexism
and objectification are an essential, normal part of sex, that’s not surprising
either. They’re getting those ideas directly from us.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comUnited Kingdom55.378051 -3.4359729999999912.202562 -86.05316049999999 90 79.18121450000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-4948636173408367412013-09-04T12:13:00.000-07:002013-09-04T12:13:04.201-07:00The truth about pornography: It's time for a rude awakening - ARCHIE BLAND <h1 style="margin-bottom: 2.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Accessed 4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: 2.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-truth-about-pornography-its-time-for-a-rude-awakening-8735043.html">http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-truth-about-pornography-its-time-for-a-rude-awakening-8735043.html</a><span style="color: #333333; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: 2.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="color: #333333; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></h1>
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The truth about pornography: It's time for a rude awakening</span></h4>
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<span style="color: #868686;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Not everyone
who is interested in sexual images wants to see violence. But, since that's now
the norm, how can we shame ourselves out of this?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #6a748d; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/archie-bland" style="outline: none;"><span class="authorname"><b><span style="color: #005689; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="outline: none;">ARCHIE BLAND</span></span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="color: #005689; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span></b></span></a></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #6a748d; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">SUNDAY 28 JULY 2013<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">This
is a piece about how pornography is like a plastic bag. It is also a piece
about the fact that I watch pornography. The first of these statements may seem
surprising. The second absolutely should not.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div style="margin-top: 0cm; outline: none;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #333333;"></span>More precisely: to make the
second statement may be relatively unusual. But if I gave you my particulars –
29 years old, male, with a reliable internet connection and a working
knowledge, gleaned as a teenager, of my browser's "delete history"
facility – you could have guessed the underlying detail with a high degree of
confidence. I suppose it's possible that I'm an outlier, exposing myself as a
total creep by saying this, but I don't think so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">We know that men watching pornography at least occasionally is
an absolute given among my peers, who are, I like to think, at the relatively
well-adjusted end of the spectrum. In the course of writing this piece I've
checked with at least 10 of them, and they all agreed that the same could be
said about their friends outside of my own circle. (Sorry, guys.) A Twitter and
Facebook trawl of about 45,000 people also turned up a vanishingly small number
of men – six – who never watched porn. The tone of several exchanges I had on
the subject made it clear that those few conceived of their habits as being in
sharp opposition to the mainstream.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">These are frustratingly unscientific methods of assessment,
partly enforced by the relative paucity of data on the subject, itself the
consequence of our embarrassment. Still, there are some pointers available. On
Friday, a traffic analysis found that British people click on porn sites more
than they do on social networks. A 2008 study found that 86 per cent of young
adult men watch porn, 69 per cent at least once a month. And when, a year
later, the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype>
of <st1:placename w:st="on">Montreal</st1:placename></st1:place> tried to
conduct a study into the views of men who never watched porn, it failed to find
a single candidate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The truth is, even the necessity of doing this sort of
groundwork feels a little ridiculous. It seems to me uncontroversial to say, as
an absolute minimum, that it is not unusual for men to watch porn. If you were
feeling just a little bolder you could surmise that, in fact, a significant
majority of men watch porn; that quite a lot of women do, too; and that, among
young adults, exposure is nearly universal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Now the Government is trying to catch up. Last week, David
Cameron announced that the major internet service providers had agreed to the
introduction of "default-on" porn filters. The months-long debate
leading up to that step has felt like a significant moment in the collective understanding
of how profoundly our relationship with pornography has changed since
high-speed internet became the norm. Apparently, a lot of people who grew up
having no option but grot mags at the newsagent have had a nasty shock. They
are only now discovering, mostly second-hand or by searching for "sex
video internet" on Google, just how accessible, varied and repugnant this
stuff can be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">And yet, many speeches and gallons of ink later, we don't seem
to have got very much further than the principles that children shouldn't see
pornography, and no one should see images of child abuse. We can't even agree
on whose responsibility it is to enforce these axioms, on whether it's
technically possible, or on whether The Sun should be subjected to the same
rules as YouPorn. We certainly haven't managed a mature conversation about what
sort of moral framework we want to apply to pornography. To me, the explanation
for this seems obvious. Everyone is willing to say: pornography is everywhere.
Almost no one is willing to say: and I have seen some of it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">So, um, yes. I have seen some of it. I don't say so with any
sense of pride. Also, in the interests of preserving at least a wisp of
dignity, I should like to add that it's not, y'know, a hobby. Even so, I guess
I know more about it than most of the wide-eyed ingénues who have formed such
strong opinions about its impact of late. This is why it seems worth
mentioning. In most areas of controversy, the views of the ignorant are at
least occasionally balanced by plaintive corrections from the better-informed;
in this one, the ignorant, or pseudo-ignorant, have the field almost unopposed.
With a very few exceptions (such as the New Statesman's Laurie Penny), no one
says, well, you haven't got that quite right, because to do so reveals greater
familiarity than we are generally willing to admit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">That squeamishness about detail isn't merely a matter of
sociological interest. It has real consequences. It means that the argument
about pornography becomes binary: on or off, consensual or exploitative,
arousing or repellent. And then, because most of us are instinctively opposed
to censorship, we sigh that it's a fact of life, and we just have to put up
with all of it. Consider Cameron's speech last week, which featured, among the easy
(and, it turned out, ill-considered) applause lines about child protection,
only one moment of engagement with the granular detail of porn, in his vow that
depictions of rape would be banned – as if there were anything bold or
controversial about the idea that videos which normalise so reprehensible a
crime should be beyond the pale.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Because he is a politician, and has therefore never seen any
pornography ever at all ever, that's about as far as Cameron can go. Probably
that's for the best: the really important debates about pornography should not
be about legal principles, but ethical ones. Here's where my – oh, God, there's
no other word for it – expertise comes in. I can tell you, for example, that if
you're interested in watching two people having sex (and see no moral problem
in that interest) but not so interested in watching women being treated badly,
your options are pretty limited. I can tell you that it is quite common to have
18-year-old girls dressed up in school uniform and filmed in a classroom. I can
tell you that condoms are rarely sighted, and that performers in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> – who will
simply not get work if they insist on them being used – have contracted serious
illnesses as a result.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">There is lots more of this detail, but it only gets more specific,
and you probably don't want to read about it over your breakfast. Still, it's
enormously important. A few years ago, I interviewed The Sun's agony aunt
Deidre Sanders, who told me that the biggest change in the make-up of her
postbag since she took up the role in 1980 was the precipitous growth in
letters from men and women whose relationships had been affected by
pornography. I feel pretty confident that I have always been able to keep
fantasy and reality distinct, but there will certainly be some people for whom
that is not true, and, even if these default-on porn filters delay children's
exposure a little, there will certainly be more of them in future. One study
found that 90 per cent of content on the most popular porn sites featured
physical or verbal abuse against women, and you don't have to be Mary
Whitehouse to find that concerning. We need to do something about it, and since
we are not going to outlaw pornography altogether, we need to figure out what
that might be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Here's one suggestion. In my own consumption of porn, I have
always tried to avoid those tropes that I find unsettling. But in the writing
of this piece, I have realised that I am not careful enough. I avoid the
misogynist video, but I may be careless about avoiding the site that hosts it;
I feel bad about the unprotected sex, but I don't bother going to the great
lengths it would require to find the alternative. I am really ashamed about
this, and I'm going to take a great deal more care in future. The source of my
shame, straightforwardly enough, is not some new-found moral clarity, but the
fact that you are now reading this, and so my behaviour has been exposed. For
me, at least, the use of pornography has become a semi-public fact.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">In isolation, this doesn't mean very much, except that everyone
I know is going to laugh at me for a while. More widely, it might mean quite a
lot. What if we ditched the stigma carried by pornography in general, and
instead attached it, loudly, to the pornography that we consider to be
unacceptable? We have seen this principle applied in so many other areas.
People are, basically, too lazy to make ethical choices. The only way to get us
to do so is to incentivise us with a little bit of shame.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Think of battery farms, of sweat-shop clothes, of – yes – the
fight against plastic bags. Pornography is not immune from the behavioural
economics that shifted all those battles. If enough people said they sometimes
watched porn, and also said that they hated the misogyny that accompanies it,
some entrepreneurial spirit would surely intervene. And if there was a porn
site that promised me I could surf it without any risk of coming across
anything I needed to worry about (there are some out there, but none has
reached critical mass), I would visit it exclusively, with enormous gratitude
to its creators for taking the effort out of doing the right thing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="outline: none;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">It is, I suppose, a call for a wanker's code: a contention that
being interested in sex is not the same thing as being interested in violent
misogyny, and an appeal for a proper conversation about splitting the one off
from the other. Because, yes, we are wankers. But that doesn't mean we have to
be shitheads.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comLondon, UK51.511213899999987 -0.1198243999999704151.511213899999987 -0.11982439999997041 51.511213899999987 -0.11982439999997041tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-7137772056259985232013-09-04T11:50:00.001-07:002013-09-04T11:50:33.746-07:00The man who made Femen: New film outs Victor Svyatski as the mastermind behind the protest group and its breast-baring stunts - GEOFFREY MACNAB<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Accessed 4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/the-man-who-made-femen-new-film-outs-victor-svyatski-as-the-mastermind-behind-the-protest-group-and-its-breastbaring-stunts-8797042.html">http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/the-man-who-made-femen-new-film-outs-victor-svyatski-as-the-mastermind-behind-the-protest-group-and-its-breastbaring-stunts-8797042.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">The man who made Femen: New film outs Victor Svyatski as
the mastermind behind the protest group and its breast-baring stunts</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"> </span></span></h4>
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<span style="color: #6a748d; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/search/simple.do?destinationSectionUniqueName=search&publicationName=ind&pageLength=5&startDay=1&startMonth=1&startYear=2010&useSectionFilter=true&useHideArticle=true&searchString=byline_text:(%22Geoffrey%20Macnab%22)&displaySearchString=Geoffrey%20Macnab"><span class="authorname"><b><span style="color: #005689; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">GEOFFREY MACNAB</span></b></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #6a748d; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-transform: uppercase;">TUESDAY 03
SEPTEMBER 2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">It’s the
Ukranian feminist group that embarrassed President Putin. Its activists have
staged many protests against sexual and political repression by stripping to
their waists in carefully choreographed media stunts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">“Our mission
is protest, our weapons are bare breasts,” runs their slogan. Now, a new
documentary screening at the Venice Film Festival has revealed that Femen was
founded and is controlled by a man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Ukraine is not
a Brothel</span></em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">, directed by 28-year-old Australian film-maker Kitty Green, has
“outed” Victor Svyatski as the mastermind behind the group. Mr Syvatski is
known as a “consultant” to the movement. According to the Femen website, he was
badly beaten up by the secret services in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:place></st1:country-region> earlier this summer because
of his activities on behalf of the group.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">However, Ms
Green reveals that Svyatski is not simply a supporter of Femen but its founder
and éminence grise. “It’s his movement and he hand-picked the girls. He
hand-picked the prettiest girls because the prettiest girls sell more papers.
The prettiest girls get on the front page... that became their image, that
became the way they sold the brand,” she says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Today, several
of the original members of Femen – among them its best known campaigner Inna
Shevchenko – are due in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Venice</st1:place></st1:city>
for the launch of Ms Green’s documentary. In recent days some of its original
members have moved abroad to escape persecution in their home country, claiming
that they have been “systematically harassed, severely beaten, kidnapped, and
repeatedly received threats” from the authorities, while in June two French and
one German member were jailed following a topless protest in Tunisia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Until now, the
full extent of Mr Svyatski’s influence over Femen has not been realised. The
film claims it was he who sent Femen activists on one of their most terrifying
missions to Belarus where (according to testimony in the film) they were
arrested by secret service agents, stripped, humiliated and abandoned in a
forest close to the Ukranian border.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Ms Green
accompanied them on this trip. She told<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em>The Independent</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that her footage was stolen by the KGB
and that she was abducted, “kept in confinement for about eight hours,” and
then deported to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lithuania</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">In the
documentary, Ms Green pays tribute to Mr Svyatski’s organisational abilities
and charisma but questions his influence over the group.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">“He can be
really horrible but he is fiercely intelligent,” she said of Mr Svyatski, who
is interviewed on camera in her film. Ms Green spent a year living in a tiny
apartment in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kiev</st1:place></st1:city>
with four of the Femen members and filming their stunts. “I would shoot their
protests and they would take them and put them on their website,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Only gradually
did she become aware that Mr Svyatski was pulling the strings behind the
scenes. “Once I was in the inner circle, you can’t not know him. He is Femen.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"> Initially,
Mr Svyatski refused to allow Ms Green to film him but she was determined that
he should feature. “It was a big moral thing for me because I realised how this
organisation was run. He was quite horrible with the girls. He would scream at
them and call them bitches.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">When the Femen
founder finally spoke to Ms Green, he sought to justify his role within the
organisation and acknowledged the paradox of being a “patriarch” running
a feminist protest group. “These girls are weak,” he says in the film.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">“They don’t
have the strength of character. They don’t even have the desire to be strong.
Instead, they show submissiveness, spinelessness, lack of punctuality, and many
other factors which prevent them from becoming political activists. These are
qualities which it was essential to teach them.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Mr Svyatski
insists to Ms Green that his influence on the group is positive. However, when
he is asked directly whether he started Femen “to get girls”, he replies:
“Perhaps yes, somewhere in my deep subconscious.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">One of the
Femen campaigners talks of the relationship between the women and the
movement’s founder as being akin to “Stockholm syndrome”, in which hostages
feel sympathy for their captors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">“We are
psychologically dependent on him and even if we know and understand that we
could do this by ourselves without his help, it’s psychological dependence,”
she says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comVenice, Italy45.4408474 12.31551509999997145.4408474 12.315515099999971 45.4408474 12.315515099999971tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-45859214253336488302013-09-04T11:42:00.003-07:002013-09-04T11:42:57.932-07:00Yaz, Yasmin birth control pills suspected in 23 deaths - CBC News<h1 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Accessed 4<sup>th</sup> September 2013<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/06/11/birth-control-pills-yaz-yasmin.html">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/06/11/birth-control-pills-yaz-yasmin.html</a></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><span style="color: orange;">Yaz, Yasmin birth control pills
suspected in 23 deaths</span></span></h4>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Most died from blood clots, Health <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>
documents obtained by CBC News show<o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<h5 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 2.75pt; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/credit.html"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #115278; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">CBC News</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></h5>
<h4 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Posted: Jun 11,
2013 5:51 AM PT<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Last Updated: Jun 11,
2013 7:45 AM PT<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></h4>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">At least 23 Canadian women who were
taking two of the most commonly prescribed birth control pills in the world
have died, CBC News has learned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">According to documents obtained from
Health <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
doctors and pharmacists say Yaz and Yasmin are suspected in the deaths of the
women, who mostly died suddenly from blood clots.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">One of the women, 18-year-old Miranda
Scott, was working out on an elliptical machine at the Okanagan gym at the
University of British Columbia when she collapsed and died three years ago, said
her mother, Chip McClaughry, who is involved in a class-action lawsuit against
Bayer, the maker of the birth-control pills.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">'When she
was on the ground she said, "I can't breathe," and then, you know,
she was gone.'</span></strong><em><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #565656; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">—Chip
McClaughry, Miranda Scott's mother</span></em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"She fell backwards into the
person behind her and then, I guess, when she was on the ground she said, 'I
can't breathe,' and then, you know, she was gone," McClaughry said at her
home in Delta, B.C.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">McClaughry had no idea what had
happened to her athletic, healthy young daughter, but she started to
investigate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"As soon as I heard that she had
been on Yasmin, I thought, 'I'm just going to look that up,' and I did, and I
thought: 'Oh my God, this is what's killed her," she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">Risk of blood clots
rises<o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">According to Scott's autopsy, she
died of "disseminated intravascular coagulation," which means that
blood clots formed inside blood vessels throughout her body.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Matthew Baer, of the Siskinds law
firm, represents hundreds of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2011/11/25/yasmin-mersereau-suit.html"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #115278; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Ontario women in a
certified class-action lawsuit against Bayer</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that alleges Yaz and Yasmin have an
increased risk of serious side-effects, including blood clots.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<em><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #565656; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">report
concluded she had died after blood clots formed throughout her body, a
complication sometimes reported with birth control hormones.</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #565656; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span><em><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #565656; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">(CBC)</span></em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"[Scott's] autopsy report did
say that there was a pulmonary embolism, which again is a blood clot in the
lung," he said. "The major side-effect that we're alleging is worse
with Yasmin than with the other oral contraceptives, [which] is an increase of
blood clots."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Certification of the class action is
not a finding of fault against Bayer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">While Bayer has already paid more
than $1 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>, the drug
company tells CBC News it stands by its products.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Both Yaz and Yasmin, which are
sometimes called "newer-generation" birth control pills, includes a
synthetic progestin, drospirenone, which is exclusive to Bayer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">Teen girls as young
as 14<o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In 2011, Health <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region> issued a
warning about Yaz and Yasmin, saying the risk of blood clots, which is rare
overall, is 1.5 to 3 times higher with the drospirenone-containing pills than
with some other birth control pills.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">While one in 10,000 women on older
birth control pills will develop blood clots, as many as three in 10,000 will
develop blood clots on Yaz or Yasmin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">According to the documents obtained
from Health <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
between 2007 and February 2013, doctors and pharmacists have reported 600
adverse reactions and 23 deaths where Yaz or Yasmin were suspected. More than
half of the reported deaths were women under 26, with the youngest age 14.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Most of the deaths reported occurred
soon after starting the pills. In Scott's case, it was just over a month.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"And that was all it took, five
weeks start to finish, and that was the end of a beautiful, beautiful
girl," her mother said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">Lawyer says deaths
underreported<o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Tony Merchant, a lawyer representing
1,000 women outside <st1:state w:st="on">Ontario</st1:state> — including Scott
— is seeking to certify a second class-action lawsuit in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region> against
Bayer this fall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">'There are
about thirty or forty deaths that we think are known, but that is usually just
the tip of the iceberg.'</span></strong><em><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #565656; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">—Tony Merchant, class action lawyer</span></em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Merchant said the number of deaths
potentially associated with Yasmin or Yaz may be largely underreported because
doctors may not realize there is a link between the cause of death and the
risks of the pills.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"There are about 30 or 40 deaths
that we think are known, but that is usually just the tip of the iceberg
because all sorts of people will have died.... [Their families] don't know
anything about the litigation, they don't know anything about the
problem," he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Merchant said hundreds of patients
who have approached his firm have had gallbladders removed, or have had strokes
or blood clots and now must take blood thinners for the rest of their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">None of the allegations has been
proven in court.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">Bayer stands by
Yasmin, Yaz<o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In a written statement to CBC News,
Bayer said it is fighting the certification of the first Canadian class-action
suit, the one in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ontario</st1:place></st1:state>,
which alleges women died or were injured by Yaz and Yasmin:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"We are very disappointed in
Justice Crane's decision to certify a class in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ontario</st1:place></st1:state> in an ongoing lawsuit regarding Yaz
and Yasmin. No decision has been made on the merits of the case. We have filed
a request with the Court for leave to appeal the decision and are evaluating
our legal options... At Bayer patient safety comes first and we fully stand
behind, Yaz and Yasmin."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Bayer is scheduled to appear in court
in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ontario</st1:place></st1:state> on
Sept. 4.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comOntario, Canada51.253775 -85.32321389999998551.253775 -85.323213899999985 51.253775 -85.323213899999985tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-21659449603562890522013-09-04T11:07:00.004-07:002013-09-04T11:07:57.299-07:00Vasily Petrenko, says women distract orchestras. A mezzo-soprano disagrees. By Sarah Connolly<h1 style="background: white; line-height: 13.9pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #1e1e1e; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal;">Accessed 4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="background: white; line-height: 13.9pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/10283699/Flustered-by-our-sexual-energy-Just-keep-your-eyes-on-the-score.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/10283699/Flustered-by-our-sexual-energy-Just-keep-your-eyes-on-the-score.html</a></span><span style="color: #1e1e1e; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h4>
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><span style="color: orange;">Flustered by our sexual energy? Just keep your eyes on the score</span></span></h4>
<h2 style="background: white; line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal;">Vasily Petrenko, principal conductor of the National Youth Orchestra
and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, says women distract orchestras. A mezzo-soprano
disagrees.<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="bylinebody" style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">By<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Sarah Connolly<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">We should be celebrating that on Saturday night, Marin Alsop
will conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the Last Night of the Proms, the
first time in the event’s 118-year history that a woman will have held the
baton on this prestigious occasion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Instead, women – and men – throughout the classical music world
are talking about female conductors for quite a different reason. Like me, they
will be shaking their heads with disbelief and embarrassment following the
statements made in an interview last week by Vasily Petrenko, principal
conductor of the National Youth Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">For it has emerged that Petrenko believes women are far too
distracting to stand on the podium. We’re too “cute” to be conductors, creating
too much “sexual energy” among the male members of the pit. We are Delilahs to
the Samsons in the strings, Salome in her seven veils dancing before the Herods
in the brass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Good grief! In Petrenko’s opinion, it seems every performance is
like Carry on Conducting, with Sid James, dressed in black tie, ignoring his
snare drums to gawp at Barbara Windsor giggling over her baton. It is pathetic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Having stood in front of orchestras as a mezzo-soprano for 20
years, I can honestly say I have never felt judged like that. No musician, male
or female, would want to be evaluated for their looks. We are, as we expect,
judged on the sound we produce.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">How appalling that any woman performer who perfects her art with
hours of daily practice should find the critical judgment of her colleagues
reduced to what she looks like on the night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">When I sing, it is to the very best of my ability; I engage with
the orchestra; I perform. I simply can’t imagine any of the male performers
hoping I get booked because of my looks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The most attention my appearance ever attracted was at the Last
Night of the Proms four years ago, when I led the Rule, Britannia! finale
dressed in an admiral’s uniform. Wearing trousers on stage is not unusual for
me – I wore them in a competition when I was younger and, when told I ought to
have worn a skirt, I replied: “Whatever for?” In the end, nobody cared. My
voice, my music, was enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">So I can’t believe that sexist comments such as Petrenko’s are
still in circulation today. Particularly irritating is his remark that: “When
women have families, it becomes difficult to be as dedicated as is demanded in
the [classical music] business.” As a mother, I know that my career has not
been impeded or my commitment lessened at all; why should it? The decision to
have children is up to the woman and her partner. No one else has any right to
discuss it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Yet Petrenko’s remarks are not useless. They highlight the lack
of women conductors. While most orchestras are now 50:50, there are still not enough
women on the podium. It takes a lot of confidence, personality and charisma to
conduct, and more than just determination. You have to earn the respect of an
orchestra and its members. Technique can be learnt, but few also have the
ability truly to draw out the poetry from the score.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">And women do make great conductors. Marin Alsop, principal
conductor of the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, Jane Glover, artistic
director of opera at the Royal Academy of Music, and Sian Edwards, former music
director of English National Opera, all work hard at being role models for
younger women interested in taking up the baton. I know they would be horrified
by Petrenko’s remarks. But his words were insulting not just to women. What is
he saying about the men in the orchestra? Does he really think experienced
musicians are going to lose focus during an intense performance of Mahler, say,
just because the conductor is “cute”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Perhaps Petrenko is simply out of step with the world. He told
the Norwegian paper Aftenposten of his comments: “If this had come up in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Great Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
I don’t think people would have reacted in the same way.” If he thinks we are
all sniggering like Sid James, he needs to learn more about British culture.
