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maytheodds:

omg

stfuconservatives:

Barbara Boxer asks some tough questions.

extantecstasy:

Because the media reacts like this when we’re less than perfect. Because our emotional range gets stunted and limited.

Because so many aspects of our culture normalize rape on a subconscious level.

Because Kansas and Arizona pass bills that allows the…

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cognitivedissonance:

stfuhypocrisy:

Women, especially young childless undecided women voters, are talking about jobs,  not abortion rights, right? What women really care about is not contraception, not access to family planning resources, not social issues like gay marriage, abstinence-only sex “ed” or Mitt Romney’s 50 year old bullying. Nope – it’s the economy. Women, “like everyone else,”– that would the norm – men, just want to be able to go to work, earn a fair wage and support their families. These “social” things are a “distraction” leading Americans to avert their gaze from what’s really important: the economy. Polls are clear:  jobs and the economy are their number one concerns.

This oft-repeated juxtaposition, superficial and  irresponsible, between The Economy and Social Issues (especially, in polls, “jobs” and  “contraception”) is like a political media Greek chorus.  People believe it, especially women who are disinclined to think about themselves as discriminated against by virtue of their sex.  Young women answer these questions and pollsters ask them the way they do based on the assumption that women, armed with education and “girl power,” have equal access to newly created jobs and will be paid fairly for their work.  Those are false assumptions that women, especially young childless ones, need to consider before they vote, because this year’s elections, both state and presidential, will affect their ability to do both for years to come.

We’re engaged in a mass delusion that misleadingly pits The Economy against what are at their core,  Reproductive Rights.  Don’t be fooled when considering who to vote for – women can’t participate equally in the first until they have the second.  The very phrasing of the questions and the reporting of the answers hide the complex and interdependent relationship between the two. Contraception, reproductive rights, gay marriage (defined as it is by conservatives as a threat to male/female hierarchies) – all have critical implications for women’s economic well-being and for the economy at large.

Insistence on splitting these two concerns is particularly useful to Republicans, because it allows them toblame women’s economic woes on their “choices,”  a specific irony.  If a woman gets paid less or doesn’t have a “seat at the table” it’s because she chose a lower paying job, or because she chose to have children and works part-time, or she chose to not complete her education. If women make “bad choices” it’s their own fault, their decisions and they have to pay the consequences. Which gets us to the second half of this equation. Simultaneously, for the “less important” Social Issues, the word “choice” is completely anathema to Republican legislators and presidential hopefuls. Girls and women cannot possibly be trusted with “choices” when it comes to their own bodies, sex ed, birth control, health care, sexuality, domestic violence and marriage.

Most importantly, however, in terms of the economy, is that what all of these secondary-in-importance social issues boil down to is that women especially cannot be allowed to “choose” for themselves when to become mothers – arguably the single most important contributing factor to their, and our economies, long-term well-being.

What single factor arguably has the greatest impact on a woman’s work life? In other words, what enables women to participate in the economy and become productive workers and engines of economic growth and expansion?

That would be motherhood.

So, even single, childless, undecided women who may one day get pregnant, should consider what happens to a woman when she gives birth:

• She is 44% less likely to be hired
• She makes 11% less than her non-mother female counterpart (who is already just making 78cents to the male dollar)
• She is less likely to go to school or complete her education.
• She works part-time with more frequency, so that she can provide child care for which she is uncompensated and can derive no benefits as child care is invisible labor.
• She is less able to work overtime.
• She is unable to get maternal health care coverage as part of a basic insurance policy. Already discriminated against by gender rating in insurance prices, she is now doubly financially harmed by the fact of her parenthood.
• She is more likely to have to limit herself to lower paying job sectors where she thinks she will have more “flexibility” even though this has been proven not to be the case.
• She is more likely to be impoverished and become state dependent.

And, what is motherhood? In it’s simplest terms, it is reproduction.

Control of reproduction is an economic issue. This isn’t an academic abstraction, it is a practical reality for any human endowed with a uterus.

This is why instead of The Economy and Social Issues being unrelated as people keep suggesting, they are integrally related.  The very nexus of The Economy and Social Issues then, from a policy perspective,  is the question “Do you believe women should work, for (fair) pay and outside of the home?”  Republicans do not.  That’s why their dedication to controlling female sex and reproduction is an economic policy choice – it affects women’s abilities to pursue education, get hired, be paid, stay in the workforce.

If you believe yes women should be able to work and be paid fairly outside of the home, then you do everything possible to create family friendly work structures, fair pay regulations, health care access, planned parenting provisions, that enable women to do just that. If no, then you don’t. You do the opposite. You create a disabling “social issue” legislative scaffold on which to build a “it’s your own fault” Temple to Patriarchy. This is precisely what the Republic party is doing.  If you are an undecided woman voter you should pause to consider the impact of these intersections on your own life and the lives of other, often far less privileged, women.

