The Freedom of Choice Act has been introduced in the House and Senate, and will (I predict) die in committee. FOCA, if it became law, would::

Although it won’t pass, it’s still good to support this bill - both for its symbolic importance, and to get the idea of a bill declaring “reproductive decisions are between a woman, her doctor and her god” in play. The pro-lifers don’t wait until they can pass a bill (like the “partial-birth” abortion ban) before proposing it; instead, they propose their bills year after year, rain or shine, minority or majority, until something eventually sticks. In this, we should imitate them.

NARAL has an online petition you can sign to support FOCA.

It just had to be said.

Okay, consider this an “open thread.”

January 23

1849: (A First) Elizabeth Blackwell graduates from Geneva Medical College, becoming the country’s first female doctor of medicine. After applying (and being rejected from) all of the established medical schools, she applied to several smaller schools (for a total of 29 applications) and received one acceptance letter — from Geneva Medical College in Geneva, NY, where she went on to graduate first in her class.

1955: (A First) The U.S. Presbyterian Church votes to accept women as ministers.

1982: Debbie Brill, Canadian athlete who proved that pregnancy and motherhood need not end a woman’s athletic career. Her son was only five months old when she set a new indoor world broad jump record of 6′6-3/8″.

January 22

1858: (Birthday) Beatrice Potter Webb, English writer and economist born in Gloucester. An early member of the Fabian Society, she published important works before she met her husband and formed a major partnership which influenced socialist thought of their day. Together, they co-founded the London School of Economics (1895) and the New Statesman (1918). Her autobiography is My Apprenticeship (1926). A member of the Royal Commission from 1905-09, Beatrice Potter advocated social security and the basic welfare state - about 30 years ahead of her time.

1973: (Court Decision) U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade declares abortion primarily a medical decision and strikes down state laws limiting women’s access to it.

1986: Mary Ann Sorrentino, executive director of the Rhode Island Planned Parenthood from 1977 - 1987 and syndicated columnist, was notified of her excommunication by the Roman Catholic Church due to her work with Planned Parenthood.

Allow me to indulge in a bit of post-modernism here for a second.

Looking at the “Recently updated comments” section on the right side of the page I see that as of this moment two of the top five posts have titles that begin with “a few quick [nouns] on…” (Specifically, those posts are A few quick links from Amp and A few quick thoughts on Iowa.) On top of this I just wrote a post titled A few quick thoughts on the primaries.

Apparently two of the three bloggers around here are quite accomplished at generating a few quick nouns.

As the Democratic primaries are sweeping the nation (that makes it sound like a plague, a trend, or an uprising of housewives) I’ve decided to finally break my non-public vow of primary celibacy. This won’t be a long post, but hopefully the comment thread will be interesting.

I know that a lot of you, most of you, like me, still have the primaries ahead of them. I’m also pretty sure that there’s at least one or two of you out there who, like me, haven’t been following the tracking polls, columns, stump speeches, and petty pissing fights that have bogged down some of the blogs. So maybe you haven’t gotten a chance to read some articulate, intelligent appraisals of the candidates.

Since I know that Alas has a readership consisting entirely of people capable of making articulate, intelligent statements, I’d like to invite anyone who is willing to post a bit about their thoughts on the candidates. Which candidate are you supporting and why? Which candidate are you actively not supporting and why? Are you going to vote in the primary or are you going to sit this one out? Are you going to be voting in the general election? (Just to be clear, though, if you want to comment that you won’t be voting for Mr. Clark because he sounds like George W. Bush, that’s okay, too.)

I’ll be posting my own thoughts in the comments section once I’ve had some sleep.

(Oh! I just remembered… Thanks, John Isbell, for the lovely letter about Mr. Kerry you wrote me a few months ago. I forgot to write you a thank you note, so consider this a thank you and an effort to make sure everyone knows what a sweetheart you are.)

When I was younger I was addicted to the History Channel. My dad and I used to stay up (insomniacs us) into the wee hours of the morning talking about history and watching the History Channel. This was around about the time that they were showing a lot of World War II shows, so I got a decent education about World War II and related matters. It was no substitute for a good history book or history class, but it was nice and serves me well in Trivial Pursuit to this day. (At least, the old Trivial Pursuit where the history questions were about history and not about arts and entertainment, but I digress.)

