The Most Female-Friendly Country on the Planet? Go Iceland!

Sorry guys. No more lapdances in Iceland. I heard on NPR yesterday that there was one stripper for each 100 men in Iceland. They'll have to get their jollies somewhere else...

From The Guardian (UK):

Iceland: the world's most feminist country

Iceland has just banned all strip clubs. Perhaps it's down to the lesbian prime minister, but this may just be the most female-friendly country on the planet

• 
• • Julie Bindel
  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 March 2010 22.00 GMT

Johanna Sigurdardottir, prime minister of Iceland. Photograph: Bob Strong/REUTERS

Iceland is fast becoming a world-leader in feminism. A country with a tiny population of 320,000, it is on the brink of achieving what many considered to be impossible: closing down its sex industry.

While activists in Britain battle on in an attempt to regulate lapdance clubs – the number of which has been growing at an alarming rate during the last decade – Iceland has passed a law that will result in every strip club in the country being shut down. And forget hiring a topless waitress in an attempt to get around the bar: the law, which was passed with no votes against and only two abstentions, will make it illegal for any business to profit from the nudity of its employees.

Even more impressive: the Nordic state is the first country in the world to ban stripping and lapdancing for feminist, rather than religious, reasons. Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, the politician who first proposed the ban, firmly told the national press on Wednesday: "It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold." When I asked her if she thinks Iceland has become the greatest feminist country in the world, she replied: "It is certainly up there. Mainly as a result of the feminist groups putting pressure on parliamentarians. These women work 24 hours a day, seven days a week with their campaigns and it eventually filters down to all of society."

The news is a real boost to feminists around the world, showing us that when an entire country unites behind an idea anything can happen. And it is bound to give a shot in the arm to the feminist campaign in the UK against an industry that is both a cause and a consequence of gaping inequality between men and women.

According to Icelandic police, 100 foreign women travel to the country annually to work in strip clubs. It is unclear whether the women are trafficked, but feminists say it is telling that as the stripping industry has grown, the number of Icelandic women wishing to work in it has not. Supporters of the bill say that some of the clubs are a front for prostitution – and that many of the women work there because of drug abuse and poverty rather than free choice. I have visited a strip club in Reykjavik and observed the women. None of them looked happy in their work.

So how has Iceland managed it? To start with, it has a strong women's movement and a high number of female politicans. Almost half the parliamentarians are female and it was ranked fourth out of 130 countries on the international gender gap index (behind Norway, Finland and Sweden). All four of these Scandinavian countries have, to some degree, criminalised the purchase of sex (legislation that the UK will adopt on 1 April). "Once you break past the glass ceiling and have more than one third of female politicians," says Halldórsdóttir, "something changes. Feminist energy seems to permeate everything."

Johanna Sigurðardottir is Iceland's first female and the world's first openly lesbian head of state. Guðrún Jónsdóttir of Stígamót, an organisation based in Reykjavik that campaigns against sexual violence, says she has enjoyed the support of Sigurðardottir for their campaigns against rape and domestic violence: "Johanna is a great feminist in that she challenges the men in her party and refuses to let them oppress her."

Then there is the fact that feminists in Iceland appear to be entirely united in opposition to prostitution, unlike the UK where heated debates rage over whether prostitution and lapdancing are empowering or degrading to women. There is also public support: the ban on commercial sexual activity is not only supported by feminists but also much of the population. A 2007 poll found that 82% of women and 57% of men support the criminalisation of paying for sex – either in brothels or lapdance clubs – and fewer than 10% of Icelanders were opposed.

Jónsdóttir says the ban could mean the death of the sex industry. "Last year we passed a law against the purchase of sex, recently introduced an action plan on trafficking of women, and now we have shut down the strip clubs. The Nordic countries are leading the way on women's equality, recognising women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale."

