Posts by Jill Filipovic

Jill Filipovic is a New York-based freelance writer and a law student at NYU. More of her writing is available online at her blog, Feministe.

Gasp! New Study Reveals Mothers Drink Sometimes, and Other Scandals
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 23, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

Sit down, kids, because I have some terrifying news: Sometimes, women drink. And smoke. Sometimes they even smoke marijuana. To top it all off, some of those women are mothers.

Yes, this is the news that USA Today brings us, in an article about post-pregnancy “substance abuse” -- a term apparently so loosely-defined that it includes any alcohol use at all.

Women drink in fairly low numbers while pregnant -- only one in eight women has a drink during the entire course of her pregnancy, and most of that seems to be in the first trimester, when some women don’t realize they’re pregnant. The number of women who drink alcohol — not binge-drink, mind you, just drink -- within three months of giving birth is 31%, a figure that strikes me as fairly low (I haven’t ever had a baby come out of my body, but the day I do, someone had better give me a glass of wine). And despite the fact that women with children use alcohol, cigarettes and drugs in low numbers, USA Today still thinks you should be Very Concerned:

The portion of pregnant women using alcohol dropped during pregnancy (19% the first trimester, 7.8% in the second, and 6.2% in the third).

"Women are getting the message and are reducing their drug use across the board when they’re pregnant," Delany says. "We need to do better in helping women understand: Not only should you not use while you’re pregnant, you should continue not using."

According to the study, 31.9% of women used alcohol within the first three months after childbirth.

The study also found that the number of postpartum women who used drugs and alcohol was significantly less than the number of non-pregnant women who were using substances, except in the case of cigarettes.

The implication, Delany says, "is that having children creates a protective factor so that women may not be going back to drug use."

Delany says the study highlights the importance of getting the message out to women to not resume substance use after pregnancy.

"It’s just something we need to work better on as a nation," he says. "Women just aren’t stopping the way we would hope."

I'm all for efforts to help people -- all people, not just the ones with uteruses -- curb substance abuse. I'm in favor of efforts to encourage parents not to smoke around their small children. But I can’t get on board with the message that women need to stop all substance use after pregnancy. And I definitely can’t support those efforts when they conflate "use" with "abuse." Mommies are people too, and it doesn’t make someone irresponsible or an addict to have a beer or a cigarette after they have a kid.

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Should the Burqa Be Banned?
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 22, 2009 at 12:32 PM.

French legislators are considering introducing legislation to ban the burqa in their country, in the name of respecting women. The burqa, these politicians argue, is a “prison” and “degrading” to women.

I’m personally of the mind that calls for women to cover their bodies because the female form is somehow inherently tempting or representative of sex are misogynist, regressive and certainly out of line with the most basic tenets of feminism. But women make choices about the way we dress for all kinds of reasons -- sometimes to follow a religious tradition, sometimes to be perceived as attractive, sometimes to be invisible, sometimes to just cover our bare asses. Most of our motivations aren’t feminist or anti-feminist. When it comes to religious requirements especially, we know that outlawing certain garments in public doesn’t make women shed the offending item of clothing; it just makes women refrain from public interactions.

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Slate's Horrifying Headline Dishonors Dr. Tiller
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 2, 2009 at 9:57 AM.

Slate, I know you get off on publishing thoroughly moderate and traditional arguments couched as contrarianism instead of, say, anything actually groundbreaking or intellectually hefty, but the headline “Is it wrong to murder an abortionist?” is too far.

First: “Abortionist” is a word made up by right-wing fanatics. They use it to downplay the fact that abortion providers are doctors, often OB/GYNs. It would be like calling a dermitologist an “acne-ist.” It doesn’t really make sense, and there’s already an actual term for what those doctors do. “Abortionist” is a loaded and totally incorrect word, and it’s appalling to see it used over and over again in an article written by a supposedly pro-choice person.

Second: Tiller is not the pro-choice equivalent of Scott Roeder, and Saletan should be ashamed for suggesting as much.

Third: The headine “Is it wrong to murder an abortionist?” suggests that there’s actually some debate amongst reasonable people on that issue. There is not.

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Actually, Comparing Sonia Sotomayor to Sarah Palin Is Kind of Insulting
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on May 29, 2009 at 12:20 PM.

No, Sotomayor is not getting Palin-ed.

I’m the last person who is going to stand up for the media’s crappy treatment of Sarah Palin during the Presidential elections, but I do think intelligence and achievement are fair issues to bring up when considering an elected official or a Supreme Court justice. And while I don’t think Sarah Palin is dumb, do think it was pretty clear that she did not know the necessary basics to fulfill the role of Vice President (I also think it’s pretty clear that Bush didn’t know the necessary basics to fulfill the role of President).