Sadly, I must report that the History Channel is not what it used to be. I was pretty sure that things were going downhill when the history shows with prunish professors began to be replaced with shows about the histories of certain football teams, but when they got Jenny McCarthy to be spokeschest for a show called “Boy Toys” I knew the belovéd channel of my youth had perished.

Just now I was flipping through the channels and came across an ad for a series on the History Channel called The Barbarians. I’m not sure what the other episodes were about, but they were advertising a set of episodes about barbaric leaders from history. The examples of barbarians they mention in the ad were as follows: Attila the Hun, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Osama bin Ladin, and Saddam Hussein.

I’ll go ahead and post my warblogger disclaimer: Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are bad people. But, really, how is it that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Ladin are equivalent to Hitler, Stalin, and Attila the Hun? I’ll grant that maybe Osama bin Ladin should be on a list of barbarian invaders (even though that distinction smacks of something it shouldn’t) because of al-Qaeda’s targetting of Europe and the United States, but Saddam Hussein?

1. Boy, am I glad I didn’t try to call this one.

2. I’m thrilled with the outcome. Partly, I’m happy because the bloggers at Wampum and Tribal Law have persuaded me that Dean has fundimentally wrongheaded views on race, and is probably substantively worse than Kerry or Edwards on that score.

   And partly, I’m happy because the pundits and handicappers have been shown to be wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

3. I’m sick of speculations about which candidate is “electable.” My feeling is that if a candidate can’t manage to win the Democratic primary, probably he’s not electable. Time will tell who wins the primary, but in the meanwhile let’s not waste time speculating.
4. Think of all the endless hours (and column inches) of news coverage that have been devoted to handicapping and “who can win” and meaningless polls and the like. In hindsight, very little of that coverage was worth the time it took to read, to view, or to create.

   What if all that time - or, heck, 75% of it - had instead been spent ferretting out and reporting on real policy or character differences between the candidates? Call me nutty, but I think the result would have been much more useful news coverage and a better-informed electorate.

5. I still maintain that if you’re a progressive, your best bet is to vote for Kucinich. Along with Sharpton, he’s the most progressive voice in the race; and unlike Sharpton, he’s a serious and credible politician. True, he can’t win this election, but think of the future. The stronger Kucinich’s showing this year, the better-positioned he’ll be for another run in 2004 or 2008.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts. Yours?

I was checking out The View from the Basement, a blog that has rather mysteriously been nominated for a “best new blog” Koufax. (The Koufaxes are for lefty blogs - View From the Basement is a centrist blog, not clearly left nor right). Unlike the Head Heeb, I wasn’t very impressed; the blogger seems to be one of those boring “anyone who criticizes Israel is an anti-Semite” folks.

Anyhow, the reason I’m posting this is the following quote, which adorns the top of her blog:

The problem is that the quote is a fake, as Tim Wise has documented.

The quote does indeed pop up a lot; don’t be fooled.

And hey, while you’re reading Wise on MLK, check out his essay rebutting right-wingers who misuse MLK by claiming King opposed Affirmative Action.

January 21

1908: (Law) The Sullivan Ordinance is passed in New York City making it illegal for women to smoke in public, punishable by a fine of $5-25 and ten days in jail. And they arrested women!

1987: (Court Decision) The U.S. Supreme Court rules a state may determine if a woman’s pregnancy makes her eligible for unemployment insurance. The 1976 Federal Unemployment Tax Act determined that pregnancy is to be treated the same as any other disability. In the Missouri case in question, state law stipulates disability must be work-related to qualify the person for unemployment insurance.

Dear reader, I have failed you… I was determined this year to watch the state of the union address and write a post about it. After a minute, though, I left the room where my dad was watching it. I’ve passed through the room a couple times only to find myself getting mad at Mr. Bush for saying that women in Afghanistan are free and treated fairly, among other things.

I tried, but I just couldn’t stand to listen to him. If any posts are written by me on the state of the union address, it’ll be after I read a transcript.