And thank goodness he didn’t make these remarks in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>. He would probably have been sued.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #282828; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">He will certainly have a lot of explaining to do next time he
stands on the podium in front of a pit full of cuties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comLondon, UK51.511213899999987 -0.1198243999999704151.511213899999987 -0.11982439999997041 51.511213899999987 -0.11982439999997041tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-2091049602355950222013-09-04T11:01:00.000-07:002013-09-04T11:01:01.427-07:00The Revolutionary New Birth Control Method for Men - Bill Gifford<h1 style="line-height: 16.35pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">Accessed 4<sup>th</sup>
September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="line-height: 16.35pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/04/ff_vasectomy/all">http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/04/ff_vasectomy/all</a></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="line-height: 16.35pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">The Revolutionary New
Birth Control Method for Men<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.75pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">By Bill
Gifford<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">April 26, 2011 | <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">12:00 pm | <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="wp-caption-text" style="line-height: 8.2pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 5.45pt; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">The promising procedure, developed by scientist Sujoy Guha, is in
late Phase III clinical trials in India, which means approval in that country
could come in as little as two years.<br />
Photo: Anay Mann<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">One Saturday in
January 2010</span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">, Devendra Deshpande left his home in
the <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city>
suburbs and drove into the city to get a vasectomy. He was 36 years old,
married with two young kids, and he thought it was time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">He arrived at the hospital around
midday and met Hem Das, then the hospital’s chief vasectomy surgeon. Das had an
interesting question for Deshpande. Rather than receive a traditional
vasectomy, would Deshpande like to be part of a clinical trial for a new
contraceptive procedure?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Das explained that the new method did
not have some of the drawbacks associated with a regular vasectomy. First,
sperm would still be able to escape Deshpande’s body normally, which meant he
would be free of the pressure and granulomas that sometimes accompany a
vasectomy. More important, it could be reversed easily, with a simple follow-up
injection.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">“I am normally not adventurous when it
comes to getting myself operated on,” Deshpande deadpans. But the new method
sounded good to him, and according to the published studies he read on his
smartphone in the waiting room, it seemed safe. He gave his wife, Vinu, a call,
and although she sounded nervous on the phone, she said she was fine with it.
Deshpande decided to try the experimental method.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">When his turn came, he lay down on the
table, and an orderly draped his lower body with a green surgical cloth that
covered everything but his scrotum. Then Das moved in with a needle containing
a local anesthetic. Once the drug had taken effect, Das gathered a fold of
skin, made a puncture, and reached into the scrotum with a fine pair of
forceps. He extracted a white tube: the vas deferens, which sperm travel
through from the testes to the penis. In a normal vasectomy, Das would have
severed the vas, cauterized and tied up the ends, and tucked it all back
inside. But rather than snipping, Das took another syringe, delicately slid the
needle lengthwise into the vas, and slowly depressed the plunger, injecting a
clear, viscous liquid. He then repeated the steps on the other side of the
scrotum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">The procedure is known by the clunky
acronym RISUG (for reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance), but it is in
fact quite elegant: The substance that Das injected was a nontoxic polymer that
forms a coating on the inside of the vas. As sperm flow past, they are
chemically incapacitated, rendering them unable to fertilize an egg.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">If the research pans out, RISUG would
represent the biggest advance in male birth control since a clever Polish
entrepreneur dipped a phallic mold into liquid rubber and invented the modern
condom. “It holds tremendous promise,” says Ronald Weiss, a leading Canadian
vasectomy surgeon and a member of a World Health Organization team that visited
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>
to look into RISUG. “If we can prove that RISUG is safe and effective and
reversible, there is no reason why anybody would have a vasectomy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">But here’s the thing: RISUG is not the
product of some global pharmaceutical company or state-of-the-art
government-funded research lab. It’s the brainchild of a maverick Indian
scientist named Sujoy Guha, who has spent more than 30 years refining the idea
while battling bureaucrats in his own country and skeptics worldwide. He has
prevailed because, in study after study, RISUG has been proven to work 100
percent of the time. Among the hundreds of men who have been successfully
injected with the compound so far in clinical trials, there has not been a
single failure or serious adverse reaction. The procedure is now in late Phase
III clinical trials in India, which means approval in that country could come
in as little as two years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">But RISUG is garnering interest beyond <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Every
week, Guha’s inbox fills with entreaties from Western men. They’ve heard about
RISUG on Internet forums or from occasional mentions in newspaper and magazine
articles. Some of them even volunteer to travel to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>, offering themselves as lab
rats. Guha puts them off gently but politely; for now, the trials are open only
to Indian men. Everyone else has to wait. “Our options suck,” fumes one
frustrated correspondent, a <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Florida</st1:place></st1:state>
real estate manager who emailed Guha a few years ago. “I’d gladly put my balls
on the chopping block for the benefit of mankind.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">He may yet have that opportunity.
Thanks to a novel collaboration between Guha and a <st1:city w:st="on">San
Francisco</st1:city> reproductive health activist, RISUG could soon be on the
road to FDA approval in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">In both the East and the West, the need
for better contraceptives couldn’t be clearer. <st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region>
will soon surpass <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>
as the world’s most populous nation; in the poorest Indian state, women bear an
average of nearly four children. Cheap to produce and relatively easy to
administer, RISUG could help poor couples limit their families—increasing their
chances of escaping poverty. In the developed countries, it would help relieve
women of the risks of long-term birth-control-pill use and give men a more
reliable, less annoying option than condoms. About half of all pregnancies in
the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>
are unplanned. Come up with a better contraceptive and the likely results are
all good: fewer unwanted kids, fewer single parents, and fewer abortions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">Marooned in the
marshes of West Bengal</span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">, 20 hours by rail from <st1:city w:st="on">New Delhi</st1:city>, the small city of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kharagpur</st1:place></st1:city> is a likelier spot for a prison
than for one of the world’s most elite technological institutions. In fact,
under the British, it was the site of the notorious Hijli detention camp, where
rebel intellectuals were imprisoned. After <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s independence in 1947, Prime
Minister Nehru pointedly established the first Indian Institute of Technology
on the site; today, a steady stream of recruiters from Microsoft, Sun, and
Facebook make pilgrimages to the campus in search of the brightest Indian talent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Guha was a member of IIT’s fifth
entering class, in 1957—attending school where his uncle, a radical writer, had
been imprisoned years earlier. After Guha reached retirement age in 2002, he
returned to Kharagpur from Delhi. Driving around campus today in his 1967 Fiat
sedan, Guha points out buildings that he has reclaimed from the jungle and
retrofit with labs and workshops—a kind of rogue operation within the
university walls. A former mining department building now serves as a RISUG
production facility, where his staff mixes up batches of the polymer used in
the procedure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Besides RISUG, Guha is also developing
an artificial heart based not on a human heart but on that of a cockroach,
which has 13 chambers. His artificial version has five chambers in its left
ventricle, which allows it to step up pressure more gradually, inflicting less
stress on the mechanism and materials than a conventional design. In another
building on campus, he is raising goats that will eventually receive the
experimental hearts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">A birdlike man with clear, olive-toned skin and an elegant manner,
Guha seems to have been transported from another century. In a sense, he was:
Born in 1940, before independence, he still uses Britishisms like<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="font-style: normal;">see
here</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="font-style: normal;">good
man</span></em>. He doesn’t waste oxygen on small talk, so when he does speak
you know to listen. Nevertheless, he has a lively sense of humor, and when
something amuses him he’ll burst into a delighted, high-pitched laugh. At age
70, he still does not need glasses, which he attributes to his daily eye
exercises. Every night, he jogs 2 miles around the IIT campus carrying a
rolled-up belt to ward off stray dogs. “Every part of the body must be
exercised,” he says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Guha has a penchant for simple yet profound inventions. As a young
graduate student at St. Louis University during the mid-1960s, he devised an
electromagnetic pump that had no moving parts; instead, it used the ionic
charge of seawater to create force. As he explained to a visiting reporter from<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><cite><span style="font-style: normal;">Popular
Science</span></cite>, his pump could also serve as a silent engine for
ships—or nuclear submarines. A version of that electromagnetic “caterpillar
drive” is, of course, at the center of the film<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><cite><span style="font-style: normal;">The
Hunt for Red October</span></cite>. As has happened with medical discoveries
from penicillin to Viagra, Guha was searching for something entirely different
when he stumbled across the idea that became RISUG. In the early 1970s, at the
behest of the government, Guha was looking for a way to purify water in rural
pumps. Treating the water chemically could be too expensive and
infrastructure-dependent; he needed a method that was permanent, safe, and
cheap. Then a hotshot young professor at the IIT campus in Delhi, Guha figured
out a way to line the pumps with a substance that would kill bacteria without
depleting itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">But the project was never completed. In
the mid-1970s, India awoke to its urgent population crisis, and the
government’s priorities changed. Guha refocused his work on the field of
contraception. He soon realized that the same basic concept could work inside
the pumping mechanism of the male anatomy—the vas deferens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">In 1979, when Guha was 39, he published
a simple four-page paper that outlined the basic concept of RISUG. He had begun
experimenting with a common polymer, called styrene maleic anhydride. The SMA
was mixed with a solvent called dimethyl sulfoxide, or DMSO, and injected into
the vas deferens of 25 male rats. Each male was placed in a cage with three
breeding females. After six months, none of the female rats had become
pregnant. (In the control groups, all of the females became pregnant.) Guha and
his team also showed that the substance could be flushed out with a simple
injection of DMSO. Normal fertility soon returned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">They refined the method and tried it
successfully in monkeys, whose reproductive physiology is close to that of
humans. As a high-molecular-weight polymer, the mixture was not absorbed by the
body, nor was it flushed out by the flow of seminal fluid. It anchored to the
inner wall of the vas, and in laboratory tests it appeared to be nontoxic.
Plus, it seemed to retain its effectiveness indefinitely, like a magnet. In
1989, it was injected into a human subject for the first time. It worked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">HOW IT WORKS</span> </h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhGF-cydXhzehA_Ic5EifeDWP0Ux2JNeGsUh0a_o-Xrv8tVGLdxU7u029uWULt_n_SUQUOqbmKnZJrbO9gA0baanCPfcWzLpiHVCH_0uUBODgrZe54Hl5-CzYgO04o-iucaU_exMalsPTa/s1600/RISUG+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhGF-cydXhzehA_Ic5EifeDWP0Ux2JNeGsUh0a_o-Xrv8tVGLdxU7u029uWULt_n_SUQUOqbmKnZJrbO9gA0baanCPfcWzLpiHVCH_0uUBODgrZe54Hl5-CzYgO04o-iucaU_exMalsPTa/s1600/RISUG+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhGF-cydXhzehA_Ic5EifeDWP0Ux2JNeGsUh0a_o-Xrv8tVGLdxU7u029uWULt_n_SUQUOqbmKnZJrbO9gA0baanCPfcWzLpiHVCH_0uUBODgrZe54Hl5-CzYgO04o-iucaU_exMalsPTa/s1600/RISUG+1.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">1.</span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><br />
<strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">A reversible vasectomy begins</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>like a regular vasectomy: The surgeon
makes a small puncture in the scrotum and extracts the vas deferens, a slender
white tube. But rather than severing the vas, the doctor injects the vessel
lengthwise with a nontoxic, stable polymer mixture. The process is repeated on
the other side.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
id="_x0000_i1026" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="" style='width:150pt;height:126pt'>
<v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\CHRIST~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image002.jpg"
o:href="http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/19-05/ff_vasectomy4_f.jpg"/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja6Bt2Qx33TB1GOnbIZUYsEbl-NTfSuiMBPOmBlkjLHLElyWDttsOo-GUu1HZ2OLBB_kvyvZUk_avgTN4kZiXU0bu2ZlPSnuWmvojFVc47g8cSgMLJGC_0b7UuU2SkIxYX4f0i5rb0XYby/s1600/RISUG+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja6Bt2Qx33TB1GOnbIZUYsEbl-NTfSuiMBPOmBlkjLHLElyWDttsOo-GUu1HZ2OLBB_kvyvZUk_avgTN4kZiXU0bu2ZlPSnuWmvojFVc47g8cSgMLJGC_0b7UuU2SkIxYX4f0i5rb0XYby/s1600/RISUG+2.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">2.</span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><br />
<strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">The polymer,</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>a compound of styrene maleic anhydride
(or SMA, an ingredient in floor polish) and dimethyl sulfoxide (or DMSO, a
common solvent) anchors itself to the tiny folds in the vas, clinging to the
tissue. Sperm and other fluids can still get through, avoiding the backup
pressure sometimes associated with a vasectomy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrFx7ErtE-wWYkVfeDnp3jOjYQfcSYSnmeZ0odvzuSEeGrKsy9NB7G2nlIcObT9Gtdib3pP-Yw-BrP9TBZXWaO2ksfuJ42aIdCEO61qBWidV-u6v1kvA6TKnkIm5VCLboJjB-qQuu8073T/s1600/RISUG+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrFx7ErtE-wWYkVfeDnp3jOjYQfcSYSnmeZ0odvzuSEeGrKsy9NB7G2nlIcObT9Gtdib3pP-Yw-BrP9TBZXWaO2ksfuJ42aIdCEO61qBWidV-u6v1kvA6TKnkIm5VCLboJjB-qQuu8073T/s1600/RISUG+3.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">3.</span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><br />
<strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">As sperm pass</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>through the vas, the positively
charged polymer interacts with the negatively charged sperm, rupturing cell
membranes and damaging sperm tails. The sperm are thus incapable of fertilizing
an egg. Sperm production and male hormone levels are not affected.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<em><span style="font-style: normal;">—Bill Gifford</span></em><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><br clear="all" />
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-style: normal;">Illustrations: Teagan
White</span></em><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><br clear="all" />
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">Ever since the birth
control pill was</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">approved by the FDA in 1960, scientists
in the West have been looking for a male equivalent. It’s been a rocky road, in
part for biological reasons: Hormonally, it’s much easier to control a single
monthly event like ovulation than to try to stop the endless onslaught of
sperm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">An equivalent “pill” for men would
somehow have to stop sperm production without neutralizing their libido or
erectile function. Pharmaceutical companies and government agencies have sunk
millions into hormone-based contraceptive research that has yielded few viable
products.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">And then there’s RISUG. Rather than
shutting down sperm production, with the potential side effects that entails,
it acts more like a tollbooth on the sperm superhighway. As the negatively
charged sperm pass by, they are essentially zapped by the positive charge of
the SMA polymer. So a RISUG-injected man will still ejaculate millions of
sperm, but most will be dead: tails snapped off, cell membranes ruptured.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">As a contraceptive, RISUG faces a far
more difficult road to approval and commercial acceptance than, say, a new
antidepressant medication. While an antidepressant would be considered a
success if it worked in 75 percent of patients, a contraceptive like RISUG will
be compared to a conventional vasectomy, which works more than 99 percent of
the time. Furthermore, it has to be free from the serious side effects that
were common with early experimental hormone-based male contraceptives. And it
cannot cause birth defects down the line—ever. “Nobody wants another thalidomide,”
says Ron Weiss, the Canadian vasectomy doctor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">In human tests, RISUG performed
extremely well. In the first clinical trial of 17 men, published in 1993, all
the subjects who received above a certain dosage became azoospermic—that is,
they produced no viable sperm. By 2000, it was in Phase III clinical trials in
India, the final stage before approval. The compound was injected into 139 men,
and the early results looked promising. In May 2002, it was announced that
RISUG was on track for approval in India and would be rolled out on a limited
basis within six months.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">At around the same time, a World Health
Organization team came to visit Guha’s lab in Delhi and examine his data. This
itself was a triumph: It meant RISUG was finally on the international radar.