It’s ridiculous to compare someone like Sarah Palin to someone like Sonia Sotomayor. Yes, they have both endured sexist attacks. But suggesting that they’re being attacked in the same unfair way? No. It’s a little more complicated than “Sarah and Sonia are both being called dumb.” The reality is that Sarah Palin was a governor with very limited political experience who sold her candidacy on her “values” and attacked intellectualism as “elitism.” Sonia Sotomayor has more experience than nearly any other current member of the Supreme Court at the time of their appointment. She got into Princeton by the sheer force of her hard work and intelligence — not an achievement that many (or even most) college students can claim. She graduated at the top of her class, and went on to Yale Law, where she was an editor of the Law Journal. She was appointed to the federal district court by George HW Bush, and then to the Second Circuit by Bill Clinton, where she penned hundreds of opinions and heard thousands of cases.

It’s a slap in the face to mention her name in the same sentence as Sarah Palin, let alone argue that the two women are intellectual equals. I have no desire to discuss Palin’s intelligence or to bring her down, but I’m confused as to why we’re bothering to bring her up here.

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Shorter Catholic Church: The Right to Life Ends at Birth
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on March 8, 2009 at 10:47 AM.

This is an interesting piece, but one part in particular stands out:

I asked my colleague Elizabeth Tenety, producer of Divine Impulses and our former “Campus Catholic” blogger, to explain [why the Church targets Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, but not those who favor the death penalty]. “From a Catholic perspective, I don’t think it’s about diminishing the death penalty’s wrongness, but saying that the right to life is the primary dignity afforded human beings,” she said. “Once you get out of the womb, life gets a lot more complicated and so does the working through of the ’seamless garment,’” she said.

“Seamless garment” is a New Testament phrase. In 1983, the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, then the most influential U.S. archbishop, used the phrase to defend linking opposition to capital punishment and nuclear weapons to opposition to abortion. He argued that all of these “prolife” policies constitute a “”consistent ethic of life,” a “seamless garment.”

In other words, the right to life isn’t absolute — it ends at birth.

Good News About Women and the Stimulus Package
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on January 29, 2009 at 4:26 PM.

We didn't win the birth control battle, but the stimulus package is still very good for women.

So, what's in the package for women? "Expanding health for them, child care, unemployment insurance, direct help in higher food stamps and energy assistance," said Joan Entmacher, vice president for family economic stability at the National Women's Law Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group that has worked closely with the Obama transition team and key members of Congress. "It also protects a lot of jobs for women in education, early education and social work services."

"You don't get everything you ask for," said Entmacher, "[But] we're pleased with the funding specifically targeted to child care and Head Start and other investment for children with disabilities."

Other feminist leaders are also guardedly positive about the stimulus.

"We're pretty happy with what we're seeing so far," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, "But we're waiting to see details."

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Artificial Virginity Hymen: Faking that Vacuum-Fresh Seal
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on January 14, 2009 at 10:11 AM.

I'm not really sure what to say about this, other than if he wants to re-live you losing your virginity in all of its blood-oozing glory, or if you have to fake losing it to please him, dump the motherfucker already:

A reader tipped us off to the "Artificial Virginity Hymen", which the company, Gigimo, claims "will expand a little and make you feel tight." The hymen also includes a packet that is activated during sex, which will "ooze out a liquid that look like blood not too much but just the right amount." As if that wasn't horrifying enough, the company claims, "Add in a few moans and groans, you will pass through undetectable."

Unfortunately for us ladies, the "artificial virginity hymen" doesn't come with an "artificial virginity penis" that jackhammers for 22 seconds before shrivelling and passing out next to you in the backseat of his parents' car.

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Shocking: "Keep Your Legs Crossed, Sluts" Sex-Ed Strategy Fails
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on December 30, 2008 at 8:41 AM.

Shockingly, the "Keep your legs crossed, sluts!" sex-ed strategy is an epic failure.

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

I suppose abstinence-only education has one thing going for it: It threatens that sex will bring disease and unwanted pregnancy, and for abstinence-pledgers, that threat is more likely to be realized.

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Horrific: 12-Year Old Girl Beaten By Police for 'Resisting Arrest'
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on December 21, 2008 at 11:36 AM.

This is horrific.

It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn's home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on.

As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, "You're a prostitute. You're coming with me."

Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat.

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Is Pop Culture Finally Admitting That Women Like to Touch Themselves?
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on November 28, 2008 at 6:48 AM.

Maybe I’m imagining things, but has anyone else noticed more allusions to female masturbation on TV? On Gossip Girl a couple of weeks ago, the show started with Blair having a sex dream and Dorota (her housekeeper) warning her that “God is always watching” -- and Blair telling her to go away, ostensibly so Blair can finish her business. Last week on Grey’s Anatomy -- a show which is legitimately terrible at this point -- Izzy (spoiler alert!) is having loud sex with her ghost-boyfriend and her room mates (including her real-boyfriend Alex) hear her. Everyone’s confused, and Alex says something like, “She’s flying solo. It’s hot.”

I’m only 25, but growing up I never heard about women masturbating -- and I certainly never saw it referenced on TV. Male masturbation, on the other hand, was an assumption -- something all men supposedly did, that they could joke and talk about. Female masturbation was gross and weird, something we all denied doing, if we talked about it at all. So I’m glad to see it presented as normal.

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Anti-Choice Advocates Oppose Measures That Actually Decrease the Abortion Rate?
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on November 18, 2008 at 2:02 PM.