Strip club owners are, not surprisingly, furious about the new law. One gave an interview to a local newspaper in which he likened Iceland's approach to that of a country such as Saudi Arabia, where it is not permitted to see any part of a woman's body in public. "I have reached the age where I'm not sure whether I want to bother with this hassle any more," he said.

Janice Raymond, a director of Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, hopes that all sex industry profiteers feel the same way, and believes the new law will pave the way for governments in other countries to follow suit. "What a victory, not only for the Icelanders but for everyone worldwide who repudiates the sexual exploitation of women," she says.

Jónsdóttir is confident that the law will create a change in attitudes towards women. "I guess the men of Iceland will just have to get used to the idea that women are not for sale."

Time for a Third Party

Judge Orders Rape Victims to Take Polygraph Test

Give Judge Floyd a call and let her know what you think of this...you can find her contact information here.

Judge Alison L. Floyd
(216) 443-8415

Cuyahoga Juvenile Court Judge Alison Floyd orders sex assault victims to take polygraph tests

By Rachel Dissell, The Plain Dealer

March 19, 2010, 8:03AM

Thomas Ondrey, The Plain DealerCuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Floyd has ordered four teenage girls who were victims of sexual assault to take polygraph tests.

With Leila Atassi

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Juvenile Court judge has ordered at least four teenage girls who were victims of sexual assault to submit to polygraph tests, baffling prosecutors and upsetting the victims.

Cuyahoga Juvenile Court Judge Alison Floyd ordered victims in separate cases to be examined after she had found their attackers delinquent, the Juvenile Court equivalent of guilty.

Floyd also ordered the teenage boys who were accused of rape and other sex crimes in those cases to undergo polygraph examinations as part of an assessment done before the teens would be sentenced.

None of the teen victims has followed the judge's order.

Floyd did not respond to three days of attempts to contact her for comment.

It is unclear from her orders what Floyd's intention was in having victims take polygraph exams or what questions would be asked of them.

"The situation made no sense to us," the mother of a 16-year-old victim said in a message relayed through Cleveland Rape Crisis Center Director of Advocacy Ashley Hawke.

"I believe even more damage was done by the judge letting the perpetrator know she was ordering the victim to take the polygraph. He apparently took this to mean the judge did not believe her and he used this to tell their peers that the judge did not believe her and was ordering her take a lie detector test," the mother wrote.

"It felt like the blame was back on her and she was being victimized, by not only him [again], but by the system as well."

Prosecutor Bill Mason's office so far has filed briefs in two of the cases, asking Floyd to stop ordering rape victims to submit to polygraph tests.

The judge does not have authority over victims, according to the motion filed by Assistant County Prosecutor Nicole Ellis.

She argued that the judge's order also violated the state's rape shield law and public policy.

"It is clear that the court is attempting to re-investigate the case after the child was found delinquent," Ellis wrote. "The legislature enacted the rape shield statute to protect victims from undue harassment, a tendency in sexual assault cases to try the victims rather than the defendant."

Megan O'Bryan, president and CEO of the Rape Crisis Center, said the center -- which is assisting three of the victims -- does not condone the polygraph tests for sexual assault survivors.

"It violates federal law mandated through the 2005 Violence Against Women Act," O'Bryan said in an e-mail this week. "The practice puts us at risk for losing critical VAWA funding and philosophically is not victim-centered, especially for those reporting rape.

"The practice could be intimidating for rape survivors who already have difficulty in coming forward, and sends a message that their story is not believed," she said.

Robin Palmer is director of The Mokita Center, which contracts with the Juvenile Court to do assessments, counseling and monitoring of juveniles charged with sex-related crimes -- which sometimes includes polygraph testing. Palmer has been trained and has conducted polygraph exams since 1996.

She said the exams in general can be useful for police investigations and for treatment and monitoring of offenders after they have been convicted. But it is not always appropriate.

"You want to make sure you are doing polygraphs for the right reasons and following best practices," Palmer said.

She said she doesn't recall examining victims in sexual assault cases unless it was at the victim's request.