Weiss, a long-time advocate of the process, was with the group and performed
the operation. But the five-person team came away skeptical.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">In its report, the WHO team agreed that
the concept of RISUG was intriguing. But they found fault with the homegrown
production methods: Guha and his staff made the concoction themselves in his
lab, and the WHO delegation found his facilities wanting by modern
pharmaceutical manufacturing standards. Furthermore, they found that Guha’s
studies did not meet “international regulatory requirements” for new drug
approval—certain data was missing. The final recommendation: WHO should pass on
RISUG.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">But within India, at least, RISUG still
seemed to be headed for approval. Then, in mid-2002, after Guha and his team
had spent years cultivating allies in India’s infamous bureaucracy, a new
health minister took over, and the Indian Council for Medical Research
(equivalent to the US National Institutes of Health) put the brakes on the
trials. Before new patients could be injected, the NIH asked that some of the
subjects be analyzed further and that basic toxicology studies be redone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Of particular concern was the
possibility that SMA—a resin found in floor polishes and automobile body
panels—is toxic. Styrene and maleic anhydride are indeed toxic separately. But
Guha points out that while sodium and chlorine are also toxic individually, “we
take sodium chloride all the time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">The analogy holds for RISUG: Lab tests
show that SMA is nontoxic. Guha had convinced the Indian government of the
compound’s safety back in the ’80s; now he had to do it all over again, and he
was exasperated. Mysterious press reports appeared, stating that some patients
had experienced “complications”—which turned out to be nothing more than
transient scrotal swelling. In the press, Guha suggested that his doubters had
deliberately slowed RISUG to make way for competing hormonal injections
developed by foreign companies. True or not, it didn’t make him any friends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">“It was not a problem of science,” says
A. R. Nanda, an early supporter of RISUG and former secretary of the department
of family welfare. “It was a problem of politics and ego.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">In the middle of it all, Guha reached
mandatory retirement age, leading him to leave his post at IIT Delhi, close to
the levers of power. He retreated to Kharagpur, in the jungle. But instead of
giving up, he dug in, remembering what an old mentor had told him early in his
career: that any new scientific idea had to experience four stages of reaction,
which correspond to the name of the Hindu god Rama.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">“In the first instance, there will be
rejection—R,” Guha says, sitting in a folding chair in his fluorescent-lit lab.
“If you pursue it, there will be anger. You have to persist. Then, a phase of
mellowing will come: ‘Ah, yes,’ people will say. ‘Maybe there’s something to
it!’ Then, if you still have patience and courage, will come a stage of
acceptance.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">From his home base in
Ottawa, Ronald Weiss</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">marvels at the possibilities of RISUG.
“If you’re looking for the better mousetrap, this is it,” he says. “I have
received emails from men all over the world kind of champing at the bit to get
RISUG.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Weiss had been trying to bring the
process to Canada starting in the late ’90s. But when he presented his notes
and Guha’s published studies to the regulators at Health Canada, they shot him
down. Guha’s studies did not meet their standards, they said. All of them would
need to be redone. “Essentially, we were in a situation where we would have to
start from zero,” Weiss says. “We would have to redo every single study to get
approval. And I didn’t have millions of dollars at my disposal.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">He looked around for a corporate
partner but found no takers. Unlike birth control pills, which must be used
daily, sometimes for years, RISUG is a long-lasting, low-cost treatment (the
syringe could end up costing more than the material it injects).
“Pharmaceutical companies are not interested in one-offs,” Weiss says. “They’re
interested in things they can sell repeatedly, like the birth control pill or
Viagra.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Reluctantly, Weiss gave up on his plans
to commercialize the procedure in North America. But a woman named Elaine
Lissner picked up where he left off. Lissner’s interest in male contraception
started in the late 1980s, when she was an undergraduate at Stanford. She took
a seminar there from Carl Djerassi, one of the inventors of the female birth
control pill, who once famously declared that no woman then alive would see a
male contraceptive in use during her reproductive lifetime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Lissner found herself asking the same
question that millions of men and women have asked: Why not? Why should there
be plenty of options for women and none for men? In college, she’d seen the
reproductive havoc wreaked on her friends by a world that places most of the contraceptive
burden on women. She wrote a paper outlining what was being done about
nonhormonal methods of male contraception, which could be summed up in two
words: not much. There were actually, she discovered, men who soaked their
testicles in scalding hot water, thinking (correctly but painfully) that it
would reduce their fertility. There had to be a better answer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">She founded a small nonprofit advocacy
group called the Male Contraception Information Project to push for better male
options. By 2001, she had concluded that RISUG was the most promising new
development out there and began tracking its ups and downs closely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">By 2009, though, she had grown
frustrated with the lack of progress on RISUG in India. Luckily, she was in a
position to do something about it. At the beginning of the real estate boom,
she’d invested a small amount of money in her father’s construction company,
which had become wildly successful building houses around Reno, Nevada. She
parked the profits in a small private foundation called Parsemus and set about
putting money behind RISUG.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">In February 2010, Parsemus bought the
international rights to the RISUG technology from Guha and IIT Kharagpur for
$100,000. They had worked closely together for years, and she had earned his
trust. She also hired Gary Gamerman, a consultant who specializes in
shepherding products through the complex FDA approval process. The plan was to
get RISUG OK’d in the US, perhaps even before it hit the market in India.
“What’s the alternative?” Lissner asks. “Just keep complaining?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Gamerman told her what she already
knew: She would have to begin at the beginning—by making a batch of SMA/DMSO
compound in a certified pharmaceutical plant in the US. Later this year,
Lissner and her team will begin basic toxicology testing, and if the material
passes muster—as it always has in the past—then they will test it in rabbits,
hoping to repeat Guha’s results on rats from 1979. Oh, and it won’t be called
RISUG anymore. One of Lissner’s first acts was to name the compound Vasalgel.
But to get human clinical trials going will take more funding than the $500,000
that Lissner has budgeted; Gamerman estimates that the whole approval process
could cost $4 million to $5 million. “There should be tons of interested
potential partners,” she says, reeling off a list that includes Planned
Parenthood, USAID, organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
and the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (which have invested in population
control and women’s health), and a group called WomanCare Global, run by a
former pharmaceutical exec.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">“If it’s no longer a crazy Indian idea
and it’s something that’s working in India and in rabbits in Ohio and in the
first 20 men in the US,” Lissner says, “then there’s got to be a point where
there’s just no excuse for a Gates or a Buffett not to get on board.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Just this past year, in fact, Guha
received a $100,000 Gates Foundation grant to pursue a variation of RISUG in
the fallopian tubes as a female contraceptive. More important, the Gates grant
marked an important milestone for Guha, an international validation of his
work. It’s been a long time coming—and an important step toward the final stage
of Rama: acceptance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Meanwhile, after a repeat of some of
the basic toxicology tests (and another shift in the political wind), Phase III
trials have resumed in India with full government support. Five hundred
subjects are expected to be enrolled at 10 study centers around the country.
One of those patients was Devendra Deshpande, the man who read about the safety
of RISUG on his cell phone before undergoing the procedure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">A software engineer for an American
company, Deshpande is slim and sharp-featured, dressed in the global nerd
uniform of neat burgundy sweater and faded jeans. He and his wife, Vinu, a
broad, cheerful woman, are part of the burgeoning new Indian middle class. They
live in Noida, a Delhi suburb, in a complex of new two-story town houses. They
have a car and a tidy, comfortable home that resounds with the cries of two
energetic young children, a boy and a girl.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">An hour after the procedure started,
Deshpande was on his way home. He had two band-aids on his shaved scrotum, plus
a handful of painkillers and a course of ciprofloxacin—Indian doctors do not
mess around when it comes to prescribing strong antibiotics. He used the pain
pills for a couple of days and felt some tenderness and swelling for a week but
no other side effects. There was no recurring scrotal pain, as sometimes
happens with a vasectomy; on most days, he forgot that the stuff was in there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Which, if you think about it, is the
goal of any contraceptive (not to mention the theme of endless Trojan condom
advertisements): You forget about it. No one had to take a pill every day.
Nobody had to have bloating or other side effects. No “accidents.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">And regarding what Indians
euphemistically term “the family life,” he says, there was one big plus: He
didn’t have to continue using condoms for three months, as is recommended after
standard vasectomies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: 10.9pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 10.9pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">“It was business as usual,” Deshpande
says. Vinu giggles. “Probably better!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 10.9pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-style: normal;">Bill Gifford</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">(<a href="mailto:bill.gifford@gmail.com"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">bill.gifford@gmail.com</span></a>)<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="font-style: normal;">writes frequently for</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Men’s Journal<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="font-style: normal;">and</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Ou<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comNew Delhi, Delhi, India28.635308 77.2249600000000128.635308 77.22496000000001 28.635308 77.22496000000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-26878283806294262032013-09-04T09:38:00.000-07:002013-09-04T09:38:21.884-07:00The Most Brutal Domestic Violence Awareness Ads - copyranter - BuzzFeed Staff<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Accessed 4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 </span><br />
<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/the-most-brutal-domestic-violence-awareness-ads"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/the-most-brutal-domestic-violence-awareness-ads</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #0077ee; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">BuzzFeed</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" name="post-title"></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The Most Brutal Domestic Violence Awareness Ads<o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<div class="description" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Big-time trigger warning — disturbing images.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Six TV spots and six print ads.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzdatetime"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #999999; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; letter-spacing: -.25pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">posted on August 13, 2013 at 12:25pm EDT</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #0077ee; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">copyranter</span></b></a> - </span><span class="authortitle"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #727272; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">BuzzFeed Staff</span></span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzsuperlistnumberinline"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #121212; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; padding: 0cm;">1.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #121212;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212;">Via <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir0Wvw9YH4iyTLGycQ7XxhTyl-4_l-rmlVtmqS794jdWIvZPCjpyHetDeoAw23-jyez7X7xHbT4TKgtlBIcbPjgZOtxEX5FxNa2Blt7GIRkS1jPhyuRynIPBrgWYq4kF3L_F6jzawMbV20/s1600/1+domestic+violence+ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir0Wvw9YH4iyTLGycQ7XxhTyl-4_l-rmlVtmqS794jdWIvZPCjpyHetDeoAw23-jyez7X7xHbT4TKgtlBIcbPjgZOtxEX5FxNa2Blt7GIRkS1jPhyuRynIPBrgWYq4kF3L_F6jzawMbV20/s320/1+domestic+violence+ad.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<i><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2011/03/beating-women-with-wordsdomestic.html" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #999999; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">copyranter.blogspot.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="subbuzzdescwattr" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Not all violence is physical.<br />
The scars are shaped like the sound waves of the violent words — pretty shocking and effective.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzsuperlistnumberinline"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #121212; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; padding: 0cm;">2.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #121212;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212;">Via The <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.K.</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #121212; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/zZY5nFzretw" width="560"></iframe> </st1:place></st1:country-region></span></div>
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<span style="color: #121212; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><br />
</st1:place></st1:country-region></span></div>
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<span style="color: #121212; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><br />
</st1:place></st1:country-region></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Chilling interactive video ad via the London Metropolitan Police.<br />
“Nearly 1 in 5 murders in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city> are the result of domestic violence.”<br />
And you’re sitting there in the next flat maybe witnessing one.<br />
The campaign was tagged simply, “You make the call. We’ll make it stop.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
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<h2 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzsuperlistnumberinline"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">3.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United Arab Emirates</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
id="_x0000_i1026" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="Via the United Arab Emirates."
style='width:742.5pt;height:522pt'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\CHRIST~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image002.jpg"
o:href="http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr06/2013/8/13/11/enhanced-buzz-wide-31607-1376406817-20.jpg"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIgv_Qm1Bc_IbTqyMs37GjKixL_b3NWdVFtEM_gxHxJlwZvH0iPJfO0VEU_CImLD_Ah_BYu6ao4wp_ULeQEAkOyxIorxl-JvhYluQeINMmPiaYaVBXl6uSvRJLJCX0v7Z8iJlpmWfEbXIr/s1600/3+dom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIgv_Qm1Bc_IbTqyMs37GjKixL_b3NWdVFtEM_gxHxJlwZvH0iPJfO0VEU_CImLD_Ah_BYu6ao4wp_ULeQEAkOyxIorxl-JvhYluQeINMmPiaYaVBXl6uSvRJLJCX0v7Z8iJlpmWfEbXIr/s320/3+dom.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<i><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/city_of_hope_arm" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #999999; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">adsoftheworld.com</span></a></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Sorry for the poor resolution, but here’s the copy:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">“He gave me this when he proposed (right ad: “for my anniversary”).<br />
He gave me this for nothing at all (next to the broken bones).<br />
There’s no excuse for domestic violence. Talk to someone who cares.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The X-ray visual schtick is used a lot in advertising.<br />
However, this is one time where it fits perfectly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzsuperlistnumberinline"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">4.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj31c6n_7pFKos6jQmzdv8KihhWlO3GahJHWrAgmGX669bt3Rzc6Ex5l96rRpd769zpZYnA9n3HQb6cLSscQbG-YEUMYnLYgOqy_axn6dx7ZZLVvscAU89NG7Nt3YtfbyytVRpEFcI_3W-N/s1600/4+dom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj31c6n_7pFKos6jQmzdv8KihhWlO3GahJHWrAgmGX669bt3Rzc6Ex5l96rRpd769zpZYnA9n3HQb6cLSscQbG-YEUMYnLYgOqy_axn6dx7ZZLVvscAU89NG7Nt3YtfbyytVRpEFcI_3W-N/s320/4+dom.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
id="_x0000_i1027" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="Via France." style='width:742.5pt;
height:557.25pt'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\CHRIST~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image003.jpg"
o:href="http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr03/2013/8/13/11/enhanced-buzz-wide-9608-1376407201-15.jpg"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/amnesty_international_fashion_domestic_violence" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #999999; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">adsoftheworld.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Taking the scene to a disconnected setting makes for a pretty disturbing ad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzsuperlistnumberinline"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">5.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/l7HqwAleUQg" width="560"></iframe></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="subbuzzdesc" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Beautifully shot ad that plays off the “Oh, I just feel down the stairs” response used by women too frightened to report the violence. The ad agency got two stunt women to perform some of the falls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzsuperlistnumberinline"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">6.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Singapore</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWXt4iVVdY0pXDDVMLxMQuAdc4LUD5wvowM36hkPVTb0C48U2LFgExYrtwJZOH2FJfiA1wq5JaSkvfM7IuUbShF222Bd0nqzLSRYursRvr6P3id9Jxs1Dg8oRv4FUM7KKaeKRsJVYeC8Wu/s1600/6+dom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWXt4iVVdY0pXDDVMLxMQuAdc4LUD5wvowM36hkPVTb0C48U2LFgExYrtwJZOH2FJfiA1wq5JaSkvfM7IuUbShF222Bd0nqzLSRYursRvr6P3id9Jxs1Dg8oRv4FUM7KKaeKRsJVYeC8Wu/s320/6+dom.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
id="_x0000_i1028" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="Via Singapore." style='width:742.5pt;
height:464.25pt'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\CHRIST~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image004.jpg"
o:href="http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr01/2013/8/13/11/enhanced-buzz-wide-7629-1376409596-44.jpg"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-domestic-violence-ads-man-knocks.html" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #999999; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">copyranter.blogspot.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="subbuzzdescwattr" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">“If it happens once, it could happen again.”<br />
Powerful visualization of the cycle of violence that often occurs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzsuperlistnumberinline"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">7.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/17086120" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <a href="http://vimeo.com/17086120">FNSF - Le film choc</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user5291264">FNSF</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="subbuzzdesc" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">A most disturbing PSA that makes you cringe.<br />
The sign-off line translates: “Domestic violence: To remain silent is to participate.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzsuperlistnumberinline"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">8.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.K.</st1:place></st1:country-region><o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGqgpFVLPSZaMZ4lb9Y-9UvWFR4vzzK1iL8YRkwmLy5IFiPZcwCbUs07FVoPnOyW4MKzThyQvlHfQ64L6Zm6EgH8VYGuTsz4pJqGWwa-BxC0bi2IYNLcH7mhm0tV5akBAYyFuqSFeYtiaV/s1600/8+dom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGqgpFVLPSZaMZ4lb9Y-9UvWFR4vzzK1iL8YRkwmLy5IFiPZcwCbUs07FVoPnOyW4MKzThyQvlHfQ64L6Zm6EgH8VYGuTsz4pJqGWwa-BxC0bi2IYNLcH7mhm0tV5akBAYyFuqSFeYtiaV/s320/8+dom.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<i><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2011/05/todays-ad-thatll-make-art-directors.html" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #999999; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">copyranter.blogspot.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="subbuzzdescwattr" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">“DON’T SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF A PARTNER.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzsuperlistnumberinline"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">9.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via The <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.K.</st1:place></st1:country-region> (starring Keira Knightley).<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5tvk2eJezAE" width="560"></iframe></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">WARNING: very violent.<br />
This spot was directed by<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Atonement</span></i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>director Joe Wright.<br />
You can’t yell “cut” here.<br />
Nice use of a famous actor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzsuperlistnumberinline"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">10.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1z5mXfKFrugz9AaXlMawCKK0zbOjcnTaueAwuUAElaqYFNM2vVWMtFTMmXvpLWpb_K41VL0r5pXOWp9le0SOiqOD1sG7sdB8GiJnLBJp4IFO66JjBMkkL4aXE8rScfziG5bEC1n2qRQRl/s1600/10+dom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1z5mXfKFrugz9AaXlMawCKK0zbOjcnTaueAwuUAElaqYFNM2vVWMtFTMmXvpLWpb_K41VL0r5pXOWp9le0SOiqOD1sG7sdB8GiJnLBJp4IFO66JjBMkkL4aXE8rScfziG5bEC1n2qRQRl/s320/10+dom.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
id="_x0000_i1030" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="Via Germany." style='width:742.5pt;
height:688.5pt'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\CHRIST~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image006.jpg"
o:href="http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr02/2013/8/13/12/enhanced-buzz-wide-17295-1376410627-57.jpg"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2009/06/high-tech-anti-domestic-violence.html" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #999999; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">copyranter.blogspot.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="subbuzzdescwattr" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This interactive poster was erected at bus stops in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Berlin</st1:place></st1:state>.<br />
An eye-tracking camera was installed in the board, so that when you looked directly at the violent scene, after a delay, the visual morphed into spousal harmony.<br />
“It happens when nobody is watching.”<br />
Great idea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzsuperlistnumberinline"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">11.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Via <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Serbia</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Ertu9_MhFiM" width="560"></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="subbuzzdesc" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The overused photo-a-day meme gets used to a very powerful effect here.<br />
The video is titled “One photo a day in the worst year of my life.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The sign at the end reads:<br />
“Help me, I do not know if I can wait for tomorrow.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Point made, and well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="buzzsuperlistnumberinline"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">12.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> (the most powerful domestic violence ad ever produced).<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/s5lULB1qOeE" width="560"></iframe></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1856387278451629892"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="subbuzzdesc" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Not much else to say.<br />
NOTE: The video is improperly named: Coalition<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Against</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Battered Women.<br />
It should read “for.”</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-36449612971629003322013-09-04T08:58:00.001-07:002013-09-04T08:58:49.121-07:00Femen was founded and is controlled by a man. Exactly zero people are surprised By Meghan Murphy<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Accessed
4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://feministcurrent.com/7963/femen-was-founded-and-is-controlled-by-a-man-exactly-zero-people-are-surprised">http://feministcurrent.com/7963/femen-was-founded-and-is-controlled-by-a-man-exactly-zero-people-are-surprised</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="fl" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">September 4, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</h1>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><span style="color: orange;">Femen was founded and is controlled by a man. Exactly zero people are
surprised</span></span></h4>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">By<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://feministcurrent.com/author/meghan-murphy-2/" title="Posts by Meghan Murphy"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Meghan Murphy</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Femen, aka,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://feministcurrent.com/6384/the-new-face-of-feminism-is-boobs/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">CLASSICAL FEMINISM</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span></span></a><a href="http://feministcurrent.com/6384/the-new-face-of-feminism-is-boobs/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">IS DEAD ALSO LOOK AT OUR
BOOOOOBS</span></a>, turns out to have been founded and controlled by a man
named Victor Svyatski.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">“<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/the-man-who-made-femen-new-film-outs-victor-svyatski-as-the-mastermind-behind-the-protest-group-and-its-breastbaring-stunts-8797042.html" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Outed</span></a>” by Australian
film-maker Kitty Green, she says: “It’s his movement and he hand-picked the
girls. He hand-picked the prettiest girls because the prettiest girls sell more
papers. The prettiest girls get on the front page… that became their image,
that became the way they sold the brand.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I swear I don’t want to go all “I TOLD YOU SO SUCKERS” but
seriously.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://feministcurrent.com/6619/there-is-a-wrong-way-to-do-feminism-and-femen-is-doing-it-wrong/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">We talked about this</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">We talked about the fact that the whole point of Femen was to
capture the male gaze, thereby capturing the attention of the media. We talked
about the fact that we should be skeptical “<a href="http://feministcurrent.com/6384/the-new-face-of-feminism-is-boobs/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">anytime anyone makes reference
to a “new face of feminism” and that face is either lingerie, something about
pole dancing, or boobs</span></a>.” We talked about the fact that “if a dude
posts a photo of boobs and tells you it’s feminism, it’s not.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">All feminists who are smart and unfooled by the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://feministcurrent.com/7080/defense-of-the-selfie-confirms-that-this-era-will-forever-be-known-as-the-stupidest-of-all-eras/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">self-objectification-is-empowerment</span></a>crap
and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>who haven’t come down with a
bad case of burlesque-brain like the rest of the third wave also knew better
than to fall for the Femen garbage. So now is the time we all join together and
rub this news obnoxiously in the faces of every dumbo who fell for this crap.