January 20

1925: (A First) Miriam Ferguson inaugurated as governor of Texas. Ferguson is the first woman to be elected governor of Texas, and the second woman to be elected state governor in the U.S.

1975 (A First) The first EVER national conference on rape was held at the University of Alabama.

I’m leaving for the airport (going from Florida to Oregon via Colorado) in just a few minutes, so I don’t have time for extended commentary - but here are a few links I’ve enjoyed today.

• It’s MLK Jr. day, of course. I thought this post at Feministe was particularly good. And TalkLeft provides a terrific collection of MLK links.

• The New York Times Magazine provides an excellent portrait of “Caroline,” whose life is a story of working hard and remaining poor, “A Poor Cousin of the Middle Class.” And those spunky IWF ladies respond to the article, proving that some conservatives are just as mean-spirited (and fact-challenged) as you imagine they are, in “Caroline’s Whine.”
• Be sure to check out Ms.Musings this week, for her list of ten stories she meant to get around to but didn’t (or didn’t sufficiently) in 2003. Also, check out item number 11, which highlights many new blogs of note. I’m also flattered as heck (and maybe a bit bewildered) to report that Ms.Musings “can’t imagine a world with Alas, a Blog.” (Seriously, thanks, Christine - your blog is great, too!).
• “Sex continues to baffle me, fascinate me, and cause me to be controversial…” A good discussion of sex (and critique of how some feminists have theorized sex) from Jasperboi.

That’s it - I have to go pack up and get to the airport. Posting from me may be slow for the next while. Ta!

The folks over at MarriageMovement.org are angry at the New York Times, devoting post after post to criticizing its coverage. Why? Because the Times article on the Bush administration’s Marriage Initiative included this passage:

Elizabeth Marquardt speculates that maybe no administration officials actually said that - maybe the Times just made the whole thing up (although Elizabeth admits the attribution is “believable.”) Tom Sylvester declares that it was probably taken out of context by the Times.

Neither of them seem to find it remarkable to accuse the Times of fictionalizing news stories without the slightest bit of evidence; call me old-fashioned, but I think it’s nice to present some evidence that someone has actually lied when accusing them of lying.

Here’s my theory: probably administration officials said what the Times claimed they said. And the Times reported it because it is newsworthy, and to not include the administration quotes would have been irresponsible for any news organization. And other papers picked up on the story because it is newsworthy.

I know that’s not as much fun as made-up conspiracies (the Times may have made up the quotes! No, wait, they took them out of context!), but in this case the duller story is probably the more truthful.

As for the marriage initiative itself, the Bush administration is making it sound like a very humble proposal indeed.

Dr. Horn (who, in a previous stage of his career, was an extremist “father’s rights” advocate) gives the impression that this initiative merely provides to poor folks the marriage counseling that wealthier folks have been able to afford all along. If that’s what it does, then I have no problem with the marriage initiative. I’m not convinced it will do much good, but maybe I’m wrong about that, and it won’t hurt to try. If the result is that more people who would mutually like to stay married are able to keep their marriages intact, then hooray.

On the other hand, I don’t find either Mr. Horn or the Bush administration trustworthy; feminist and liberal groups will obviously have to monitor how the program is actually implemented to see if it’s as harmless as Horn claims.

Of course, I also suspect that the money could be spent in more effective ways. From a different Times article:

If I were president, Ms. Brett’s approach would be emphasized and funded. But face it: that kind of feminist reform, dedicated to helping all women, not just women who want to get married, will not happen under this president and this congress. In the meanwhile, since really good policies are unavailable, let’s take what we can get.

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed I’m a fan of disability rights activist Harriet McBryde Johnson - I’ve blogged about her New York Times articles here and here.

(If you haven’t read Johnson’s articles, then you’re in for a treat! The first, Unspeakable Conversations, is about her Princeton debate with Peter Singer, who in disability rights circles is considered pure evil. The second, The Disability Gulag, is a critique of the American disabled care system. Both articles are funny, well-written, politically engaged, and human.)

Anyhow, New Mobility magazine has awarded Johnson their “person of the year” award. There’s a short, interesting article about Johnson, including this passage:

The article includes the good news that she’s working on a book, to be published by Henry Holt.