Court administrators told Palmer the court would not pay for the examinations Floyd ordered, leaving the victims responsible for the cost. The examination of victims is not included in the court's contract, court Administrator Marita Kavalec said.

Beyond that, she said the court would prefer not to comment on any matter pending in front of any judge.

Male Inequality

On Lawmakers Controlling Women's Uteruses

My Congressman, Bart Stupak, Has Neither a Uterus Nor a Brain ...a letter from Michael Moore

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Friends,

I live in Michigan, in one of the 31 counties represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by none other than Mr. Bart Stupak, a Democrat. You've probably never heard of him. He's a pretty quiet guy, a former Michigan State Police trooper who boldly decided to run some 18 years ago as a Democrat in a rural part of Michigan that votes almost exclusively for Republicans (yes, I know -- what am I doing here? I'll save that story for a future letter).

His voting record is pretty conservative for a Democrat, but he's had a few shining moments. In the wake of the Columbine shootings, he voted for some gun control, a not-too-popular position to take here in northern Michigan. The NRA came after him with all they had in 2000.

But the good people of this area knew Bart's story and understood: He's been touched personally by gun violence. In a terrible tragedy, his teenage son, depressed and confused from the medication he'd been prescribed, killed himself with the family's .38 revolver. Despite the NRA's best efforts, Bart was returned to Congress by an overwhelming margin.

Yet, here we are, just days before a weak, simple-minded, but now ultimately necessary health care bill has a chance of making it through Congress -- and Bart Stupak is threatening to derail it because he wants to make sure that no woman WHO BUYS HER OWN INSURANCE with HER OWN MONEY is able to have a medically-insured abortion. We're not talkin' about federally-funded abortions -- those were stupidly outlawed long ago. Bart Stupak doesn't like that the Democrats' bill doesn't prohibit private insurance programs, set up for those whose employers don't provide it, from providing abortion coverage if they get any federal funding -- even to an individual woman paying without any government help. That's it.

A group representing most of America's 59,000 Catholic nuns has written to Congress and said that Obama's health care plan should be passed. Stupak, instead, has chosen to diss the nuns. Last night he went on TV and dug his heels in -- he said he intended to stop this health care bill and he didn't care what anyone had to say.

Now, it would be easy for some to just pass this attitude off on his Catholicism -- he believes what he believes and you have to respect him for that, even if you don't agree with him. But it's not that simple. It turns out that Stupak has been living in a subsidized room in the "C Street House," run by the infamous right-wing Christian cult "The Family." It was in this former convent that GOP Rep. Chip Pickering (according to his former wife) carried on the affair that ended his marriage. It's where South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford sought refuge as his marriage fell apart thanks to HIS affair. And then there's C Street roommate Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, who cheated on his wife with the wife of one of his top staffers. (The Justice Department is currently investigating whether Ensign committed a felony while paying off his aide to keep him quiet.)

C Street is where power, money, sex and religion meet. So am I led to believe that Bart Stupak lives in a brothel and belongs to a cult? He says he was just renting a room there. But that just doesn't ring true. Something stinks to the high heavens here, and Stupak sees no irony in taking his holier-than- thou position while living in a house that should be dubbed "Hypocrites' Hideaway."

If Stupak were truly pro-life then he'd vote for this bill. Right now, a mother in the U.S. has a TEN times greater chance of dying in childbirth than a mother does in Ireland. If you really wanted to reduce abortions, you'd have to ask yourself this question: Why does godless France, where abortion is nearly free (it's covered by their universal health insurance), have 20% fewer abortions per capita than we do? What's even more amazing about that statistic is that you can't even get an abortion in America in 87% of our counties because there isn't one single doctor in those counties who will perform one! 87%!! The Right has scared them all to death -- literally -- out of performing an otherwise legal, safe procedure. So, you can say women have "choice" in this country, but the reality is the "choice" doesn't exist in the majority of the nation. "Right to Life" has essentially won this battle. (My personal position: I don't get to have a position -- I don't have a uterus. If a Senate that was 90% female told me I couldn't have a vasectomy or made it a crime to leave the toilet seat up, I guess I might object.)