WE TOLD YOU AND WE ARE RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING FOREVER AND
ALWAYS. Oh do we sound gloaty? Do you not like that? DON’T CARE. Feminism needs
smarty-pants gloaters more than porn-loving FEMINISM IS ABOUT LOOKING<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://feministcurrent.com/3765/on-sex-positivity-and-misunderstandings/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">HOT AND SEXY</span></a>AND
DOING WHAT WE WANT<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/nobody-tells-me-what-to-do" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">FUCK YEAH</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>mush-brains.
Also! Feminism isn’t here to give you a boner. If it is giving you a boner you
may want to question whether or not that’s because this “feminism” is actually
porn in a very<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>shoddy
disguise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Green recently made a documentary about Femen (which is
currently screening at the Venice Film Festival); leading her to discover
Svyatski’s influence over the group. He sounds like a real gem, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/the-man-who-made-femen-new-film-outs-victor-svyatski-as-the-mastermind-behind-the-protest-group-and-its-breastbaring-stunts-8797042.html" target="_blank"><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #e8a02c; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">The Independent</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span></span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">reports</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that “Initially, Mr Svyatski refused
to allow Ms Green to film him but she was determined that he should feature”
and quoted Green as saying: “It was a big moral thing for me because I realized
how this organization was run. He was quite horrible with the girls. He would
scream at them and call them bitches.” “He is Femen,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Svyatski admits, in the film, that maybe somewhere in his “deep
self-conscious,” he started Femen to “get girls” and seems to think the women
are incapable of doing feminist activism without his leadership.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Creepily, one Femen activist in the film is said to have
compared the relationship between the women and Svyatski as being like a kind
of “Stockholm syndrome.” You know, like when a bond forms between victim and
abuser? Or like how people who have been kidnapped develop an emotional
connection to their captor?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">COOL, RIGHT?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">New headline: “Abusive man sells new brand of feminism under
banner of boobs. All media falls for it, as per usual.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Subhead: “Dear media, stop selling us out. Love, actual
feminism.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Pay close attention to this one, defenders of “<a href="http://feministcurrent.com/7908/this-week-in-idiotic-things-people-do-in-the-name-of-feminism-boob-parade/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Go Topless Day</span></a>,”<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://feministcurrent.com/category/slutwalk/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Slutwalk</span></a>, “<a href="http://feministcurrent.com/7569/in-pornography-theres-literally-a-market-for-everything-why-feminist-porn-isnt-the-answer/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">feminist porn</span></a>,”<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://feministcurrent.com/category/burlesque-2/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">burlesque</span></a>, and
sex-work-is-an-empowering-and-sexy-choice-for-sexy-empowered-women. Feminism
isn’t a sexy thing to look at. Nor is it a brand. Feminism isn’t fun and sexy
despite the fact that many fun and sexy feminists exist. The fun and sexy part
is maybe a sidebar, but it isn’t the main event. The main event is a lot of
decidedly unsexy activism and law-changing and fighting and hard conversations.
The main event is about ending violence against women and rape and incest and
objectification and harassment and the practice of men paying to abuse women
and girls under the guise of free speech and all that very, very unsexy stuff
that dudes don’t like taking pictures of or jacking off to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comAustralia-25.274398 133.77513599999997-25.274398 133.77513599999997 -25.274398 133.77513599999997tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-32872889268689435922013-09-04T08:41:00.001-07:002013-09-04T08:41:37.334-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Accessed
4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23799187">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23799187</a></span><span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">23
August 2013</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time-text"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Last updated at</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">00:01</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h1 style="background: white; line-height: 18.55pt; margin-bottom: 7.1pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: -87.25pt; margin-top: 1.65pt;">
<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; letter-spacing: -.55pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Woman RAF officer joins top military brass<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD9pdf-t3w-7aVxojSxoIyEN-nF2hw69LD5edjIgvKpJIWMCwfm1FiaDpobQgX1auShlzRBE0Npp-K71LSpe9dE5_uRzScKYFoXhD1q9uzt2I4WRnCxbTWsNplNsh0Opgnp6TnO5IjQ_bX/s1600/RAF+woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD9pdf-t3w-7aVxojSxoIyEN-nF2hw69LD5edjIgvKpJIWMCwfm1FiaDpobQgX1auShlzRBE0Npp-K71LSpe9dE5_uRzScKYFoXhD1q9uzt2I4WRnCxbTWsNplNsh0Opgnp6TnO5IjQ_bX/s320/RAF+woman.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600"
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</v:shapetype><v:shape id="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="Air Vice-Marshal Elaine West"
style='width:228pt;height:303.75pt'>
<v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\CHRIST~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.jpg"
o:href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/69438000/jpg/_69438016_raf.jpg"/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->Air
Vice-Marshal Elaine West said she takes up her new appointment with
"enormous pride"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="introduction" style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The RAF has appointed a woman to the rank of air vice-marshal,
the most senior position to be held by a regular serving female in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region> armed
forces.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Elaine West, 51, joined the RAF straight from school and is
married with a teenage son.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said it showed there was no
"glass ceiling" for female officers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The position is equivalent in rank to a major general in the
Army or a rear admiral in the Royal Navy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The new air vice marshal will be director of projects and
programme delivery at the Defence Infrastructure Organisation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">She will lead on multi-million pound infrastructure projects to
support military training, and oversee the drawdown of army units from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="cross-head"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">'Privileged'</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Army has had a
female brigadier, while the Royal Navy has appointed a female commodore, but
both of those are one-star ranks, whereas air vice marshal is a more senior
two-star role.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">AVM West said she takes up her new appointment with
"enormous pride".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"I am privileged to have served in the RAF and to have
enjoyed so many challenging roles over the years."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">She has served in 18 different roles on bases across the world,
since joining the RAF as an aircraftswoman aged 17.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">She managed the final stage of the RAF's downsizing across
north-west Europe, and oversaw the delivery of military accommodation in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Married to a retired Tornado navigator, she has one son, who is
14 years old, the MoD said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">She said: "To now be the first female military two-star is
a truly unexpected bonus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"I know so many inspirational women across all three
services who continue to make a substantial contribution to operations and our
armed forces more widely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"This is a terrific opportunity and one that I'm looking
forward to immensely."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="cross-head"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">'Well deserved'</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Chief of the Air Staff
Air Chief Marshal Sir Andrew Pulford said her promotion was "thoroughly
well deserved".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Wishing her "every success in her challenging role",
he added: "The vast majority of roles in the armed forces are open to
women and I would encourage everyone, regardless of gender, to take full
advantage of the opportunities available to them within the military."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Mr Hammond said building the Future Force 2020 meant selecting
the best and brightest talent from across the armed forces "irrespective
of gender".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">He added: "I am pleased that we are demonstrating in
defence that there are no 'glass ceilings' for female officers who have the
necessary abilities to rise to the senior ranks."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Women make up about 10% of armed forces personnel, or 14% of the
air force, 9% of the navy and 8% of the army.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comUnited Kingdom55.378051 -3.4359729999999955.378051 -3.43597299999999 55.378051 -3.43597299999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-61909749574590336042013-09-04T08:36:00.001-07:002013-09-04T08:36:24.121-07:00DUDES WHO GROW UP WITH SISTERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE CONSERVATIVE by s.e. smith<h1 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-transform: uppercase;">Accessed 4<sup>th</sup> september 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.xojane.com/issues/theres-even-a-gender-gap-in-childhood">http://www.xojane.com/issues/theres-even-a-gender-gap-in-childhood</a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-transform: uppercase;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-transform: uppercase;">DUDES WHO GROW UP WITH SISTERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE CONSERVATIVE<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">It seems ludicrous
to talk about running a household like a Fortune 500 company, but there it is:
what happens in a childhood home has a profound lifetime impact on a kid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="name"><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.xojane.com/author/se-smith"><span style="color: #004466; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">s.e. smith</span></a></span></i></span><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span class="relative-date"><i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Aug 20, 2013 at 5:00pm</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"> </span></i></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">You know how I'm always maundering on about how our society is
gendered and ideas about gender roles are created very, very early in life
thanks to socialization? And how every other week, it seems like there's a
study backing me up?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">The “Journal of Politics” just released<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmyweb.lmu.edu%2Fahealy%2Fpapers%2Fsibling_politics_jop_submit.docx&ei=rnjMUdGEHcP84AOe64CQCA&usg=AFQjCNGNAfpXgjeSDJLFrA0_ZLgXrKtQ8g&sig2=7RDqjFmrGgTIqy9s7E6g8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #004466;">a fascinating large-scale study</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that adds another piece to the puzzle,
looking at the childhood gender gap. Yes, you read that right: the gender gap
starts in childhood, homechickens, and the data from the study are really
chilling for those of us who care about gender equality and fighting gendered
attitudes about society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">This long-term study has followed people since 1987, and
surveyed almost 3,000 individuals for the latest iteration. Long-term studies
with a big sample size are great because they can provide a lot of solid data
with real-world applications, and thanks to the length of the study,
researchers can revisit and reanalyze information to correct for a lot of
influencing factors. The lookback ability with the same subjects also allows
researchers to track trends over time using realtime data, instead of
self-reported data from people trying to remember how they felt politically and
socially ten or more years in the past.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Ostensibly, the study was looking at what's known as “the
sibling effect,” examining whether and how the gender of someone's siblings
influence political party affiliations. The researchers found that men who grew
up with female siblings were more likely to identify with the Republican party;
8.3 percentage points more likely, actually, when compared to men who grew up
with brothers. This effect was even stronger for people close in age to their
siblings and firstborns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Researchers naturally became interested in why this was, and
they discovered that very stereotyped gender roles are reinforced at an early
age in the household. Check this out: even in childhood, girls do more work for
less pay. While they complete more chores, they make the same or even less
allowance, and older girls tend to be charged with the care of younger siblings
more than younger boys. The ladies just can't win. Even in childhood, they're
expected to take on more of the work, and their work is devalued.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">We wonder why many women are performing what's known as “second
shift” work where they're out in the workplace and then coming home to manage
their households? This is clearly an important factor in how that happens;
because men growing up with sisters aren't necessarily learning about the value
of work around the house. And they're learning that this work is the
responsibility of women, not men, and thus not their problem, even in adulthood
when they should theoretically be sharing labor evenly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Men with sisters are apparently more likely to believe that a
woman's place is in the home, perhaps in part because they're growing up in
houses where girls are being tasked with traditionally “domestic” tasks like
washing dishes and cleaning while boys are out mowing the lawn and raking
leaves. And this effect endures over the years. Men in their 40s who grew up
with sisters still believe that women should stay home and raise children
rather than being out in the workforce or engaging in other activities.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Since the study covers a long period, the researchers note that
over time, the percentage of conservative respondents seems to shrink,
suggesting that the strength of the sibling effect might dwindle as people age.
However, they point out that this may be because respondents are looking for
the socially acceptable answer to a question, rather than the one that reflects
their genuine views. Social attitudes in, say, 1973 were very different than
they are today in 2013. Consequently, it's a little bit difficult to come up
with a totally accurate projection of how political views change over a
lifetime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">How much of men saying they aren't as conservative is about
genuine political shifts, and how much is about a desire to not appear to have
outdated political beliefs? Even as hardline conservatives continue to espouse
very rigid gender roles in society, there's a growing social push for equality,
and in environments that aren't necessarily politically “safe,” people may give
the answer they think researchers want, rather than the honest one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Intriguingly, while men with sisters tend to be more
conservative, the study didn't note a strong leaning toward conservative values
for girls growing up in mixed gender households. While both girls and boys
learn to perform gender through a series of external social pressures in childhood,
boys are the ones taking away the idea that girls belong in the home --
something traditionally linked with conservative political values.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">It's kind of dismaying to think that the wage gap starts so
early in life, and even more dismaying to think about how much impact simple
chore assignments can have on people growing up. The study highlights the fact
that parents have a tremendous responsibility when it comes to the environment
their children are raised in, and no matter what a parent's political
affiliations or beliefs are, it's possible for children to end up in highly
gendered roles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Those roles can have serious real-world implications not just
when it comes to how children think about gender, but how children think about
society in general. Every decision parents make is socially loaded, from<a href="http://www.xojane.com/family/boy-wears-pink-zebra-shoes-internet-freaks-outhttp:/www.xojane.com/family/boy-wears-pink-zebra-shoes-internet-freaks-out" target="_blank"><span style="color: #004466;">which colors they dress their
toddlers in</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to how
they divide the weekly chore wheel. With that kind of minefield to navigate
when raising children, I don't envy parents in the slightest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Evidently, parents need to think really carefully about which
chores they assign to whom and when. It's also critically important to make
sure kids are compensated fairly for their work, to avoid situations where boys
are making more than girls and learning that their work has more value than
that of girls. It seems ludicrous to talk about running a household like a
Fortune 500 company, but there it is: what happens in a childhood home has a
profound lifetime impact on a kid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">This study also illustrates why a true egalitarian society
involves many pieces of a complex puzzle that have to come together in the
right way. It's not as simple as legislating equality, because we need to
evaluate society at every level to find out where social attitudes originate
and attempt to organically level the playing field. What we see in pop culture,
whether Bart or Lisa does the dishes,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.xojane.com/family/when-gender-neutral-kids-clothing-stops-being-so-gender-neutral" target="_blank"><span style="color: #004466;">how we read the gender of young
children</span></a>, how we treat female politicians in the media...all of
these things matter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-12443027661046767872013-09-04T08:30:00.000-07:002013-09-04T08:30:04.085-07:00Maldives girl's 100 lashes sentence overturned - BBC news<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Accessed
4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23792120">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23792120</a></span><span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">22
August 2013</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time-text"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Last updated at</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">09:34</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h4>
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: -0.55pt;"><span style="color: orange;">Maldives</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: -0.55pt;"><span style="color: orange;"> girl's 100 lashes sentence overturned</span><span style="color: #505050;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h4>
<div class="introduction" style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">A 15-year-old girl who was sentenced to 100 lashes for engaging
in premarital sex has had her punishment overturned by a <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Maldives</st1:place></st1:country-region> court.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The High Court ruled
on Wednesday that the girl, whose stepfather is on trial for raping her, had
been wrongly convicted by a juvenile court of having premarital sex with
another man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Premarital sex is
illegal in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Maldives</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
a popular tourist venue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The case caused
outrage among rights groups who welcomed the latest ruling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"We are relieved
that the girl will be spared this inhumane 'punishment' based on an outrageous
conviction, which we hope has also been quashed," said Polly Truscott,
Amnesty International's deputy Asia-Pacific director.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 8.75pt;">
<span class="quote-credit"><span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Masood Imad</span></span><span class="quote-credit-title"><span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Spokesman for Maldivian President
Mohamed Waheed</span></span><span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"No-one should
ever be prosecuted for sex outside marriage in the first place."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Ms Truscott said that
flogging amounted to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. She called on the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Maldives</st1:place></st1:country-region>
government to annul all outstanding flogging sentences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In its ruling the
court said the sentence of the lower court was based on a confession that the
girl made while she was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. It said that
she had been "unfit for trial" after the alleged rape.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Maldivian
government appealed on behalf of the teenager following international outrage in
February to punish her with 100 lashes when she reached the age of 18.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The girl - who cannot
be named for legal reasons - was only charged after police investigating the
rape allegations discovered that she had been having consensual sex with
another man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="cross-head"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Dead baby</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">President Mohamed
Waheed said that he was "overjoyed" with the ruling, his spokesman
Masood Imad told the AFP news agency on Thursday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Mr Imad said: "It
is the government's policy to protect victims, but we had to do it within the
framework of the law."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The case was sent for
prosecution after police were called to investigate a dead baby buried on the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">island</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Feydhoo</st1:placename></st1:place> in Shaviyani Atoll, in the north
of the country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Her stepfather was
accused of raping her and impregnating her, then killing the baby.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The legal system of
the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Maldives</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
an Islamic archipelago with a population of some 400,000, has elements of
Islamic law (Sharia) as well as English common law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comFeydhoo, Maldives6.35 73.0333332999999816.35 73.033333299999981 6.35 73.033333299999981tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-36386340467414960112013-09-04T08:25:00.003-07:002013-09-04T08:25:46.283-07:00Do sporty women make better entrepreneurs? - By Jane O'Brien <div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Accessed
4<sup>th</sup> September 2013<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23582532">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23582532</a></span><span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">22
August 2013</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time-text"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Last updated at</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">01:17</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h1 style="background: white; line-height: 18.55pt; margin-bottom: 7.1pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: -87.25pt; margin-top: 1.65pt;">
<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; letter-spacing: -.55pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Do sporty women make better entrepreneurs?<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span class="byline-name"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">By Jane O'Brien </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="byline-title"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">BBC News, <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:state></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="introduction" style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Whoops and cheers greet Shavannia Williams, who steps onto the
conference floor with an agility unfettered by her 6in (15cm) stilettos.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This is Heels and
Helmets, a training camp for women in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Washington</st1:city>
<st1:state w:st="on">DC</st1:state></st1:place> that uses sport to help them
elevate their business game.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"Sport teaches us
that you cannot allow your accomplishments to make you complacent, and you
can't allow your fears to stop you from soaring," says Ms Williams,
president of Heels and Helmets, and editor of an online magazine of the same
name.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"It's about understanding
the culture behind sports as well as the vernacular. I relate it to working and
studying in another country."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">With a background in
sports marketing, Ms Williams is well placed to help other women understand the
lingo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 8.75pt;">
<span class="quote-credit"><span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Prof Sheila Wellington</span></span><span class="quote-credit-title"><span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Stern School of Business</span></span><span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">But while using
sporting analogies in business isn't new, an increasing number of organisations
are now looking at whether playing sport can make women better entrepreneurs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Consulting company
Ernst and Young<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.ey.com/US/en/Newsroom/News-releases/News_Global-survey-reveals-critical-role-sports-play-for-female-executives"><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">surveyed 821 senior managers</span></b></a>and found the
vast majority of top women executives had played sport at school or university.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The company says its
research validates and underscores the fundamental role that participation in
sport plays in developing women leaders. As a result, it has launched its own<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/3/prweb10505195.htm"><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">Women Athletes Global Leadership Network</span></b></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Ms Williams also
highlights the networking benefit that businesswomen can gain from playing
sport - access to the locker room, that exclusive male space, real or
metaphorical, where men are said to seal deals, and make the business decisions
that matter most.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Research, by Catalyst,
a non-profit organisation aiming to advance women in business also stresses the
networking boost that sport can offer females, both playing and watching it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="cross-head"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">'Stronger resilience'</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Ernst and Young's
findings do not surprise Karlyn Lothery, a Washington-based communications
consultant who works extensively with athletes, and uses the psychological
power of sport to help her less active clients too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Women with a sports
background usually show more confidence, she says. That can range from having a
firm handshake to speaking authoritatively without a rising inflection at the
end of a sentence which some women adopt to avoid appearing confrontational or
too assertive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"When the
athlete-turned-executive has a point, they make it," says Ms Lothery.