January 19

1990: (A First) Elizabeth M. Watson, became the first woman to head the police force of a major American city. Houston Mayor Kathryn Whitmire named Watson, who also became the first police chief to birth a baby while on active duty.

Eve, our hostess at “MarriageDebate.com,” invites us to discuss if the same-sex marriage (SSM) debate is about homosexuality.

At the most literal level, of course, SSM is about same-sex relationships. I mean, duh. You might as well ask if a traffic light ordinance has anything to do with traffic.

But of course, Eve isn’t talking about the most literal level. Rather, she’s asking whether or not opposition to gay marriage is necessarily motivated by anti-gay bigotry.

My answer is, who cares? I think a marriage law that discriminates on the basis of sex (or sexual preference) is bigotry; whether or not the people who support such a law have bigotry in their hearts is irrelevant. I’m against bigotry in people’s policies; I don’t care what’s in their hearts.

By asking this question, Eve is encouraging ad hominem debate. Isn’t that something we’d be better off trying to avoid?

* * *

The Koufax Awards don’t have a catagory for “most outragiously stupid anti-SSM argument.” If there was such a catagory, though, I’d vote for this post on MarriageDebate, in which Ben Bateman explains that people who disagree with him about SSM just don’t love children or care about childrens’ future as much as Ben himself does.

Aside from the usual flaws inherant in ad hominem attacks, Ben’s approach also indicates an impressive failure to comprehend opposing views. (And, I add later, a bizarre unawareness that some supporters of SSM are heterosexual). My suggestion to Ben - beyond, of course, suggesting he go fuck himself - is that he read this post and explain to me how the writer doesn’t care about what happens to children.

* * *

More generally, it seems to me that SSM opponants quite commonly imply that people who disagree with them don’t care about children, or care only about whatever is convenient for adults, or short-term pleasure, or whatever.

Fine, whatever. If people stoop to that kind of argumentation, it’s their business. I think that any SSM opponant who makes such an argument, however, loses the right to act affronted when a SSM proponant accuses them of being a bigot. People who routinely accuse their opponants of having terrible motivations, ought not complain when they are accused of same.

[Edited later to correct spelling and link errors… and fix up the prose here and there.]

So MSNBC posted a few transcribed fragments (about 2 minutes of a 20 minute stand-up routine) of Margaret Cho’s set at a MoveOn event. From MSNBC the transcript migrated to Drudge, and from Drudge to a thread on FreeRepublic (down, down, sinking ever down).

And from there, a remarkable deluge of hate mail, mostly criticizing Cho for being fat, Asian and female, traits that are considered grievous flaws by some right-wingers. The mail suggests that Cho should go back to China (Cho, who has Korean-American parents, was born in San Francisco); the mail uses the phrase “slant-eyed” over and over again; the mail suggests she should go fuck a pig.

Cho’s reply, on her blog, shows that she has a thousand times more wit and class than her attackers:

That’s just a small sample - I really recommend that you go read the whole thing. And read Cho’s earlier blog response, as well.

Cho’s manager originally posted the hateful emails intact - including the names and email addresses of the writers. As a result, the haters have been flooded with emails, and some of them begged Cho to remove their emails from her website. Cho, showing the hate mail writers far more decency than they’d earned, complied and is asking that her supporters no longer send emails.

Remarkably, a few of the hate mail writers have since written again to apologize. One person who originally wrote in to call Cho a “fuckin’ fat cunt” wrote again to apologize, and added that “I am the father of a daughter, the husband of a wife, the son of a mother and the brother of a sister and I feel like I owe them an apology also–although I’ll never be brave enough to do so.” It’s surprising that he’s perceptive enough to realize that his misogyny was an insult to all women, not just to Cho.

Years ago, when I was one of the token feminists on the anti-feminist Usenet group “alt.feminism,” most of the folks there assumed I was a woman. I would sometimes get vile, angry, semi-literate emails. Once it became better-known that I was male, the frequency of the hate mail went down. There was apparently no longer as much need to slap me back down into my proper place, once I was no longer thought a woman.