What is "life"? An egg is life, a sperm is life. Those sperm aren't running on a battery pack. They are living creatures, as is a fertilized egg. But they're not "human beings." A human being is something that can exist outside the womb of a mother. If you think a fertilized egg is a human being, then I respectfully ask you to go down to the DMV today and have them change your birthday on your driver's license to 9 months older than what you've been telling everybody.

So back to my question. Why do we have an abortion rate 20% higher than France's (and more than twice as high as Germany's), especially considering most doctors here won't perform them? The answer is ANY country that has universal health care, where contraception is free, where child care is free or inexpensive, where there is less poverty because people don't become bankrupt over medical bills -- those societies are simply going to have fewer unplanned and unwanted pregnancies.

And there the mask gets pulled off the Bart Stupaks and the "Christians. " If the statistics show that countries with government-provided universal health care and nearly-free abortions are, in fact, the countries with the fewest abortions, then why on earth wouldn't the Right be the first in line to support universal health care?!!

Because it isn't about "universal health care." It's about controlling women, period. It's about sticking your nose in other people's business. It's about pushing your religious beliefs on everyone else because voices in your head tell you your Jesus is The One -- even though YOUR Jesus never said one single solitary word in any of the four gospels of the Bible about abortion or fertilized eggs being human. You've just gone and made it up about "life beginning at conception." Jesus NEVER said that. The little voice in your head said that, the same little voice that wants your grubby paws on women's uteruses. You need help. Please get some help and leave the rest of us alone, Mr. Stupak and friends.

After all, isn't it enough that women can't get an abortion in any of the 31 Michigan counties you represent in Congress? There is not one single abortion provider here in the north of the state, according to Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan. Hey, Bart -- you've already won! Women's rights have been stamped out in your entire Congressional district! Woo hoo!

So why don't you leave the rest of the country alone, step out of the way, and let them have the minimal health coverage this bill will give them? You wouldn't really crush the sick and infirm because of your own personal agenda, would you? What would Jesus do?

In the meantime, Bart, my neighbors and I are going to make sure a real Democrat runs against you in August's primary here. One of our religious beliefs in these parts is to never impose our religious beliefs on others.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol. com

There Seems to be a Problem in the Maryland Legislature

From the National Network on Family Law Policy:

Maryland Legislature's Sad Cave-in to Anti-Victim Domestic Violence Propaganda

The Maryland Legislature killed a bill this month that would have brought Maryland's restraining order policies into line with every other state in the Union. Remarkably, in Maryland, a victim seeking help is required to prove her case with "clear and convincing" evidence, a higher standard than "preponderance of the evidence", which is the universal standard for civil disputes. There can be only one reason for this absurd requirement: that Maryland legislators believe that women frequently lie when they allege abuse. Under the "clear and convincing" standard, even if it appears to be more likely than not that it's the victim telling the truth in a "he said, she said" situation, the victim still loses.

Below are the legislators voting against the bill; if they did this, that can only mean that they have fallen for propaganda that leads them to believe that women who claim abuse (testify in court) are less credible than men who deny abuse (testify in court). That's not a level playing field, and it's an absolutely unacceptable attitude for a legislator to hold. For that reason alone: vote them out of office.