"You can't have that softer, questionable, doubtful sound in your voice.
[Athletes] have this confidence of, 'We are going to do this, we will do this,
we can do this, and we will win.' There's greater strength there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"They usually
have stronger resilience too, because in sport you have to learn to lose but
then pick yourself up and get back in."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Ms Lothery has played
a number of team sports including softball, football and basketball. She left
her job in television news to work for the US Tennis Association before
starting her own business in 2008 - just as the economy collapsed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">She says her sports
background gave her the skills to transform her $30,000 (£19,000) a year
start-up into a company with an annual turnover of about $1m.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"In sport you
look at what the successful teams are doing, what training you need to do
better. I'm a great communication consultant, but what I learned at that moment
was I wasn't great at running my business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"So I did the
practice necessary for any team to regroup and rebuild - they've got to make
time for practice and do the drills and work longer hours. Adopting that
philosophy, I think, was it."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Sheila Wellington, a
professor of management at the New York University Stern School of Business
agrees, saying that "having athletic experience gives women a kind of
experience and edge that is undoubtedly helpful in the business world".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">She adds: "Women
who are eager to win are sometimes characterised as being bitches. A guy who's
eager to win is called a winner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"A woman who
competes is considered not to be feminine. A guy who competes is a go-getter.
Sport teaches women that it's all right to want to win and it's all right to be
on top, that there's nothing wrong with caring about being part of a winning
team.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"These are
important life lessons, and the earlier girls learn them the better off they'll
be."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="cross-head"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Negative side</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">But simply playing
sport isn't enough, says Maureen Weiss, professor of kinesiology at the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Minnesota</st1:placename></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"I strongly feel
that competitive sport and other physical activity can provide the skills
needed in the business world, but one key thing - this is not an automatic
consequence of participation," she says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"When individuals
have a negative experience of sport, it can really have a very negative effect
on self-esteem and motivation."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Ms Weiss is starting a
longitudinal study in the autumn that will assess how structured physical
activity can teach girls social and psychological skills.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">She'll be tracking the
development of girls who take part in programmes offered by Girls on the Run, a
nationwide non-profit organisation that seeks to improve physical and mental
health through activities culminating in a 5km (three-mile) run.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Achieving a goal that
many thought was unobtainable instils confidence and teaches the value of
focus, effort and determination, says Girls on the Run president, Elizabeth
Kunz.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Many girls drop out of
sport when they reach puberty, the same age at which they often start to lose
confidence and self-esteem, she says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"It's like a rite
of passage. We're really trying to give them the tools they need so that when
this time comes they can remember what they learned at Girls on the Run."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Other experts say
sport in general teaches the value of teamwork, discipline and willpower - as well
as creating the physical stamina necessary for long hours and a gruelling
workload.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The message seems
clear - business is a tough game so employ the same tactics you would in
competitive sport and you stand a better chance of winning. And by the way girls,
it's OK to want to win.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comWashington, D.C., DC, USA38.907230899999988 -77.03646409999998938.907230899999988 -77.036464099999989 38.907230899999988 -77.036464099999989tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-76747162676850291992013-09-04T08:21:00.003-07:002013-09-04T08:25:59.925-07:00Viewpoints: Should equal gender pay be enforced? - BBC news<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Accessed
4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23769524">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23769524</a></span><span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">20
August 2013</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time-text"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Last updated at</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">16:39</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: -0.55pt;"><span style="color: orange;">Viewpoints: Should equal gender pay be enforced?</span></span></h4>
<div class="introduction" style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">New salary figures released by the Chartered Management
Institute (CMI) have documented that the gender gap in basic salaries has
increased at senior levels.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The pay gap between
men and women is exacerbated by bonus payments given to male managers which are<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23761607"><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">on
average double those for women</span></b></a>, says the CMI.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Male managers' average
bonus payments were £6,442 last year compared with £3,029 for women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The gender pay gap
increases with each rung of the management ladder, says the CMI, with male
salaries already almost 25% higher than women's before bonuses are even taken
into account.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Male managers'
earnings across all levels are rising faster than women's for the first time in
five years, according to the study, while male directors' earnings rose 5.3%
over the last year, compared to just 1.1% for female directors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The gender pay
imbalance has remained in place despite the 1970 Equal Pay Act being in force
for several decades.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Experts give differing
opinions below on whether equal gender pay should be enforced and how the gap
should be addressed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="cross-head"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Charlotte Bowyer, of the Adam Smith Institute</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The gender pay gap
persists for complex reasons, and legal enforcement of equal pay risks harming
women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Sexism does exist in
the workplace: some employers undervalue less traditionally
"masculine" attributes and skills, leading them to compare women
unfavourably against conventionally "male" skills. But that isn't the
only reason for the pay gap. Less women occupy senior positions, which can be reflected
in terms of bonus payouts, whilst women are less likely than male counterparts
to single themselves out for rises and financial rewards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Women can also be
costly to employers in terms of maternity leave, getting "back up to
speed" and higher days off dealing with domestic emergencies. Lower pay
can therefore compensate for the opportunity costs sometimes incurred when
hiring women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Blunt enforcement of
equal pay doesn't address these problems, and can instead have the perverse
effect of discouraging employers from hiring women. If taking women on simply
becomes more expensive, some employers will be less inclined to do so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Addressing the gender
pay gap should be a social issue and not a legal one. The market is amoral and
well-intentioned attempts to make it fairer will fail if they come from the top
down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">As having women in
senior corporate positions becomes less of a novelty and more of a given,
workplace discrimination is likely to diminish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Furthermore, shifts
towards flexible childcare choices and increased paternity leave uptake are
likely to level the playing field and reduce "maternity risk".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Enforcing equal pay
does little to tackle the reason behind pay inequality and can easily be
invasive, costly and distortionary. It's an easy answer, but it's the wrong
one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="cross-head"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Geraldine Healy, professor of employment relations at Queen Mary</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Although individual
pay is shrouded in secrecy, it is well established that the gender pay gap has
been resilient over time, despite improvements claimed in recent years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The overall pay gap is
19%, 15% for full-time workers but 34% for part-time workers. Given we have had
an Equal Pay Act in force since 1975, we have to conclude that legislation has
not been sufficient.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The problems with the
Equal Pay Act lie in its construction and implementation, not in its intention.
The law has required greater diligence from the public sector through the
Gender Equality Duty and now the Public Sector Equality Duty requirements,
which should also cover the private sector.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The introduction of
fees to take a case to tribunal in July 2013 has made implementation more
difficult. Individual claimant costs to lodge equal pay and discrimination
cases are now £250 plus an additional £950 to hear a case, prohibitive for all
but the well-paid. The current legislation is loaded against the claimant who
needs huge courage and tenacity to pursue an equal pay case.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">There is little doubt
that the law is important and needs to be strengthened and simplified for it to
be effective. However, the underlying institutions of the law need to be more,
not less, accessible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">It is undoubtedly the
case that, unless we have greater transparency in pay and in bonuses in both
the public and the private sector, the prospect of equal pay remains a laudable
aim rather than a target to be achieved. Thus equal gender pay regulation, not
voluntarist approaches, remain essential and should be protected and
strengthened, not diluted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I would prefer the
market to decide. I do certainly agree with equal pay for equal work, and I've
done that throughout my career, but I'm not too certain that I like the idea of
legislation to enforce it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Then you start getting
quotas, saying you have to have "so" many women and "so" many
men. I'm not sure that by forcing quotas necessarily means you get the right
person.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 8.75pt;">
<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23769524#story_continues_7"><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">Continue reading the main story</span></b></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">When you give somebody
an increase [in salary] you do it for performance purposes hopefully, and that
is obviously very subjective - and if you start saying equal pay then you're
really saying: "Forget the idea of doing performance-related pay - just
scrap that and give everyone the same salary," and I don't agree with that
either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The only thing I can
think of is maybe something along the lines of companies getting certain tax or
capital gains advantages, according to the percentage of the women they employ
- in certain bands or certain categories - and the differential in average
salaries between the male and female side. [You could] give the company some
sort of tax advantage or, if you like, disincentive if the gap is too wide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I think it's better
done with a carrot rather than a stick.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="cross-head"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Sophie Goddard, of Cosmopolitan magazine</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Laws on equal pay have
existed for more than 40 years, but women are still paid less than men - and
it's getting worse. At the current rate of change, a baby girl born this year
won't achieve equal pay until she's 97 years old.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Something obviously
has to be done - no woman should be paid less than a man doing the same job
simply because she's a woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">But I don't think
enforcing equal pay is the answer - comparing jobs and salaries across the
board is mind-bogglingly complex and it's never going to be as simple as giving
both sexes who share a job title the same salary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Last year, Cosmo ran a
campaign calling on the government to make equal pay auditing compulsory. If
companies employing 250 people or more had transparency operations in place,
sharing the average wage of women employees compared to male employees (say on
companies' websites), then we could finally begin to tackle the problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">After all, if we can't
see how much less women are getting paid on a smaller scale, then how are we
expected to take measures to close the gap? It's by no means a simple solution
and needs to be paired with things like flexible working hours and better
sponsoring and mentoring for women in the workplace. But it would be a good
start.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="cross-head"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Suzanne Horne, partner at law firm Paul Hastings LLP</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Notwithstanding almost
40 years of legislation and case law, the difference between men's and women's
average earnings is still 20.2%. Therefore, the report today by the CMI comes
as no real surprise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In 1975 the government
implemented the Equal Pay Act 1970 in line with European Treaty obligations. It
was replaced by the Equality Act in 2010.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Over the years, there
have been notable cases where the legislation has been enforced but case law is
still developing even decades later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Only last year, a
hugely significant ruling by the Supreme Court found that female workers of
Birmingham City Council could have six years from termination to bring their
claims in the High Court, rather than six months if the claim is before an
employment tribunal. The claim arose from the fact that they were denied
bonuses paid to male workers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The decision means
that the Council had to pay millions of pounds in back payments but it sets a
precedent that can be applied to others, right up to female senior executives
at board level.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">After all of these
developments, why then do we not have pay equality?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The answer is that a
legal rule alone will not result in permanent cultural change. There needs to
be business-led initiatives to drive a change in attitudes and pay practices.
The solution to this from the companies' perspective is merit-based pay
(whether salary or bonus) that stands up to objective scrutiny.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">If they are not willing to do this, then they leave themselves
exposed to the risk that the women can decide if they wish to enforce equal
gender pay in the courts.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="cross-head"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Anna Bird, deputy CEO of The Fawcett Society</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Today's CMI survey
shows that even when women have supposedly "broken through" the glass
ceiling, they still face entrenched discrimination when it comes to pay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Women at all levels of
the workforce face a lifetime of earning less than their male counterparts - on
average, women in the UK earn about 15% less than men. That means that for
every £100 men take home, women are typically earning about £85.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">A range of things
contribute to the pay gap - these include the undervaluing of "women's
work", where jobs traditionally done by women are generally less well paid
than those where men dominate, a lack of flexible work opportunities - this
means mothers, who still tend to do the bulk of unpaid caring for children, can
find it hard to combine paid work with family responsibilities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">A sizeable proportion
of the gap can be attributed to plain old discrimination - where women are paid
less than men for doing the same work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This disparity in pay
is one of the starkest indicators of how far we have to go before we achieve
equality between women and men. The <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>
lags behind much of <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> on this issue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Stamping out this
injustice once and for all means ushering in a more modern approach to work
with greater access to flexible models of working, a more open and transparent
culture around pay, and more effort to ensure women are enabled to play a full
role in the workforce.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Given the lack of
progress in narrowing the gap in men and women's pay, the government should
show leadership on this issue. The coalition's action to increase access to
flexible working and shared parental leave is a step in the right direction and
signals to businesses that they must also do their bit. The Fawcett Society
would urge the government to match this with similar action on pay
transparency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comLondon, UK51.511213899999987 -0.1198243999999704151.511213899999987 -0.11982439999997041 51.511213899999987 -0.11982439999997041tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-71646506555327519852013-09-04T08:10:00.003-07:002013-09-04T08:10:56.574-07:00Somalia: Women 'take weapons' to beach for protection - BBC news<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Accessed
4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23681033">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23681033</a></span><span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">13
August 2013</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time-text"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Last updated at</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">10:53</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h4>
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: -0.55pt;"><span style="color: orange;">Somalia</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: -0.55pt;"><span style="color: orange;">: Women 'take weapons' to beach for
protection</span><span style="color: #505050;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="byline-name"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">News from Elsewhere...</span></b></span><span class="byline-title"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">...as found by BBC Monitoring</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="introduction" style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Somali women have taken to carrying weapons to the beach to ward
off sexual harassment, it's reported.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">They're plagued by men
at the Lido resort, in the capital <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Mogadishu</st1:place></st1:city>,
according to the<a href="http://www.garoweonline.com/artman2/publish/Somalia_27/Somalia_Women_carry_axes_for_safety_at_Mogadishu_s_Liido_Beach.shtml"><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">Garoweonline</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>website. Describing the beach's
"buzzing and pulsating atmosphere", the report says many women come
with families, while others sell ice cream or drinks. It quotes one woman as
saying they're always pestered by "rude men" and are often offended,
angered or sexually harassed. Extra police have been deployed to the resort to
protect young women, says the news outlet, based in the semi-autonomous
Puntland region.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22090662"><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">Sexual violence has been a growing problem</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Somalia</st1:place></st1:country-region> in recent years, with some
of the 1.1 million people displaced by conflict - and often living in tarpaulin
shacks - particularly at risk. Despite this, the authorities and media have
been accused of not taking rape seriously. The founder of the Sister Somalia
organisation, which runs a rape crisis centre in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Mogadishu</st1:place></st1:city>, told<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/01/201315142216448735.html"><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">al-Jazeera</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>news in January that it dealt with up
to seven new victims a week. The UN recorded 1,700 rapes in the capital's 500
camps last year, many thought to have been carried out by security forces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comMogadishu, Somalia2.0333333 45.3500000000000232.0333333 45.350000000000023 2.0333333 45.350000000000023tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-61606194549472936132013-09-04T08:06:00.000-07:002013-09-04T08:30:23.763-07:00Georgia: Brides 'undergo virginity inspections' - BBC news<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Accessed
4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23454707">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23454707</a></span><span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">25
July 2013</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time-text"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Last updated at</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">16:36</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h4>
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: -0.55pt;"><span style="color: orange;">Georgia</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: -0.55pt;"><span style="color: orange;">: Brides 'undergo virginity inspections'</span><span style="color: #505050;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="byline-name"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">News from Elsewhere...</span></b></span><span class="byline-title"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">...as found by BBC Monitoring</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="introduction" style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Brides-to-be in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region>
are apparently undergoing "virginity inspections" before they tie the
knot.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The independent
National Forensics Bureau in the former Soviet state is offering the service
for 175 lari (£69), or twice that if you want it done quickly, reports<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://imedi.ge/index.php?pg=nws&id=9694"><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">Imedi
TV</span></b></a>. That's more than it costs the average person to get by for a
month, according to national statistics. The women are often accompanied by
relatives, their prospective husbands or - often - their mothers-in-law, bureau
medical expert Eka Chavleishvili told the privately-run channel. "In many
cases, they leave very happy when they find out the truth - that is, if the
truth is acceptable to them," she added.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Maintenance of
virginity before marriage is deeply entrenched in the Orthodox Christian
country, although not everyone's happy with the idea of it being documented.