“D Ce” wrote an excellent analysis of the Cho hate mail, which was published on American Politics Journal. Here’s a sample:

D Ce’s analysis is exactly on-target, in my view. It’s men with a peculiar notion of masculinity - that masculinity is something that can be threatened or lost and is under attack and must be defended - who would think to write such hate mail. D Ce likens the mass asshole attack on Cho to a circle-jerk. It has elements of that to it, but I think it also has elements of a frat house gang rape. Not that writing a racist, woman-hating email is the same as rape - of course, it’s not equivalent at all. And I’m not saying that the letter-writers would themselves rape if they had the chance (I have no way of knowing). But I think the wellspring of contempt for women and wounded “masculinity” that led to this orgy of hate-mail, is the same wellspring that rapists drink deep from.

Cho’s manager has asked that no more letters of support be sent, right now - Cho’s mailbox is overflowing with support. As disgusting as Cho’s attackers are, it’s a pleasure to see her rise above them so effortlessly.

Some links via The Sideshow.

January 17

1820: (Birthday) Anne Brontë, author of Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) and Agness Gray (1847), and sister of Emily and Charlotte Brontë, born at Thornton in West Yorkshire. (BTW, according to one website, the Brontë birthplace is (or was recently) for sale — just for those of you house hunting right now).

1829: (Birthday) Catherine Booth, co-founder of the Salvation Army with her husband William Booth born in Ashbourne, Derbyshire.

1915: Anarchist Lucy Parsons leads hunger march.

1938: (Birthday) Martha Cotera, Chicana feminist, librarian, and civil rights worker born in Mexico.

How well can you do on this short quiz?

Sadly, a few people might be able to get most of them, most people won’t be able to get any of them. This is just not information the general public is taught in school.

Nowadays, we get a whole month that is allegedly dedicated to Women’s History. But, even then, we’re never taught all that much. So, screw the month — let’s take the year.

With that said, here’s a new series I’ve been planning to start. A sort of “On this day in history…” series. Just a chance to spread some knowledge about the amazing feats of women in our world.

Since it’s already January 16, this first post will be a bit longer than the rest will be, since I’ll be going back to the 1st.

So, here goes.

On this day in history:

January 1

1990: (A First) In a ground-breaking precedent, The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and six other medical centers began a major four-year study of heart disease in post-menopausal women. Previous research on heart disease focused entirely on men - with not one single woman being studied although all findings were automatically assumed to be effective for women. They are not. The research seeks to determine whether the administration of certain hormone drugs can help reduce heart disease in post menopausal women. Studies would show that men and women respond differently to many drugs and that women are often prescribed drugs which are not effective for them. Researchers would have to be forced into doing further research on women health because they always claimed that they dared not because of possible pregnancies and fetal injury.

January 2

1890: (A First) Alice B. Sanger of Indianapolis broke 100 years of tradition by becoming the first woman to be employed by the executive branch of the United States government for something other than domestic service. She was hired as a stenographer to President Benjamin Harrison.

1974: (Court Decision) A federal court struck down as unconstitutional a Georgia law that forbade a woman from voting in Georgia if her husband maintained a legal residence in another state.

1991: (A First) Sharon Dixon (Kelly) sworn in as mayor of Washington D.C. becoming the first black woman to head a city of that size.

January 3

1900: (A First) Florence Woods becomes the first American woman to get an automobile driving permit.

1933: (A First) Minnie Davenport Craig becomes Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives - the first woman to hold the position of speaker of the House in a state legislature.

1939: (A First) Hired for only one day, Gene Cox, 13, becomes the first female page for the U.S. House of Representatives.

1964: (A First) Colonel Barbara J. Bishop was appointed to serve as head of the U.S. women marines and served until 01-31-1969. When she took office, there were 1,500 women marines and within four years the number had almost doubled as she fought for increased assignments for the women, pushed for women officers to be appointed to career military colleges, and better living conditions. She was the first woman Marine to retain her rank of Colonel as the “little ladies” restrictions against permanent higher ranks for women was lifted by Congressional/Presidential orders in 1967.