Curtis S. Anderson (D-Baltimore)
Benjamin S. Barnes (D-Prince George's)
Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore)
Frank M. Conaway Jr. (D-Baltimore)
Donald H. Dwyer Jr. (R-Anne Arundel)
William J. Frank (R-Baltimore County)
J.B. Jennings (R-Baltimore County)
Kevin Kelly (D-Allegany)
Gerron S. Levi (D-Prince George's)
Tony McConkey (R-Anne Arundel)
Victor R. Ramirez (D-Prince George's)
Samuel I. Rosenberg (D-Baltimore)
Todd L. Schuler (D-Baltimore County)
Luiz R.S. Simmons (D-Montgomery)
Michael D. Smigiel Sr. (R-Cecil)

For more information on this issue see The Parenting News Network

"We Need to Find a Way to Unify Us All"

Amen. This is from The Guardian (UK):

Feminism in the 21st century

by Rosie Boycott, Zoe Margolis
The Observer Features Sun 7 Mar 2010 00:05 GMT



Forty years ago saw Britain's first national conference on women's issues and the start of the modern feminist movement. Many women feel that we haven't come very far in the intervening years and that there is still much need for a campaigning feminist movement today; that equality still doesn't exist, that sexism is still rife. Natasha Walter's recent book, Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, suggested that modern feminism is in crisis, while a three-part BBC4 series Women, which starts tomorrow, charts the rise of feminism and examines its impact on contemporary women's lives. So has life actually got worse for women since 1970? And do we now need a feminist movement more than ever?

Rosie Boycott This is a very testing time to be a feminist. Things really haven't worked out how we imagined when we started Spare Rib in the 70s. One of the great failures has been the inability of the government and women to address childcare sufficiently when other countries such as Denmark have solved that problem. Then there's the lookism issue. Now there's pressure on women of every age to be perfect, even girls as young as 11. The rise of lads' mags is also terrifying; women these days are actually sending in images of themselves topless.

Zoe Margolis My generation has grown up blessed that we had the liberation movement. I'm 37 and feel so lucky to be a strong woman, to have the opportunities previous generations fought for. My mum was told the only work available to her was secretarial. I'm able to decide what job I want and won't be turned away just for being female. I'm able to have an equal relationship with a man. Things may not have changed swiftly enough but we've come a long way.

RB I recently read a book called Half the Sky, which explained that the balance of power for women around the world has deteriorated. Despite the achievements, on the whole, certainly in the developing world, it seems women's lives have got worse in the past 40 years.

ZM But you can't change the human psyche overnight, it's a slow process. We could have a feminist and a socialist revolution tomorrow, and you'd still have people in society that have grown up with racist, sexist or classist conditioning.

RB One of the tenets of women's liberation was choice so I feel pleased when I read about women today making their own decisions and feeling confident about them. If you look at university grades, you'd think women would be the dominant force in the workplace. That they aren't is certainly partly because the childcare system doesn't work. But the psychologist Susan Pinker believes that men and women are actually coded in a different way, biologically different. She looks at many cases of women who bust a lot of different glass ceilings who then voluntarily said: "No, I don't want this." We're not yet happy talking about that because we're not sure if it's a huge failure or a huge success for women.

ZM I'm very suspicious of the biological determinism route – it doesn't help the feminist cause. I think there are more similarities than differences between the sexes. Natasha Walter's new book, Living Dolls, shows that time and time again the science is just headlines, that you can't actually prove these differences.

RB So why are there still so few women running FTSE 100 companies? That's not a childcare problem because at that level you've shedloads of money for nannies.

ZM Maybe those women don't want to have to deal with sexism on a daily basis. I used to work in the film industry and, as the only woman in a team or on a set, it was like 1950s sexism every day: everything from being felt up to verbal abuse to hearing "you'll never make it". The only way to deal with that was to say "Fuck everyone, I'm going to be tougher than all of you." That's exhausting, you have to be very confident. But it can be done. If women like me aren't proving we can do it then there are fewer role models.

RB I can't believe we are still having to fight that battle, though. On Spare Rib I remember writing that liberation is for both sexes – it was just as much of a gender trap to be a bloke at 18 looking at the prospect of working until 65, responsible for a wife and kids. We imagined that men would leap towards a less restricted role, but that hasn't really happened. Most men still don't want their power usurped.