One young interviewee branded it "disgusting". She told the TV
reporter: "I would say no if I were asked to do this... if I am to spend
my whole life with him, he should trust me." Web users also mocked the
inspection service, circulating a digitally-altered image of an ID card with an
added "virginity status" parameter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comTbilisi, Georgia41.709981 44.79299800000001141.709981 44.792998000000011 41.709981 44.792998000000011tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-62955055844021712852013-09-04T08:01:00.002-07:002013-09-04T08:01:54.891-07:00Iran: Female fans 'cut from live TV sport' - BBC news<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Accessed
4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23004459">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23004459</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">4
July 2013</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time-text"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Last updated at</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">14:28</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h4>
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: -0.55pt;"><span style="color: orange;">Iran</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: -0.55pt;"><span style="color: orange;">: Female fans 'cut from live TV sport'</span><span style="color: #505050;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="byline-name"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">As seen by...</span></b></span><span class="byline-title"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">...foreign media on key issues</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="introduction" style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Iranian TV has taken to cutting images of female fans wearing
"un-Islamic" dress from live sports coverage.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Recent sporting
successes - qualifying for football's World Cup and beating <st1:country-region w:st="on">Serbia</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Italy</st1:place></st1:country-region> at volleyball - caused a
dilemma for broadcasters, which are banned from showing women in "indecent
dress" such as short-sleeved T-shirts and without headscarves. They've
tried broadcasting "live" matches with a short delay, letting them
cut to replays when cameras pick up problematic shots. But last week, Channel
3's coverage of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Spain</st1:country-region>'s
football match against <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Italy</st1:place></st1:country-region>
caught Colombian singer Shakira cheering - shoulders bare - from the stands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Days later, the same channel aired footage of female supporters
as <st1:country-region w:st="on">Italy</st1:country-region> hosted <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region> at
volleyball. It prompted Tehran MP Ali Motahhari to caution broadcasting
authority head Ezzatollah Zarghami about the consequences of mishandling such
live events. Zarghami - with one eye on Friday's volleyball match in the heat
of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region>
- suggested the only option was to not screen it at all, according to reformist
paper Sharq. He then claimed he'd "send a group to hand out tracksuits to
ladies who do not adhere to the decent dress code".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Zarghami was joking. But he pointed out that viewers - already
irritated by the censorship - would turn to foreign satellite channels if
matches weren't screened.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://old.mehrnews.com/en/"><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">Mehr news
agency</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>reports
that he questioned how Motahhari noticed Shakira, given she was only visible in
slow-motion. Satirist<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.roozonline.com/persian/news/newsitem/archive/2013/july/03/article/-89ac696df9.html"><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">Ebrahim Nabavi wrote on Roozonline</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>website: "How could you notice an
image that was broadcast for only four seconds in the middle of an exciting
match...? Please let us know so that, from now on, we can also watch women in
the stadium instead of the match."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9z1Y6bK59bYtYIFBsAlSLqAdsSN6aVb6ttgc-CEDvM7oe4C_xMxWWevJoDUmG7FRe1fvQ5POXRtlMeSrwPaYLfxiGy4aHkcfA1qcvMJMWL8se_PhCcUnBts6KYh-H1mxPfQHZ_GZIi6d_/s1600/iran+football.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9z1Y6bK59bYtYIFBsAlSLqAdsSN6aVb6ttgc-CEDvM7oe4C_xMxWWevJoDUmG7FRe1fvQ5POXRtlMeSrwPaYLfxiGy4aHkcfA1qcvMJMWL8se_PhCcUnBts6KYh-H1mxPfQHZ_GZIi6d_/s320/iran+football.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Women could celebrate World Cup qualification in the street -
not in the stadium<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Women are banned from stadiums in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region> and many were dismayed at
being turned away from a homecoming celebration for the nation's footballers,
following their World Cup qualification last month. State-owned news channel
IRINN, whose images showed both packed and empty sections of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Tehran</st1:place></st1:city>'s 100,000-capacity Azadi Stadium,
estimated 20,000 people had shown up. Vahid Online<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/Vahid"><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">tweeted</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to
17,080 followers that fans were chanting: "The stadium is great. Women are
missed."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comTehrān, Iran35.696216 51.42294500000002735.696216 51.422945000000027 35.696216 51.422945000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-85727518072432968812013-09-04T07:57:00.000-07:002013-09-04T07:57:01.611-07:00Russia: Underwear protest targets drivers - BBC news<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Accessed
4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23695887">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23695887</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">14
August 2013</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time-text"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Last updated at</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">11:23</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h4>
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: -0.55pt;"><span style="color: orange;">Russia</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: -0.55pt;"><span style="color: orange;">: Underwear protest targets drivers</span><span style="color: #505050;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="byline-name"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">News from Elsewhere...</span></b></span><span class="byline-title"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">...as found by BBC Monitoring</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</v:shapetype><v:shape id="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="A screengrab from Channel One showing the women holding roadsigns"
style='width:348pt;height:195.75pt'>
<v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\CHRIST~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.jpg"
o:href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/69276000/jpg/_69276907_1tvru.jpg"/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMfrBRXF7_wmLirAbZCYsjGoUk-bAnai70JuFN0gxxqsU0aIdRqROtCno7XMnIvFKE7zXxQw-dhSJBI7-TjbcuNcOlZEG54SN8FKihfh3Rg4OE4c-kllZ-PgtME79_N96KPLDcbJkxYxNb/s1600/russia+driving.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMfrBRXF7_wmLirAbZCYsjGoUk-bAnai70JuFN0gxxqsU0aIdRqROtCno7XMnIvFKE7zXxQw-dhSJBI7-TjbcuNcOlZEG54SN8FKihfh3Rg4OE4c-kllZ-PgtME79_N96KPLDcbJkxYxNb/s320/russia+driving.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="introduction" style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">It takes scantily-clad women at the roadside to make some
Russian drivers slow down, it seems.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Young women posed in underwear at the side of a motorway in Nizhniy
Novgorod region, east of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Moscow</st1:place></st1:city>,
holding speed limit signs in front of them. And<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.1tv.ru/news/other/239561"><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">Channel
One TV</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>says they
had the desired effect - causing drivers to slow for a better look. It's
unclear who was behind the stunt but the state-controlled station says it was
"supported" by traffic police. Some locals are evidently fed up with
drivers' attitudes, with one complaining: "I may have to take my clothes
off just to cross the road because drivers don't always stop for you."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 9.8pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.8pt; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">It's not the first such instance of young women being employed
to improve Russian driving habits. Last November, TV stations reported on<a href="http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/366040/#ixzz2CDHYqkH8"><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="color: #4a7194; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span></b></span><b><span style="color: #4a7194;">traffic
police in the Baltic coast region of Kaliningrad sending out female officers
dressed as angels</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>-
complete with white halos, wings, skinny jeans and stiletto boots - to flag
down errant drivers. It came after the authorities launched a campaign to clamp
down on drink-driving in the wake of a series of horrifying crashes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comKaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia54.7166667 20.51666669999997354.7166667 20.516666699999973 54.7166667 20.516666699999973tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-22745994977648121702013-09-04T07:51:00.000-07:002013-09-04T07:51:01.570-07:00Kenyan trio in 'wife-sharing' deal - BBC news<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Accessed
4<sup>th</sup> September 2013<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23840824">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23840824</a></span><span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="date"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">26
August 2013</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time-text"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Last updated at</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="time"><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">16:56</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: -0.55pt;"><span style="color: orange;">Kenyan trio in 'wife-sharing' deal</span></span></h4>
<div class="introduction" style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Two Kenyan men have signed an agreement to "marry" the
same woman.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The woman had been
having affairs with both men for more than four years and apparently refused to
choose between them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The agreement sets out
a rota for Sylvester Mwendwa and Elijah Kimani to stay in her house and states
they will both help raise any children she bears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Mr Mwendwa told the
BBC he loved the woman and said the contract would "set boundaries"
and "keep the peace".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Lawyers said the
"marriage" would only be recognised if they could prove polyandry - a
woman having more than one husband - was part of their custom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The BBC's David
Okwembah in the capital, <st1:city w:st="on">Nairobi</st1:city>, says polyandry
is not practised by any community in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kenya</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">People have reacted
with shock to the "marriage", arguing that it is not acceptable in
terms of their culture, religion or the law, he says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Defending the
"marriage", Mr Mwendwa told the BBC Focus on <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>
programme that while he may acting in breach of the law, he had decided to
enter into a contract with Mr Kimani to end their rivalry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"It could have
been very dangerous if the other man would have come to her house and caught
me... So our agreement is good as it sets boundaries and helps us keep
peace."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="cross-head"><b><span style="background: white; color: #505050; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">'No jealousy'</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Community policing
officer Adhalah Abdulrahman persuaded the two men to marry the woman after he
saw them fighting over her in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Mombasa</st1:place></st1:city>
county, the local Daily Nation newspaper reports.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"We have agreed
that from today we will not threaten or have jealous feelings because of our
wife, who says she's not ready to let go of any of us," the agreement
says, Kenya's NTV station reports.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"Each one will
respect the day set aside for him. We agree to love each other and live
peacefully. No-one has forced us to make this agreement," it adds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Mr Mwendwa said her
parents had given their blessing, while he is planning to pay the bride price.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The woman, a widow
with two children, did not want to be named.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Mr Mwendwa told the
BBC he did not marry the woman simply to satisfy his sexual desires but because
he loved her and, most of all, her children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"I have never
been called a dad and her two children call me daddy," he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">He said he hoped to
have his own children with the woman, but she would have to decide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"She is like the
central referee. She can say whether she wants me or my colleague," he
added.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Kenyan family lawyer
Judy Thongori told the Daily Nation that the law does not explicitly forbid
polyandry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 9.8pt; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"The laws we have
do not talk about it but for such a union to be recognised in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kenya</st1:place></st1:country-region>, it has
to be either under the statutory law or as customary marriage. The question we
should ask now is whether these people come from communities that have been
practising polyandry," she is quoted as saying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comNairobi, Kenya-1.2920659 36.821946199999957-1.2920659 36.821946199999957 -1.2920659 36.821946199999957tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-67729613560699957012013-09-04T07:44:00.002-07:002013-09-04T07:44:49.015-07:00Cliteracy 101: Artist Sophia Wallace Wants You To Know The Truth About The Clitoris<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Accessed 4<sup>th</sup>
September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/cliteracy_n_3823983.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/cliteracy_n_3823983.html</a></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dominique-mosbergen"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dominique Mosbergen</span></a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><a href="mailto:dominique.mosbergen@huffingtonpost.com"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #4c4c4c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">dominique.mosbergen@huffingtonpost.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h4>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><span style="color: orange;">Cliteracy 101: Artist Sophia Wallace Wants You To Know The Truth
About The Clitoris</span></span></h4>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span class="posted-and-updated"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #999999; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Posted:</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #999999; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span><span class="posted-and-updated"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #999999; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">08/29/2013 12:42 pm
EDT | Updated:</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #999999; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span><span class="posted-and-updated"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #999999; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">08/31/2013 10:53 am EDT<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">New York</span></st1:place></st1:state><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://sophiawallace.com/" target="_hplink"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #ba72ba; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">artist Sophia Wallace</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>wants you -- and everyone you know --
to be cliterate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"It's appalling and shocking to think that scientifically,
the clitoris was only discovered in 1998," Wallace told The Huffington
Post from her <st1:place w:st="on">Brooklyn</st1:place> studio last week.
"But really, it may as well have never been discovered at all because
there's still such ignorance when it comes to the female body."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The clitoris, described as the only human body part that exists
solely for pleasure, is not merely a little "button" hidden between a
woman's legs, but rather a large, mostly internal organ many people don't know
about, Wallace explains.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600"
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMqjoOwgjcmmyGEcSS5BMphs2e_73PiNHgUcYD_Bb_P4_ls9_c1I1YPrPvfiTLfxBWLcJ1qq0x4H08cIrxzKMnTh_cKrjsbYYd2WcBFufSJZoLHBCtzcGbGK1yvlZPLra4I61bVTC21fae/s1600/cliteracy+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMqjoOwgjcmmyGEcSS5BMphs2e_73PiNHgUcYD_Bb_P4_ls9_c1I1YPrPvfiTLfxBWLcJ1qq0x4H08cIrxzKMnTh_cKrjsbYYd2WcBFufSJZoLHBCtzcGbGK1yvlZPLra4I61bVTC21fae/s320/cliteracy+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; padding: 0cm;">According to a</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; padding: 0cm;"> </span></i></span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://blog.museumofsex.com/the-internal-clitoris/" target="_hplink"><span style="color: #ba72ba; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">2011 post by
Museum of Sex blogger Ms. M</span></a>, the internal clitoris (highlighted in
yellow in the images above) is a complex erectile structure consisting of two
corpora cavernosa (that are said to wrap around the vagina when erect), two
crura (erectile bodies that branch out from the clitoral body), clitoral
vestibules or bulbs, and the clitoral glans (the part that you can see).</span></em><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In 1998, Australian urologist Helen O’Connell published a paper
in the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9598482" target="_hplink"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #ba72ba; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Journal of Urology</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>describing the sheer scope and size of
the clitoris. She wrote that the unerect clitoris, most of which is
subterranean, could be<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.cirp.org/news/clitoris/" target="_hplink"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #ba72ba; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">up to 9 centimeters long</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>-- longer, as some have described it,
than an unerect penis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">As Robert King, professor at <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ireland</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s University College Cork,
explained in a July post on Psychology Today, the true anatomy of the clitoris
had actually<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hive-mind/201307/the-lady-vanishes" target="_hplink"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #ba72ba; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">appeared in scientific literature as long ago as the mid-1800s</span></a>.
However, King writes that O'Connell's research shed light on the clitoris like
no one had before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Wallace, citing anecdotal evidence, says ignorance still seems
to be ever-pervasive in modern society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"It is a curious dilemma to observe the paradox that on the
one hand the female body is the primary metaphor for sexuality, its use
saturates advertising, art and the mainstream erotic imaginary. Yet, the
clitoris, the true female sexual organ, is virtually invisible," Wallace
told<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://creemmag.com/" target="_hplink"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #ba72ba; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Creem magazine</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>earlier this year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"Even in porn, the clitoris is treated as this optional,
kind of freaky, 'wow he's doing her this huge favor' thing," she told
HuffPost, adding that women often feel "embarrassed" to ask their
partners to pleasure them. "It's insane to me that this is still happening
in 2013."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Last year, during her tenure in the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.vlany.org/residency.html" target="_hplink"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #ba72ba; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Art & Law Residency</span></a>,
Wallace started work on a multi-media project that she hoped would serve to
challenge these misconceptions and to lift the veil on this enduring ignorance
about the female body.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Aptly entitled "<a href="http://vimeo.com/59497570" target="_hplink"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #ba72ba; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Cliteracy</span></a>," the project, which is ongoing, includes
Wallace's "100 Laws of Cliteracy," street art about the organ, as
well as a "clit rodeo" that involves an interactive installment of a
giant golden clitoris.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Scroll down to learn more about Wallace's project:</span></em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<strong><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">What is "Cliteracy"?</span></strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"I wanted to talk about female genitals in a way that I
felt wasn't really being talked about," Wallace said. "For me, this
word 'cliteracy' perfectly breaks down the idea of the project. It's this
pithy, wonderful little word that encapsulates so much so quickly and so
simply. It illuminates this idea of total illiteracy and incompetence when it
comes to the female body."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5zLt5FeGlkQzyafmVI3evwpjHkeUDHscChIFVXMaxbbc6j_bfhMZjgJAdaW79_i_kvlclqc7JiRAeE5SEp1upNZNk_9RMqZWIJdR4ey3mqzpM48KP8tx2Lp1AY2ToW0cuOUcQBdC2vqtp/s1600/cliteracy+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5zLt5FeGlkQzyafmVI3evwpjHkeUDHscChIFVXMaxbbc6j_bfhMZjgJAdaW79_i_kvlclqc7JiRAeE5SEp1upNZNk_9RMqZWIJdR4ey3mqzpM48KP8tx2Lp1AY2ToW0cuOUcQBdC2vqtp/s320/cliteracy+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
<strong><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">The
"100 Natural Laws of Cliteracy"</span></strong><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Spanning 10 feet by 13 feet, with a 6-foot neon
"Cliteracy" sign suspended from the ceiling, Wallace's "100
Natural Laws" installation is, as she describes it, "monumental in
scope and scale."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"I wanted to create something so big that it would make
everyone, including a football player or basketball player, feel small next to
it," she said. "You can't just glance at it and expect to have gotten
it. You have to spend time with it and think about it."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyqzz_PMyBu8rmv49YLZYUEzbgjpqqp6wbUtwrhBAliB95QKfjpi_TQjoKngGIvgeVwj1hGu_V8Em4ZpxkxlMig62idiucGvQc5ZT3UG2QyxNoXUqfR69utpw0-rvWACnpef8UP-wuv6RX/s1600/cliteracy+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyqzz_PMyBu8rmv49YLZYUEzbgjpqqp6wbUtwrhBAliB95QKfjpi_TQjoKngGIvgeVwj1hGu_V8Em4ZpxkxlMig62idiucGvQc5ZT3UG2QyxNoXUqfR69utpw0-rvWACnpef8UP-wuv6RX/s320/cliteracy+3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Using scientific data, historical information, as well as
references to architecture, porn, pop culture and human rights, the "100
Laws" have been a way for Wallace to lay out her "case for the
clit," she says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"I chose to use the language of Natural Law because its
authority precedes the mandate of states, countries and religious bodies.
Natural laws are inalienable. In much of the world women do not hold dominion
over their own bodies, and even in this country, women are too often
acquiescing to sex acts that do not give them pleasure," she told Creem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigE_x8-z-DLjJtT-J4MkNgMD8_jrobj3nKVug5RAUoY3jKf2CRMf2k6o2LxXvM5piZ4tyOt3D8BkuIot7eXo_ddu0_M7-3ww5V6hCstPdU5XA96DztGFM-4Bw4kl6Gjnj7GjaIWCss-5Gu/s1600/cliteracy+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigE_x8-z-DLjJtT-J4MkNgMD8_jrobj3nKVug5RAUoY3jKf2CRMf2k6o2LxXvM5piZ4tyOt3D8BkuIot7eXo_ddu0_M7-3ww5V6hCstPdU5XA96DztGFM-4Bw4kl6Gjnj7GjaIWCss-5Gu/s320/cliteracy+4.jpg" width="234" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">One of the most fascinating of Wallace's "100 Laws"
references the story of a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.frenchpubagency.com/Title-199552-Current-affairs/Victoire-sur-l%E2%80%99excision-Pierre-Foldes-le-chirurgien-qui-redonne-l%E2%80%99espoir-aux-femmes-mutilees.html" target="_hplink"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #ba72ba; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">French doctor named Pierre Foldes</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>who, thanks to recent research into
the anatomy of the clitoris, came up with a method of repairing the damage caused
by female genital mutilation. By removing scar tissue from the vulva and
lowering -- and revealing -- a portion of the internal clitoris, he has been
able to restore pleasure to thousands of women who have been circumcised.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Until recently, Foldes is believed to have been the only doctor
in the world who was carrying out this particular surgery. More doctors have
since adopted his methods.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">“When I returned to <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region>
to treat genital mutilation, I was amazed that they were never tried,"
Foldes said, according to a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://blog.museumofsex.com/the-internal-clitoris/" target="_hplink"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #ba72ba; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">2011 Museum of Sex blog
post on the internal clitoris</span></a>. "The medical literature tells us
the truth about our contempt for women. For three centuries, there are thousands
of references to penile surgery, nothing on the clitoris, except for some
cancers or dermatology -- and nothing to restore its sensitivity. The very
existence of an organ of pleasure is denied, medically."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
<strong><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Street
art</span></strong><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">To get people talking about the clitoris, Wallace has been
taking to the streets of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York City</st1:place></st1:city>,
plastering walls with cliteracy-related posters and slogans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"This is an advertising campaign for the clitoris,"
she said of the unauthorized street art installations. "After all, who
needs an ad campaign more than the clit?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"This work has never meant to be behind the white walls of
a gallery. It's really about cliteracy becoming a meme and creating new
language for bodies and sexuality," Wallace said, adding that she wants to
soon take her street art project global.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
<strong><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">"Clit
Rodeo"</span></strong><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">With the help of sculptor Kenneth Thomas, Wallace created an
anatomically accurate -- and rideable -- golden clitoris that debuted at the
Wassaic Project Summer Festival in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New
York</st1:place></st1:state>, earlier this month. The giant organ was the
star of the "Clit Rodeo," an interactive performance that involved
members of the public performing and dancing with the giant clitoris for
prizes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"[It was] an invitation for audiences to experience a space
free from traditional shame, taboo and silence usually cloaking conversations
around sexuality, particularly female genitals," said Wallace, who intends
on bringing the "Clit Rodeo" to other parts of the U.S.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"People couldn't stop looking at [the clitoris], touching
it riding it, being around it," she added. "It just had this aura
about it. It wasn't just women on the clit, it wasn't just the men, everyone
was engaged."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape id="_x0000_i1031" type="#_x0000_t75"
alt="clit rodeo" style='width:427.5pt;height:285pt'>
<v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\CHRIST~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image009.jpg"
o:href="http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1324007/thumbs/o-CLIT-RODEO-570.jpg?2"/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnPclkK1DLvDVKfnCbcjS3TNpIqdSFF3MN5JlwN0aOW00qr331XK7bplV2PjoVHnhHirMeVVo73hY3FqOer8BWydFI1CTFNilWfV-iNI9vREX4F952gfV8dU8IsinJLUNyfw2y6u9aP1CT/s1600/cliteracy+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnPclkK1DLvDVKfnCbcjS3TNpIqdSFF3MN5JlwN0aOW00qr331XK7bplV2PjoVHnhHirMeVVo73hY3FqOer8BWydFI1CTFNilWfV-iNI9vREX4F952gfV8dU8IsinJLUNyfw2y6u9aP1CT/s1600/cliteracy+7.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSB3siuPZvcMmqDQ_SIlgMe1V1DSBrom6fH90kykxKnhD0FmmurMho42XP8B8hlqGqSWx1Q8LJvfjeXP7j271ppArFGzLfy75A3YWvk9boZDUUgF35GjSNIM1C9W4Hu3V77WeQsqBMTII_/s1600/cliteracy+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSB3siuPZvcMmqDQ_SIlgMe1V1DSBrom6fH90kykxKnhD0FmmurMho42XP8B8hlqGqSWx1Q8LJvfjeXP7j271ppArFGzLfy75A3YWvk9boZDUUgF35GjSNIM1C9W4Hu3V77WeQsqBMTII_/s1600/cliteracy+8.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape id="_x0000_i1032" type="#_x0000_t75"
alt="clit rodeo 2" style='width:427.5pt;height:285pt'>
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<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Cliteracy
gear</span></strong><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"If you see a man walking around with a 'solid gold clit'
shirt, it creates this social experiment -- what does it mean to have a 'clit'
on your shirt? It's just interesting to see these words out in the world and to
see how they operate and how people respond," Wallace said of her line of
clothing featuring cliteracy slogans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"It's cool to see how much dialogue can be opened up.