As it is now, even for a woman who has access to birth control, health care, safe and legal abortion, becoming a mother in this country, planned or unplanned, is the single worst economic decision a woman can make.  She is still cobbled by inadequate health care, higher gender-rated insurance premiums, discriminatory pay, poor return on her educational investment, greater responsibility for child care and an inability to save effectively for security in her old age.

Republicans have shown repeatedly and without remorse that they want to keep women vulnerable, dependent and at home:

• Lilly Ledbetter? What’s that? “Money is more important for men.”  I finally support it, but (wink, wink) my surrogates will make sure it never happens.  Fair Pay in Wisconsin? Don’t want to force employers to prove they are paying women fairly. Definitely don’t want to “clog up the legal system” unless, of course, it’s to send black boys and men to jail.
• Domestic Violence? Let’s make sure the Abuser Lobby  is happy, given the mail order bride business and more, and ensure that women most vulnerable to violent abuse are isolated and left even more at the mercy of mostly men who will rape and beat them without recourse to the law.
• Reproductive Freedom? Let’s pursue husbandry-informed blunt force trauma legislation ensuring that women’s bodies and reproduction stay in the control of men.  Eliminating Planned Parenthood, making it hard to find birth control and abortion services, mandating transvaginal ultrasounds that women themselves have to pay for, requiring waiting periods that require expensive travel – all of these things impede women’s freedom and ability to compete fairly in the job market.
• Health Care: What, you mean the stuff that keeps people healthy and able to go to work? Hell, no. We’ll not only fight against affordable health care (the opposite of which is unaffordable health care) but we will also stop federal funding for Planned Parenthood, even including monies dedicated to non-abortion services like…family planning – often the only services that poor women have access to. Title IX?  The only federal program devoted to family planning,  you almost cannot make this up it’s so ridiculous: Romney will eliminate it entirely, to save money for The Economy.
• And yes, even Mitt Romney’s 50 year old bullying of a gay boy. Why? Because the exact same attitudes that informed that incident inform his support of abstinence-only education, gendered societal roles, fair pay provisions, reproductive freedom – namely, there are rules, boxes which people are supposed to fit into – and when they don’t conform to his world view they should be punished and forced to. The roots of his high-school bullying escapades and his “Social Issue” policies both reside in an inability to empathize with people who don’t look like and sound like him. It’s why he saw nothing wrong in explaining that Ann Romney was responsible for translating females.  Empathizing with women is just not a possibility if you’re a man.

All of these issues profoundly affect women’s ABILITY TO ENGAGE FULLY AND EQUALLY IN THE ECONOMY WITHOUT PENALIZATION.  If Republicans were serious about their commitment to women’s unimpeded equality in the workplace, then they would not insist that “social” policies are unrelated to “the economy” and they would not be pursuing broad legislation that affirmatively harms women’s ability to participate in the economy on multiple levels. Basic control over her own body, that would be reproductive freedom and health care that is affordable, non-discriminatorily priced, and relevant to her body and not men’s, affects whether a woman can seek and complete her education. The type of job she can get. How many hours she can work. If she can afford to start a business. Whether or not she can work full time or has to work part time. Whether she can afford childcare and health care, if she works. Whether she can safely leave an abusive spouse without fear for her children and seek work to support herself.

That’s why Social Issues, like contraception, are ABOUT The Economy not separate from it.

All of this, yes.

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Oh Ryan

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stfuconservatives:

other-stuff:

Afghanistan 90 days
Algeria 14 weeks
Angola 90 days
Argentina 90 days
Australia None ETA: No longer true - as of 1/1/2011, you get 18 weeks government-funded paid leave. -added by STFUConservatives
Austria 16 weeks
Bahamas, The 8 weeks
Bahrain 45 days
Bangladesh 12 weeks
Barbados 12 weeks
Belarus 126 days
Belgium 15 weeks
Belize 12 weeks
Benin 14 weeks
Bolivia 60 days
Botswana 12 weeks
Brazil 120 days
Bulgaria 120-180 days
Burkina Faso 14 weeks
Burma 12 weeks
Burundi 12 weeks
Cambodia 90 days
Cameroon 14 weeks
Canada 55% up to $413/week for 50 weeks (15 weeks maternity + 35 weeks parental leave shared with father)
Central African Republic 14 weeks
Chad 14 weeks
Chile 18 weeks
China 90 days
Colombia 12 weeks
Comoros 14 weeks
Congo, Democratic Republic of the 14 weeks
Costa Rica 4 months
Cuba 18 weeks
Cyprus 16 weeks
Côte d’Ivoire 14 weeks
Denmark 18 weeks
Djibouti 14 weeks
Dominica 12 weeks
Dominican Republic 12 weeks
Ecuador 12 weeks
Egypt 50 days
El Salvador 12 weeks
Equatorial Guinea 12 weeks
Estonia 455 calendar days (100%)
Ethiopia 90 days
Fiji 84 days
Finland 105 days
France 16 weeks (100%) rising to 26 weeks (100%) for third child
Gabon 14 weeks
Gambia, The 12 weeks
Germany 14 weeks (100%) 6 before birth
Ghana 12 weeks
Greece 16 weeks
Grenada 3 months
Guatemala 12 weeks
Guinea 14 weeks
Guinea-Bissau 60 days
Guyana 13 weeks
Haiti 12 weeks
Honduras 10 weeks
Hungary 24 weeks
Iceland 90 days 80% up to a ceiling of Íkr480,000 (€5,300, $6,700) monthly (minimum monthly payment Íkr 91,200 (€1000, $1,275) + 90 days to be shared between the parents
India 135 days (Central Government) 90 days or 12 weeks in State Governments
Indonesia 3 months
Iran 90 days
Iraq 62 days
Ireland 22 weeks (26 weeks from March 2007)
Israel 12 weeks
Italy 22 weeks (5 months) (80%) 2 before birth
Jamaica 12 weeks
Japan 14 weeks
Jordan 10 weeks
Kenya 2 months
Korea, South 60 days
Kuwait 70 days
Laos 90 days
Lebanon 40 days
Libya 50 days
Liechtenstein 8 weeks
Luxembourg 16 weeks
Madagascar 14 weeks
Malaysia 60 days
Mali 14 weeks
Malta 13 weeks
Mauritania 14 weeks
Mauritius 12 weeks
Mexico 12 weeks
Mongolia 101 days
Morocco 12 weeks
Mozambique 60 days
Namibia 12 weeks
Nepal 52 days
Netherlands 16 weeks
New Zealand 14 weeks
Nicaragua 12 weeks
Niger 14 weeks
Nigeria 12 weeks
Norway 54 weeks (12.5 months) (80%) or 44 weeks (10 months) (100%) - mother must take at least 3 weeks immediately before birth and 6 weeks immediately after birth, father must take at least 6 weeks - the rest can be shared between mother and father.
Pakistan 12 weeks
Panama 14 weeks
Paraguay 12 weeks
Peru 90 days
Philippines 60 days
Poland 16-18 weeks
Portugal 120 days
Qatar 40-60 days
Romania 112 days
Russia 140 days
Rwanda 12 weeks
Saint Lucia 13 weeks
Saudi Arabia 10 weeks
Senegal 14 weeks
Seychelles 14 weeks
Singapore 12 weeks
Solomon Islands 12 weeks
Somalia 14 weeks
South Africa 12 weeks
Spain 16 weeks
Sri Lanka 12 weeks
Sudan 8 weeks
Sweden 480 days (16 months) (80% up to a ceiling the first 390 days, 90 days at flat rate) - shared with father (minimum 60 days)
Switzerland 16 weeks (100%), 8 weeks mandatory
Syria 75 days
Tanzania 12 weeks
Thailand 90 days
Togo 14 weeks
Tunisia 30 days
Turkey 12 weeks
Uganda 4 weeks
Ukraine 126 days
United Arab Emirates 45 days
United Kingdom 6 weeks (90%) 20 weeks at a fixed amount (as of March 2006 = £108.85)
United States None 
Uruguay 12 weeks
Venezuela 18 weeks
Vietnam 4-6 months
Yemen 60 days
Zambia 12 weeks
Zimbabwe 90 days

The US and Australia with the outstanding 0 days or weeks of mandated paid maternity leave.

America and Australia are the only countries on the list without mandated paid maternity leave.* (I notice North Korea isn’t on there — we probably don’t have access to that information given that it’s North Korea and everything. Anyone know?)

In America, we have the PDL and the FMLA.

PDL. Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL) which entitles you up to four months of unpaid, job-protected leave when disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition.

FMLA.  Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) if you have been employed with the Company for at least one year, provides up to 12 weeks job protected leave.

So you get a few unpaid months off if you gave birth, and they can’t legally hire someone to replace you. But that’s about it. Shameful, America.

-Jess

ETA: Australia has a new legal policy where you get 18 paid weeks’ leave. So America is alone on this one.

I found this really interesting.

Celebrity chef Mario Batali • Discussing the diet he’s currently on — he’s eating like he’s on food stamps (an average of $1.48 per meal, or $31 per week) in protest of potential cuts to the federal food stamps program. His family was nice enough to join him in what he calls a conversation starter about being hungry in the U.S. Unlike most people on food stamps, he knows ways to make the best of a bad situation, smartly sticking to foods like lentils, apples, rice, beans, peanut butter and jelly. But the problem is, eating good on a diet like this is tough, so many do not. Think his family’s experiment will be effective? (via shortformblog)

He’s not the first chef to do this — I wrote about Karl Wilder doing the same experiment last year. But yeah. Food stamps are not a luxury item that our nation’s poor people are using to buy steaks and bottles of champagne. Though food stamps are designed to be supplemental, for many, they’re the only source of food. 

-Jess

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