ZM I'm more hopeful that there are men that want change, too. That's partly why I started my blog. I loathe lads' mags and women's mags; they sexualise and objectify women and suggest you're either a prude or you've got your tits out. I wanted my blog to brainwash guys in a different way and I've been surprised by the amount of men who come seeking titillation and then write saying, "You've made me question how I view women and sexual interaction."

RB But women themselves have increased that objectivity because of this culture of lookism – whether it's plastic surgery or masses of makeup. That feels like a real problem for feminists today.

ZM Yes, women are still growing up with the idea that the aim is to be desired, rather than to desire. I pitched an article to a woman's magazine recently about masturbation and they refused it saying, "Couldn't you just write a piece about blow job tips?" I was horrified at the idea that sex is still about men's pleasure.

RB I'm really not convinced by the argument "wo men, have as much sex as you can because that's proof of liberation". Tons of sex doesn't necessarily make you feel great.

ZM I've written a lot about having a very active sex life and I do think feminists have better sex because they are more in touch with their bodies.

RB The other thing that's been lost is the idea of sisterhood – it now seems like an old-fashioned word. The original women's groups were very supportive. There's a feeling now that you ought to know how to be a woman, despite there still being tons of confusion about how to do it. I think that's partly why you have these binge-drinking groups of girls; it's a slight inversion of the sisterhood, it's about trying to feel powerful.

ZM I grew up feeling very isolated in terms of my politics and I think that's one of the reasons I set up my blog. The internet offers a space for women to express themselves. We might not meet up in person, but we now have a huge support network. A lot of women wrote to me saying they wanted to talk about sex and challenge society's sexism and now there's a forum and that's a great feeling.

RB In the 70s, there was this real sense of excitement about the movement, about meeting up. I remember marching in Westminster and it was such fun. You also had a sense of trying to help all pockets of society. We worked for battered women, for instance, and it chills me that still, today, two women a week are killed through domestic violence in the UK – exactly the same figure as back then. That's a political and social failure; that generally women have gone off into little groups of friends to look after their own ends. It's too individualist.

ZM But there are lots of people doing great work. There may be a lot of women today who say they're not feminists but if you ask them, "Do you want equal pay? Freedom from violence? Abortion rights?", they say yes, and that's what being a feminist is. We may be fragmented but we just need to find a way to unify us all.

Zoe Margolis's new book, Girl With a One Track Mind: Exposed, is out now

2000 Women Candidates Hit the Campaign Trail in Iraq

From Hot Air Pundit. You know, I have to agree with the last comment in the post...

2000 Female Candidates Hit The Campaign Trail in Iraqi Election
Another success story on Iraq...

from cbs.com




On the eve of Iraq's second nationwide election, a car bomb killed at least three pilgrims and wounded more than 30 near a Shiite shrine.

Violence has dropped dramatically since the first election, and the type of candidate running for office has changed too, reports CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer. At a Baghdad women's day lunch, Ishtar, Iraq's answer to a girl band, played traditional music.

The guests - housewives, students and professionals - included Maysoun Damlouji, an architect and member of parliament who is running for re-election Sunday.

She's one of 2,000 female candidates who hit the campaign trail for this election, an unprecedented showing in this male-dominated society.

Political parties have been forced to take women's issues seriously for the first time ever. Iraq's constitution was drafted in 2005 with lots of American input, and it stipulates that 25 percent of the seats in Iraq's parliament must go to women.

That's more than the representation of women in the U.S. House or Senate, but like all quotas this one had its downside. Some of the women in the last Iraqi parliament were chosen to run simply to fill out party allocations, not because they were competent.

This time, though, the quality of the candidates has improved hugely. They come from across Iraq's social spectrum, but most share a commitment to the women who remain among the poorest members of this society.

Below is a joint statement released from the National Organization for Women and other women's right's groups praising the U.S. Military and George W. Bush's decision to liberate millions of women from tyranny in Iraq...

That's exactly right...nothing....