Ultimately that's what the goal is -- to open up a conversation," she
added.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape id="_x0000_i1033" type="#_x0000_t75"
alt="solid gold clit" style='width:427.5pt;height:641.25pt'>
<v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\CHRIST~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image011.jpg"
o:href="http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1324388/thumbs/o-SOLID-GOLD-CLIT-570.jpg?3"/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9WB7EgMxMb9AyroK3LDAkf-jNjUY2s1GgITS5zHD6UyPFSJn8_skx2f1EWsZiI5tH08UZejnWDSDPjoF4211moUHFzBkQO83EoR-PRXV8V-rFKSnVPEejjUHJRQ1mQAjJ6k0YGz3weR2x/s1600/cliteracy+9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9WB7EgMxMb9AyroK3LDAkf-jNjUY2s1GgITS5zHD6UyPFSJn8_skx2f1EWsZiI5tH08UZejnWDSDPjoF4211moUHFzBkQO83EoR-PRXV8V-rFKSnVPEejjUHJRQ1mQAjJ6k0YGz3weR2x/s320/cliteracy+9.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
Wallace says that her cliteracy project has gone viral since its launch,
triggering a great public response both at physical exhibitions, as well as
online on<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/cliteracy" target="_hplink"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #ba72ba; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">social media platforms
like Tumblr</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"It's been a showstopper wherever its been shown. People
are hungry to be able to talk about this," she said. "I'm thrilled
that it's gone viral and I hope it'll continue to be shared. I absolutely want
people to talk about it -- and really, the effect is only beginning."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Cliteracy, says Wallace, is really something that everyone
should care about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Though the project may seem limited to the discussion about
women's bodies and female sexuality, Wallace insists that it's really much,
much bigger than that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Not only is the project for everyone ("I love seeing men
standing up for the clit," Wallace says, adding that this is a
conversation that liberates people of all genders), but she says that the
clitoris can be seen as a "metaphor for freedom, body sovereignty and
citizenship."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"Cliteracy is about not having one's body controlled or
legislated," she said. "Not having access to the pleasure that is
your birthright is a deeply political act."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"To me, this has always been about a bigger conversation.
It's about breaking down walls."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comNew York, NY, USA40.7143528 -74.005973140.7143528 -74.0059731 40.7143528 -74.0059731tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-65335387135152210292013-09-04T07:15:00.000-07:002013-09-04T07:15:20.132-07:00Kvinnojourer får mer pengar - MARIA ARNHOLM (FP) jämställdhetsminister MARIA LARSSON (KD) barn- och äldreminister<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Accessed 4<sup>th</sup> September 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/kvinnojourer-far-mer-pengar_8480004.svd">http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/kvinnojourer-far-mer-pengar_8480004.svd</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h4>
<span lang="SV" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"><span style="color: orange;">Kvinnojourer får mer
pengar</span></span></h4>
<div class="preamble" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="SV" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Regeringen ökar nu
de statliga bidragen till organisationer som arbetar med våldsutsatta kvinnor.
Pengar löser inte alla problem, men det är ett viktigt steg på vägen, skriver
ministrarna Maria Arnholm (FP) och Maria Larsson (KD).<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt;">
<span class="date"><span lang="SV" style="color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Uppdaterad kl 10:57, 3 september 2013<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt;">
<span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">Våld mot
kvinnor är det mest akuta jämställdhetsproblemet vi har i dag. Det finns i alla
samhällsklasser och i alla delar av Sverige. Men trots att mäns våld mot
kvinnor funnits i alla tider har det inte alltid funnits på den politiska
dagordningen. Kvinnojourerna är pionjärer inom detta arbete och mycket av den
politik som formulerats i dag är ett resultat av deras ihärdiga
opinionsbildning. Bara det faktum att vi i dag pratar om våldet som ett
jämställdhetsproblem är ett tecken på att kunskapen om frågan har spridit sig
från experterna till politiker i både riksdag och regering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">Från att ha varit något som ofta i huvudsak hanterats av
kvinnojourerna, har det blivit allt tydligare att arbetet mot mäns våld mot
kvinnor är en del av den allmänna välfärden. Det är en utveckling som är bra.
Regeringen har bland annat skärpt socialtjänstlagen (2007), så att kommunerna
numera ska ge våldsutsatta kvinnor stöd och hjälp. Det välfärdssystem som inkluderar
vård, skola och omsorg ska självklart också inkludera skyddet av våldsutsatta
kvinnor. Det kräver en mångfald av aktörer, och där är kvinnojourerna en viktig
del.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">Med bakgrund av detta</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;"> </span></span><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">har regeringen bestämt sig för att permanent öka de
statliga verksamhetsbidragen för organisationer som arbetar med våldsutsatta
kvinnor. Det är en satsning på de kvinnojourer och de ideella organisationer
som i dag erbjuder en ovärderlig hjälp för kvinnor, även dem som inte vill
vända sig till myndigheterna. Vi ser att kvinnojourerna på många håll i landet
behöver mer resurser, såväl för det lokala som för det nationella arbetet.
Därför har regeringen beslutat att stärka det statliga verksamhetsbidraget.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">I budgetpropositionen för 2014 finns en permanent höjning
av bidraget som innebär att den tillfälliga förstärkningen om 10 miljoner
kronor ligger kvar och förstärks med ytterligare 13,4 miljoner kronor under
2014. Från och med 2015 blir det en förstärkning på 23,3 miljoner kronor
årligen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">För kvinnojourerna blir det mer än en fördubbling av
medlen. Det betyder en förstärkning för bland annat de kvinnojourer som arbetar
nationellt, som exempelvis Terrafem, Riksorganisationen för kvinnojourer och
tjejjourer i Sverige, Roks, och Sveriges kvinno- och tjejjourers riksförbund,
SKR.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">Vi vet att mer pengar inte kommer att vara en lösning på
alla problem, även om det är ett steg på vägen. Därför arbetar regeringen också
med att se över strukturen som finns på plats för att hjälpa de våldsutsatta
kvinnorna.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">Den mängd aktörer</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;"> </span></span><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">som en våldsutsatt kvinna möter kan lätt bli
överväldigande. Finns barn, missbruk eller funktionshinder med i bilden blir
det ännu mer komplicerat. Och det är viktigt att varje individ kan få den hjälp
som hon behöver. Stödet för våldsutsatta kvinnor behöver vara flexibelt och
heltäckande på samma gång. Men det är svårt att få alla individer som jobbar
inom vården, skolan, rättsväsendet, polisen, kommunen och socialtjänsten att
samarbeta och dra åt samma håll. Att en misshandlad kvinna ensam ska kunna
navigera i detta är en helt orimlig förväntan. Samhället behöver bli bättre och
skyddsnätet betydligt starkare. För att komma till rätta med detta pågår ett
arbete på flera fronter:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">• Sedan lite mer än ett år arbetar Carin Götblad, som är
regeringens nationella samordnare för våld i nära relationer, på att ta ett
helhetsgrepp kring den här stödstrukturen och komma med förslag på hur den kan
förbättras. I det ingår att också titta på hur kvinnojourernas och andra
organisationers verksamhet kan förstärkas. I juni 2014 ska hon redovisa
resultatet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">• I går kom Socialstyrelsen med sin redovisning av ett
uppdrag de genomfört om de skyddade boendena. Nu finns en kartläggning av
omfattningen och kvaliteten på boendena, samt en tydlig definition av vad som
räknas som ett skyddat boende.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">• Regeringen har också skickat ut förslag på remiss som
handlar om hur man kan förbättra skyddet för hotade och förföljda personer. Där
finns bland annat konkreta åtgärder som handlar om att göra det svårare att
spåra individer och om hur myndigheter bättre kan arbeta tillsammans för att
skydda de personer som har sekretessbelagda personuppgifter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">Detta är bara några</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;"> </span></span><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">exempel. Alla dessa insatser är också en fortsättning på
de insatser som regeringen har gjort under denna och förra mandatperioden för
att bekämpa mäns våld mot kvinnor. Det är en satsning som beräknas uppgå till
cirka 1,5 miljarder kronor, vilket saknar motstycke i jämställdhetsarbetets
historia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">Kvinnojourernas arbete har en central roll i arbetet med
att bekämpa mäns våld mot kvinnor. Att få tillgång till deras hjälp och stöd är
ovärderligt för de våldsutsatta kvinnorna, inte minst när det gäller att få
kunskap om vad kvinnor har rätt att kräva och vad de kan förvänta sig att få
hjälp med – nämligen att leva fria från våld och förtryck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">MARIA ARNHOLM (FP) </span></b><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">jämställdhetsminister<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">MARIA LARSSON (KD) </span></b><span lang="SV" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: SV;">barn- och äldreminister<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comStockholm, Sweden59.328930000000007 18.06491000000005459.328930000000007 18.064910000000054 59.328930000000007 18.064910000000054tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-18320533318224713592013-09-04T07:00:00.000-07:002013-09-04T07:00:54.141-07:00Kiwi Blurred Lines parody taken off YouTube - Sarah Robson<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Accessed 4<sup>th</sup> September 2013</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/blurred-lines-parody-taken-off-youtube/story-e6frfn09-1226709719767">http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/blurred-lines-parody-taken-off-youtube/story-e6frfn09-1226709719767</a></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"> </span><br />
<h4>
<span style="color: orange; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Kiwi Blurred Lines parody taken off YouTube</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="caption-text"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #7e7e7e; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Auckland Univeristy law students have made a feminist parody of Robin Thicke's hit single</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #7e7e7e; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span><em style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; outline: 0px;"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #7e7e7e; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Blurred Lines</span></em><span class="caption-text"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #7e7e7e; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="source-prefix">by:</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><cite style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; outline: 0px;">Sarah Robson</cite><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="source-prefix">From:</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><cite style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; outline: 0px;">AAP</cite><span style="color: #575757; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="datestamp">September 03, 2013</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="timestamp">12:13PM</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/s2M6JUFCCSA" width="420"></iframe></span><br />
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><strong><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal; padding: 0cm;">A FEMINIST parody of Robin Thicke's worldwide hit single Blurred Lines has been taken off YouTube, leaving the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Auckland</st1:placename></st1:place> law students who created it mystified.</span></strong><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The comedy video - dubbed<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; outline: 0px;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-style: normal; padding: 0cm;">Defined Lines</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>- was created for the annual Law Revue and netted more than 300,000 views on YouTube before it was taken down on Monday morning because it was flagged by users as containing inappropriate content.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">One of the students behind the parody, Olivia Lubbock, told AAP the video was meant to be a bit of fun, but with a positive message.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">"The message really is just that we think that women should be treated equally, and as part of that, we're trying to address the culture of objectifying women in music videos," she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The original Blurred Lines video features topless women, while critics have slammed the song's lyrics, which allude to the "blurred lines" between consensual and non-consensual sex.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Auckland</st1:place></st1:city> students' parody has Ms Lubbock, Zoe Ellwood and Adelaide Dunn performing their own version of the song with three young men dressed in just their underwear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The lyrics, written by Ms Dunn, include: "What you see on TV, doesn't speak equality, it's straight up misogyny."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">"It's just funny that the response has been so negative when you flip it around and objectify males," Ms Lubbock said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">"Personally, I do not think that that video was any worse than anything that is already on [YouTube]."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Ms Lubbock said they have appealed YouTube's decision to remove the video and they are waiting for a response.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">"We've had so much support from friends and people we don't even know saying this is completely ridiculous, it should be put back up."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="outline: 0px;"></span><br /></span>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Ms Ellwood came up with the idea for the parody earlier this year after reading about some of the criticisms of the misogynistic lyrics in Thicke's original song, Ms Lubbock said.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comAuckland, New Zealand-36.8484597 174.76333150000005-37.2549887 174.11788450000006 -36.4419307 175.40877850000004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-25830204308397050382013-08-27T06:07:00.000-07:002013-08-27T06:07:20.918-07:00This week in Idiotic Things People Do In The Name Of Feminism: Boob parade! By Meghan Murphy<div class="fl" style="line-height: 17.3pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Accessed 27<sup>th</sup> August 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://feministcurrent.com/7908/this-week-in-idiotic-things-people-do-in-the-name-of-feminism-boob-parade/">http://feministcurrent.com/7908/this-week-in-idiotic-things-people-do-in-the-name-of-feminism-boob-parade/</a><span style="color: #999999;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">August 26, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<h4>
<span style="color: orange; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">This week in
Idiotic Things People Do In The Name Of Feminism: Boob parade!</span></h4>
<div style="line-height: 17.3pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">By<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://feministcurrent.com/author/meghan-murphy-2/" title="Posts by Meghan Murphy"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Meghan Murphy</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Sunday was, apparently, “<a href="http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2013/08/go-topless-day-2013-vancouver/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Go Topless Day.</span></a>”
According to media coverage of the event in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vancouver</st1:place></st1:city>, the purpose of the march is to
“stand up for women’s right to go topless in public.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/08/25/bc-topless-day.html" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">CBC’s headline</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>read: “Topless women march in
Vancouver for gender equality,” which naturally led me to wonder what, exactly,
about fighting for our “right” to bare our breasts in public had to do with
gender equality.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">First things first. In <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>, women won the right to bare
their breasts in public<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/07/19/gwen-jacobs.html" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">in 1996</span></a>, so the
claims that this march is about gaining rights is a little misleading.
Spokesperson, Denise Belisle, said the women participating in the event in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vancouver</st1:place></st1:city> were fighting
for women in other places where going topless isn’t legal: “For the women
who do want to go topless, they should have that option. They do here in
Vancouver, that’s great, but not everywhere.” How, exactly, women parading
topless down Robson Street, in Vancouver, where it is already legal, impacts
the law in other places is unclear.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Second, it seems relevant to mention that Go Topless Day
is, as<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/26/go-topless-demonstration-causes-vancouver-chaos-as-camera-wielding-voyeurs-descend-on-scene/" target="_blank"><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #e8a02c; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">The National Post</span></em><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">reported</span></a>, “organized and promoted by the Raelians, a
UFO cult founded by former French journalist Claude Vorlihan (i.e. a dude),
author of ‘Extraterrestrials Took Me to Their Planet.’”<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">The National Post</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>seems
to stand out as an exception, calling the event “a publicity stunt,” unlike the
many other media outlets who placed it under the banner of “gender rights.”
Though this information should be cause for skepticism, in terms of the
credibility or relevance to feminism, the media seems to be taking it quite
seriously. It’s no strange coincidence that news outlets seem most interested
in covering “gender rights” when we’re dealing with either<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://feministcurrent.com/category/slutwalk/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Slutwalk</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>or
female nudity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">It is true
that there is a double-standard. Aside from the douche-factor, people tend not
to pay much attention to men who go shirtless in public places. Women, on the
other hand, are likely to be gawked at, harassed, cat-called, or treated as
though they are doing something socially inappropriate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Now, as
far as “gender rights” go, near the bottom of the list of concerns I have about
inequality is my “right” to go topless. There are very few moments in my life
wherein I feel I would be freer or cooler if only I could bare my breasts. That
said, the reasons behind the fact that women don’t go topless in public places
as casually as men, do matter.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Breasts
are sexualized in our culture. In general, women’s bodies and body parts are
fetishized in a way that men’s are not. This is why people get so worked up
when women breastfeed in public. Because breasts are, we’ve been made to
believe, reserved for male sexual fantasies. Feeding babies with sexy sex toys
doesn’t fit very well with that notion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">It is for this same reason that<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">The Province</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>covered
Sunday’s march with<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.theprovince.com/news/vancouver/Everyone+photographer+Topless/8831599/story.html" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">the headline</span></a>:
“Everyone’s a photographer on Go Topless Day in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vancouver</st1:place></st1:city>.” Because,<em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">obviously</span></em>, a
bunch of disgusting pieces of shit felt that a march that (were we not so
terribly simple-minded and misguided) could have been about women’s right<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">not</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to
be objectified should actually be about objectifying women.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #555555; padding: 0cm;">The National Post</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #555555;"> </span></span><span style="color: #555555;">reported that “at least one participant had to hold the crowds
back shouting ‘You’re too close,’” because, of course, female nudity is an
invitation to men to behave rapily. Men think they have the right to access
women in public spaces regardless of how clothed we are, but they particularly
believe that women’s naked bodies exist<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">for them</span></em>. What else
could they possibly be for?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Of course, the message that this double-standard is sexist
(I actually don’t think that was the message, or really that there was any
message at all — but let’s pretend for argument’s sake) failed because those
behind the march don’t quite get it. The chant, “<a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/26/go-topless-demonstration-causes-vancouver-chaos-as-camera-wielding-voyeurs-descend-on-scene/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #e8a02c; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">free your breasts, free your
mind,</span></a>” tells me that the GoTopless folks have avoided looking at the
root of the issue. There is little that can be changed at the surface,
particularly when we we don’t understand why the inequality exists in the first
place. There is also little that can be changed, with regard to the
objectification of women, simply by “freeing one’s mind.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.8pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Belisle,
said: “It’s an education for men. Men are learning and they’re learning to be
more respectful.” Of course, as demonstrated by the behaviour of the men witnessing
the event, the exact opposite was achieved. Men did not learn to be more
respectful, nor did they learn anything about women’s rights or “gender
equality.” The march merely reinforced their belief that women’s naked bodies
equate to pornography — they are to be looked at for the purposes of male
pleasure.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #555555;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">I find it consistently sad and lazy (many days I simply
don’t have the energy to feel angry and am certainly not surprised) that the
media and the general public refuses to engage with<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>“gender rights” unless it can
somehow be pornified.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-1454959016911898082013-08-27T05:43:00.004-07:002013-08-27T05:43:53.022-07:00Gender stereotyping is unhelpful and counter-productive – whoever's doing it by Deborah Orr<h1 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Accessed 27<sup>th</sup> August 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/gender-stereotyping-unhelpful-counter-productive">http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/gender-stereotyping-unhelpful-counter-productive</a></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<h4>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: orange;">Gender stereotyping is unhelpful and
counter-productive – whoever's doing it</span></span></h4>
<div class="stand-first-alone" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Assuming that men are not responsible
for their actions harms them just as much as it harms women<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/profile/deborah-orr"><span style="color: #005689;">Deborah
Orr</span></a></span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian"><span style="color: #005689;">The
Guardian</span></a>,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Friday 23
August 2013 15.45 BST<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">How much do the reactions of a particular and
self-selecting group to an unusual and disturbing incident tell us about our
culture generally? Photographs of a teenage girl seemingly performing a public<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/sex" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Sex"><span style="color: #005689;">sex</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>act on a young man at a festival in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ireland</st1:place></st1:country-region> last
weekend were published by a third party on the internet, where they were quickly
shared on social networks. Other people offered their opinions. Many condemned
the female as "disgusting", while the male not only escaped
censure but was even described as a "hero" or a
"legend".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This, it is now being said, is a "typical" example of
age-old sexist double-standards, whereby women are condemned for flamboyant
expressions of their<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/sexuality" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Sexuality"><span style="color: #005689;">sexuality</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>while men are admired. What rubbish.