1793: (Birthday) Lucretia Mott, an organizer of 1848 women’s rights meeting in Seneca Falls, NY, born in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

January 4

1939: (A First) Dr. Frieda Wunderlich becomes the first woman dean of a graduate school.

1965: (A First) Patsy Mink sworn in as U.S. representative from Hawaii, becoming the country’s first Asian American congresswoman.

January 5

1925: (A First) Nellie Tayloe Ross takes oath of office in Wyoming, becoming the first woman to become a state governor. (She was named the Democrat’s candiate one month before the general election, after her husband, William Ross, the current governor, died of appendicitis. She was appointed the first woman Director of the U.S. Mint by Franklin Roosevelt a few years later.)

1995: (A First) Myra C. Selby, became the first woman and the first black member of the Indiana State Supreme Court.

January 6

1913: (A First) Clara Munson becomes the mayor of Warrenton, Oregon, the first woman mayor on the West Coast of the U.S.

1973: (A First) An electoral vote is first cast for a woman, Theodora Nathan, Libertarian party candidate from Oregon for U.S. vice president.

January 7

1955: (A First) Marian Anderson debuts with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City — the first Black singer to perform with the
Metropolitan Opera.

January 8

1925 (A First) When the three members of the Texas State Supreme Court had to disqualify themselves, Gov. Pat Neff appointed three women to hear and determine a case regarding the Woodman of the World, thus becoming the first (and only) State Supreme Court of all women.

1975: (A First) For the first time in U.S. history, a woman, Ella Grasso of Connecticut, takes office as the first woman governor elected in her own right.
(A First) Betty S. Murphy, first female member of the National Labor Relations Board, is named its chair.

January 9

1873: In the foremost scandal of the day, Victoria Woodhull, publisher, was arrested for writing that renowned preacher Henry Ward Beecher had committed adultery. The postal authorities charged her with sending obscene literature through the mail. She was acquitted of the charge. What made the event more newsworthy is that Beecher was subsequently sued for alienation of affections by Theodore Tilton. The jury and the public found Dr. Beecher innocent but found Mrs. Tilton GUILTY.

1859 (Birthday) Carrie Chapman Catt, suffrage leader and strategist, born in Ripon, Wisconsin.

1990: (Court Decision) Through a case filed in 1985 by Chinese-American Dr. Rosalie Tung, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down the university practice of keeping their tenured rolls and information secret. The decision said a university accused of discriminating in tenure must make the relevant personnel files available to Federal investigators. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which in 1972 Congress extended to educational institutions prohibits employment discrimination based age, sex, national origin, or religion. Dr. Tung had been denied tenure at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business which she left to became Wisconsin Distinguished Professor and director of the International Business Center at the University of Wisconsin.

January 10

1918: U.S. House of Representatives passes proposed constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.

1860: A five-story brick textile factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts collapsed because cheap building were materials used by the owners. The building, 300 by 85 feet, had heavy machinery on the upper floors. The workers on the lower floors were mostly mill girls. Ninety people died and hundreds crippled in the catastrophe. Many trapped in the rubble were burned to death. The building owners were not prosecuted. Owner greed that replaced decent mill working conditions of the early 19th century would soon turn Laurence into the the site of violent labor reform disputes, led by such firebrand union organizers as Emma Goldman and Mother Jones.

1870: (Birthday) Maud Younger, labor organizer and suffragist, born in San Francisco, California.

January 11

1897: (A First) Martha Hughes Cannon of Utah becomes first female state senator.

1977: AT & T approves dual listings in phone books for wife and husband without extra charge, ending a three-year battle by feminists.

January 12

1932: (A First)Hattie Caraway elected from Arkansas, first woman elected to U.S. Senate.

1948: (Court Decision) The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the State of Oklahoma to provide Ada Lois Fisher, a Negro, with the same education is offered white students. Five days later the Supreme Court of Oklahoma ruled the state must establish a separate but equal law school for Fisher who had been barred from entering the University of Oklahoma Law School because of her color.

January 13

1810: (Birthday) Ernestine Rose, women’s rights activist, born in Poland.

January 15

1810: (Birthday) Abigail Kelley Foster, public speaker for women’s rights, born near Amherst, Massachusetts.