This may be the view of an ignorant, immature and vocal minority with more
technology than sense. But otherwise, there is nothing typical about any part
of this episode, and it should not be seen as an invitation to bang on a
feminist drum any more than it should be seen as an opportunity to jeer at and
judge a young woman. Far more telling, and far more cheering, is the fact that
the mainstream media has been low-key in its reporting of the incident and its
aftermath, realising that witch-hunts are not any longer something that
responsible adults should indulge in or encourage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">It's true that a female has been subjected to vicious criticism,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/voices/2013/08/why-its-different-girls-slut-shaming-digital-age" title=""><span style="color: #005689;">while, as my colleague Sarah Ditum put it
in the New Statesman</span></a>, "in the world of popular sexual mores,
public oral sex is apparently seen as pretty much neutral for men". But is
that true? Am I that out of touch? My impression is that the vast majority of
men wouldn't in fact give or receive oral sex in public, wouldn't stand around
taking snaps if they saw others doing so, wouldn't put those pictures on the
internet and wouldn't go online to offer their uncharitable view on the matter.
I just don't believe that it's useful to insist that general truths about
contemporary sexual mores can be extrapolated from deliberate humiliation and
cruelty by an almost universally condemned minority.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">It has been made known that the girl is deeply distressed. It's
reported that she was hospitalised and sedated and that her blood is being
tested, to see if her drink was spiked, not least because other photographs
have emerged, of sexual harassment by a group of men, in an earlier incident
that she had complained about. There is talk of designating all of the people
who shared the images, especially the <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Belfast</st1:place></st1:city>
man who is accused of creating them, as publishers of child pornography, since
the girl is under 18. The suspicion is that she has been manipulated,
exploited, taken advantage of, because something made her vulnerable. Perhaps
it was alcohol, taken by her knowingly. Perhaps alcohol or drugs were given to
her without her knowledge, and with malicious intent. Either way, the man
involved is no hero. He behaved appallingly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Yet there is no suggestion that his outrageous actions are
anything other than self-explanatory. Maybe that's right. Maybe he has no
excuse. Maybe he's pleased with himself. But the idea seems to be that he was
just doing what all men would do, given the "opportunity". He wasn't
though, was he? To suggest that he was is a grotesque caricature, insulting to
most men. Reaction to this case, unfortunately, reeks of misandry as well as
misogyny.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Of course, it's unfair that the man involved in the incident has
not been showered with online disapprobation – no one denies that misogynists
can express themselves online in a way that they can't in real life, and for
obvious reasons. However, he nevertheless doesn't seem to be keen to capitalise
on all of the "neutral" publicity. Instead, he is lying low. This
suggests that he either knows that his behaviour is inexcusable, or understands
at least that most people, far from seeing him as a hero or a legend, would be
disgusted by him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Can I be so bold as to suggest the unthinkable – that he might
have regrets, might be appalled by his own behaviour, might be frightened for
the consequences that may yet come, and be miserable at home with a family who
are horrified by his appalling lapse? Maybe he was also drunk, or on drugs. Maybe
he finds the people who call him "legend" repulsive. Who knows?
There's been a distinct lack of curiosity about any of that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Because that's the trouble with gender blaming. All misogynists
are also misandrists. All misandrists are also misogynists. Saving your
misanthropy for only one gender is just a not-so-fine distinction that leaves
you stereotyping half of all people and archetyping the other half. Elevating
individuals to archetypes may be less negative and nasty than reducing them to
stereotypes. But it's still a refusal to see people for who they are, insisting
instead that we are all identical microcosms representing all of our sex.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The type of sexual misogyny that has been meted out to this
unlucky woman has come to be known as "slut-shaming". But
slut-shaming is a prima facie example of the Janus-faced nature of
woman-hating. Slut-shaming, by implication, doesn't just unfairly and
negatively stereotype women. It portrays men as unwilling and unable to
control their sexual impulses, reliant on women to take responsibility for
policing their sexual<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/relationships" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Relationships"><span style="color: #005689;">relationships</span></a>,
therefore making them blameless when sexual acts or sexual relationships are
unsatisfying or abusive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Anyone who indulges in "slut-shaming", somewhat
paradoxically, has an unhelpfully and unfeasibly low opinion of what should be
expected of men, and an unhelpfully and unfeasibly high opinion of what should
be expected of women. This is not to say that it isn't important to identify
and challenge this kind of reductive and biased name-calling. On the contrary,
the debate is skewed and divisive, precisely because it concentrates far too
much on exonerating all women and condemning all men. It does exactly what the
thing it professes to hate does, and insists women are always hapless victims
and men are always ruthless aggressors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">And as for the fact that women "slut-shame" too, often
with great enthusiasm? Well, that's the fault of "the patriarchy",
whose greatest triumph as an oppressor of women, as a destroyer of female
agency, seems at present to be its ability to reassure susceptible women that
men are always to blame.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">There's a querulous passivity to some feminist debate; an
endless search to put misogyny up on a podium of shame, rather than just drown
it in the majority's common-sense attitude. Common sense tells us that
misogynistic people are insecure. Cultural noise – broadly feminist – tells us
that misogynistic people are powerful and dominating. But it's a bit silly
really, a bit counterproductive, telling insecure men with feelings of
inadequacy that there's this way of thinking about women that will make them
feel powerful. The worst of men – and women – sign up to active misogyny and
misandry, and they are then the people whose behaviour increasingly fuels
debate. It's a downward, negative, abject spiral, that risks always seeking
difference instead of similarity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Common sense also tells us that public oral sex is not to be
encouraged, that public embarrassment of people who make mistakes is horrible,
that drinking or drugging yourself or others into insensibility, or taking
advantage of those who do, is vile and that<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/youngpeople" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Young people"><span style="color: #005689;">young
people</span></a>, male or female, sometimes behave in a confused or immature
fashion. There is no great divide in opinion between men and women on these
matters. So what on earth is the benefit to anyone of making out that there is?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-46022016559039907432013-08-27T05:06:00.002-07:002013-08-27T05:09:06.116-07:00Tits, out - The Economist<h2 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Accessed 27<sup>th</sup> August 2013 <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21583661-what-row-about-tabloid-nudity-says-about-sex-and-society-tits-out"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21583661-what-row-about-tabloid-nudity-says-about-sex-and-society-tits-out</span></a></h2>
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Bagehot<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h4>
<span style="color: orange; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;">Tits, out</span></h4>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">What a row about tabloid nudity says about sex and society<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Aug 17th 2013<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>|<a href="http://www.economist.com/printedition/2013-08-17"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">From the print edition</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">AN ENGLISHMAN likes a routine: Marmite
on his toast, warm beer in his glass, bad teeth in his mouth and, for a couple
of million readers of the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Sun</span></em>, a squint at
Kelly from Daventry’s boobs on Page 3. Such is the claim made by <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
biggest-selling tabloid: that since its topless photos were introduced in 1970
under the new proprietor of the day, Rupert Murdoch, they have become a
harmless fixture of national life. Yet, cheekily venerable though it may be,
Page 3’s days could be numbered. Its fate casts light on evolving attitudes to
sex, feminism and the media; on what has changed in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region> since 1970, and what
hasn’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">People have always complained that Page
3 demeans and objectifies women. But the impetus for a rethink now is new. A
year ago Lucy-Anne Holmes, an actor and writer, began an online campaign, No
More Page 3, and a petition that has since attracted 114,000 signatures. Her
success is salutary. Death threats made recently against female MPs and
journalists highlighted the use that deranged misogynists make of Twitter and
Facebook; Ms Holmes’s efforts demonstrate how valuable the internet has been
for feminists, too. Suddenly women and girls no longer feel like the only
person in the office or classroom who cares.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Previous opponents of Page 3 have been
dismissed as puritanical killjoys. With the especial venom the tabloids reserve
for those who threaten their own interests, the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Sun</span></em>labelled Clare Short, a former Labour minister who
advocated a ban, “fat”, “ugly” and “jealous”. Wisely, today’s campaign is not
calling for legislation, nor even for the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Sun</span></em>’s banishment to
the top shelf or a minimum age for buyers (the print equivalents of a
television watershed). It is politely requesting that Page 3 be discontinued.
The Irish version of the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Sun</span></em>recently did
just that. The word is that a revamp may be coming in the British paper, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">But meanwhile fans of Page 3 are
marshalling their arguments, as familiar as the new activism is nimble. One is
that critics’ real concern is not sex but class: that the underlying anxiety is
not for the women on the page but the (largely) working-class men who ogle
them. The snooty prosecutor at the obscenity trial of “Lady Chatterley’s
Lover”—who asked if the jury would want their servants to read the
book—sometimes gets a look in. This defence is itself a form of snobbery—as if<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Sun</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>readers
would not cope without a daily dose of nipples, or are irredeemably sexist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Then there is the lazy appeal to the
sovereignty of the market. That is the line taken by David Cameron and other
senior politicians (though 138 other MPs support Ms Holmes). This is a matter
for consumers, they say, sometimes proceeding to reject the idea of a ban, even
though no one is proposing one. Like most papers, the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Sun</span></em>’s circulation has declined; it has been tarnished
by a scandal over phone-hacking and the bribery of public officials, in which
dozens of journalists have been arrested. Evidently, however, bigwigs still
prefer not to alienate it, or Mr Murdoch. The prime minister’s blasé approach
sits uncomfortably with his alarm at the spread of salacious images online.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">That is something that definitely has
changed. These days, raunch is everywhere—not only on the internet and
television, but on advertising hoardings and the sides of buses. Another online
campaign is aimed at sanitising the covers of sub-pornographic “lads’ mags”. In
this context, Page 3 can scarcely be titillating for anyone over the age of 13.
Like the saucy “Carry On” films of the 1960s-70s, or Benny Hill’s puerile
comedy sketches, it is more cartoonish than erotic. Britons seem to have an
enduring taste for coy, almost evasive smut.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Which is not to say that it is
harmless. As with much nastier material, only more so, linking Page 3 to
violence is highly speculative. But, given its brand and (despite the falling
circulation) its ubiquity, it is silly to deny that the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Sun</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>plays
a role in shaping views on women. In particular, the attitudes of boys to girls
and girls to their own bodies: Page 3 supplies invidious comparators and
narrow, retrograde stereotypes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">The paper itself seems to understand
that tits are not for kids, and drops them in its family-friendly weekend
editions. But children pick up the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Sun</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>at bus stops or kitchen tables during
the week. In a way, the new, hypersexual environment strengthens the case
against Page 3. In the emerging, rough-and-ready rules of the pornofied world,
adults can look at what they choose, but children should be shielded where
possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="xhead" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Turn the
page<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Besides the issue of whether Page 3
should be scrapped (it should, but voluntarily), there is the question why, in
this age of wall-to-wall filth, readers might remain attached to it. Here the
fallback plea of the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Sun</span></em>’s editors—that
the boobs have become a tradition—may be helpful. Page 3 has been going about
as long as the Super Bowl in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>:
not very, but long enough to become a staple for a couple of generations of
men. It has spanned decades in which much of British life has been transformed,
not least in off-the-page relations between men and women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Tough. Traditions can die, and many are
unlamented when they do. The time-honoured tradition of displaying girlie
calendars in motor garages and other workplaces is now defunct. Even Page 3
itself is not immutable. It ditched surgically enhanced breasts and swore off
girls younger than 18; ironic jokes at the models’ expense have gone the way of
all flesh. Too prim to arouse yet too lewd for a modern newspaper, the flesh
itself is a throwback to a cruder, simpler past.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Encouragingly, in February Mr Murdoch
hinted in a tweet that the topless shots might be replaced by pictures of
“glamorous fashionistas”. On occasion he has seemed ruthlessly aware that
institutions have a half-life. The phone-hacking furore began in 2011 when the<em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">News of the World</span></em>,
the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Sun</span></em>’s much older
Sunday complement, was accused of raiding the messages of a murdered
schoolgirl. Mr Murdoch closed the paper in a heartbeat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856387278451629892.post-50993200302022135912013-08-23T08:02:00.000-07:002013-09-04T07:02:26.186-07:00Are vulvas so obscene that we have to censor them?<h1 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Accessed 22<sup>nd</sup> August 2013 </span><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/22/honi-soit-vulvas-censorship">http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/22/honi-soit-vulvas-censorship</a><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: orange;">Are vulvas so obscene that we have to
censor them?</span></span></h4>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Our
student newspaper was taken off the shelves for showing vulvas. But what is
offensive about a body part that over half of the world have?<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/profile/hannah-ryan"><span style="color: #005689; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Hannah Ryan</span></a></span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/profile/avani-dias"><span style="color: #005689; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Avani Dias</span></a></b>,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/profile/mariana-podesta-diverio"><span style="color: #005689; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Mariana
Podesta-Diverio</span></a></b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/profile/lucy-watson"><span style="color: #005689; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Lucy Watson</span></a></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/"><span style="color: #005689; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">theguardian.com</span></a>,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Thursday 22 August 2013 04.50 BST<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Honi
Soit's censored cover - the issue was still pulled off shelves as the black
bars were 'too transparent'. An uncensored version of the cover can be seen
below. Photograph: Honi Soit. Photograph: Jennifer Yiu/Honi Soit<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Eighteen vulvas. All belong to women of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Sydney</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">University</st1:placename></st1:place>,
and feature on the cover of <a href="http://www.honisoit.com/"><span style="color: #005689; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Honi Soit</span></a>,
the university's student newspaper. We were told to cover them with ugly black
bars before publishing. Why, even after complying with this, were the issues
taken off the stands?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">We are tired of society giving us a myriad of things to feel
about our own bodies. We are tired of having to attach anxiety to our vaginas.
We are tired of vaginas being either artificially sexualised (porn) or
stigmatised (censorship and airbrushing). We are tired of being pressured to be
sexual, and then being shamed for being sexual. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The vaginas on the cover are not sexual. We are not always
sexual. The vagina should and can be depicted in a non-sexual way – it’s just
another body part. “Look at your hand, then look at your vagina,” said one
participant in the project. “Can we really be so naïve to believe our vaginas
the dirtiest, sexiest parts of our body?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">We refuse to manipulate our bodies to conform to your
expectations of beauty. How often do you see an ungroomed vulva in an
advertisement, a sex scene, or in a porno? Depictions of female genitalia in
culture provide unrealistic images that most women are unable to live up to.
“Beautiful vaginas are depicted as soft, hairless, and white. The reality is
that my vagina is dark and hairy, and when it isn’t it is pinkish and prickly,”
said one of the participants in the project. We believe that the fact that more
than<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2009/s2741317.htm"><span style="color: #005689; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">1,200 Australian
women a year</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>get
labioplasty is a symptom of a serious problem. How can society both refuse to
look at our body part, call it offensive, and then demand it look a certain
way? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">We want to feel normal; we don’t want to feel fearful when we
have a first sexual encounter with a partner who may judge us because of our
vaginas. That fear was replicated during the photo shoot. “Just before getting
the picture taken the little voice in my head was doing the whole ‘why didn’t
you landscape?’ thing,” said one participant. This sentiment was shared by most
people in the project – they felt a pressure to present our vaginas to the
world in a way that the audience would be "comfortable" with. But
this cover is intended to reassure other women. Take comfort from the fact that
everyone’s vagina is different, and normal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">All the women on the cover have been unified through their
experience, but so is every other person that is able to defeat any negative
feelings they have towards their own or another vagina. As one participant put
it: “When it comes down to it, my vagina is just another part of my body, which
can be viewed in a number of different ways, but the majority of the time is
completely neutral, just like my mouth or my hands. It is not something to be
ashamed of; it is not my dirty secret.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">It’s telling that the women who participated in the creation of
this cover found the experience to be liberating. It’s because we need
liberation. Just before we went to print, we were told that our cover was
illegal, possibly criminal. But why? According to the Student Representative
Council’s legal advice, this publication might be “obscene” or “indecent”,
likely to cause offence to a “reasonable adult”. But what is offensive or
obscene about a body part that over half of the Australian population have? Why
can’t we talk about it – why can’t we see it? Why is that penises are scrawled
in graffiti all around the world, but we can’t bear to look at vulvas?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In 1993, the Honi Soit editors ran an uncensored
photograph of a flaccid penis on the front cover, as a response to another
university newspaper's decision to do the same. Neither newspaper received any
complaints. Our cover was not a comment on nudity generally, but instead an
exercise in female empowerment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Even after complying, the paper was pulled off stands yesterday.
Why? Due to a printing error, the black bars which we were made to use to hide
the "offensive" parts and avoid prosecution came back from the
printers ever so slightly transparent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Art exhibitions over the last few decades have attempted to
break down the stigma attached to the vagina by bringing its realistic
depiction into the public sphere,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.101vagina.com/2013/05/30/101-vagina-comes-to-sydney/"><span style="color: #005689; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">most recently in
Redfern</span></a>. But the audience must first choose to go to the exhibition.
By distributing this cover about the university, we have given our audience no
choice. Either accept vaginas as normal, non-threatening, and not disgusting,
or explain why you can’t. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Censorship laws in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region> state that the publishing
of "indecent articles" without classification is
illegal. Indecent is supposed to be something that will "offend"
a "reasonable person". If deemed indecent, items must be classified
before publication. Pornography is classified, and deemed suitable for
publication in places that only adults can access. Our publication risked being
classified as more extreme than that, available only from behind a counter,
something that should be hidden away from view, something that should be shamed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">That in 2013, vulvas can still be considered something that
should be shunned and hidden, or offensive, is absurd.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02525869861869949269noreply@blogger.comSydney NSW, Australia-33.8674869 151.20699020000006-34.711976400000005 149.91609670000005 -33.0229974 152.49788370000007