Some individual pro-lifers have finally gotten on board with proven, long-standing pro-choice tactics to decrease the abortion rate, and anti-choice leaders are not happy.

Frustrated by the failure to overturn Roe v. Wade, a growing number of antiabortion pastors, conservative academics and activists are setting aside efforts to outlaw abortion and instead are focusing on building social programs and developing other assistance for pregnant women to reduce the number of abortions.

Some of the activists are actually working with abortion rights advocates to push for legislation in Congress that would provide pregnant women with health care, child care and money for education — services that could encourage them to continue their pregnancies.

That makes sense. According to National Right to Life, 23 percent of women terminate pregnancies primarily because they can’t afford a baby. An addition 19 percent terminate because they have other children/family responsibilities. In a Guttmacher study (pdf), 73 percent of women listed “can’t afford a baby right now” as one of their reasons for having an abortion (the wide difference between the numbers comes because the Guttmacher study allowed women select multiple reasons for why they were terminating; the study quoted on the National Right to Life site had women pick one reason). The highest abortion rates occur in countries where birth control access is highly limited; worldwide, socioeconomic reasons are a leading factor in women choosing abortion. Low rates of abortion strongly correlate with universal health care, widely available contraception, and gender egalitarianism. There is little correlation between the legal status of abortion and the incidence of abortion — that is, there’s no evidence that countries where abortion is illegal have lower abortion rates than countries where it is legal. Case in point:

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The Best Source of Patriotism Since Fox News: Joe the Website
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on November 14, 2008 at 5:07 AM.

Joe the Plumber has a website. And for only $14.95, you can get a special “Freedom” membership.

He’s also coming out with a book on American values ... like lying, practicing without a license, and being racist.

Conservatives' Offensive Attacks on Colin Powell, Progressives
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on October 22, 2008 at 2:47 AM.

Conservatives like Pat Buchanan not only accuse Colin Powell of supporting Obama because of race, but do so in an article titled “Tribal Politics.”

Buchanan also says that Powell “owes his fame and career” to the Republican party, and that his endorsement of Obama “smack of ingratitude, opportunism, and even vindictiveness.” The implication, of course, is that Powell should have been grateful that the Republicans let the likes of him through the door. He didn’t become an accomplished general by pulling himself up by his own bootstraps and working hard like everyone else; no, he was the GOP’s affirmative action candidate.

If Buchanan irks you and you want a good laugh, check out Ben Shapiro’s You Might Be An Elitist If column. Apparently in his years at UCLA and Harvard Law and in his short time practicing as an associate in LA (a totally-not-elitist city where he gets paid the totally-not-elitist salary of at least $160,000), totally-not-elitist Ben has learned that the term “elitist” simply means “someone I don’t like.” Here are some of the things Ben believes reflect elitist values:

You're an elitist if you think the government should manage the health care system even though it can't manage to keep the tax code within a 10,000 page limit.

You're an elitist if you think transgenders ought to have their own bathrooms for privacy reasons, but public distribution of pornography is fine.

You're an elitist if you think that pro-life folks are fascists unmotivated by true sympathy for the unborn.

…right. I hope his law school finals were this intellectually compelling — perhaps he just wrote the words “Roe v. Wade” followed by a bunch of frowny-faces. It makes me think that Ben got into Harvard Elle Woods-style (or, more likely, Aleksey Vayner-style).

So allow me to help.

Dear Ben:

Here.

Love,

Jill.

p.s. I ate an organic arugala salad tonight and it was delicious.

Woman Convulses and Dies, Ignored, in Waiting Room of New York City Hospital
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on July 3, 2008 at 1:39 PM.

If this story doesn’t disgust you, I don’t know what will:

It was a nightmare captured on surveillance video. A woman who had waited nearly 24 hours to be seen in a Brooklyn public hospital collapsed, fell face-down on the floor, convulsed and for nearly an hour — while several hospital staff members looked at her and one staff member even prodded her with her foot — received no aid. At some point during that time, she died.

The New York Civil Liberties Union has been sounding the alarm about New York City hospitals for some time now, calling the emergency room and inpatient units at Kings County Hospital “a chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger.” It’s disgusting that someone had to die before the city bothered doing anything about it.

And this is just the one that we know about because the video was released on YouTube. The callous disregard that the hospital employees showed to Esmin Green is not possibly a one-time occurrence. Ms. Green was a poor, mentally ill woman of color. She apparently didn’t matter one bit to the employees at the hospital who were supposed to be giving her care. I would bet everything I own that she is not the first “unimportant” patient to receive that kind of treatment — she is just the first to have her death broadcast on YouTube, and so she is the first that the city cannot turn a blind eye towards.

And via Panopticon in the comments:

A state agency, the New York State Mental Hygiene Legal Service, filed a lawsuit a year ago, calling the psychiatric center “a chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger.”

Patients, the suit said, “are subjected to overcrowded and squalid conditions often accompanied by physical abuse and unnecessary and punitive injections of mind-altering drugs.”

“From the moment a person steps through the doors,” it added, “she is stripped of her freedom and dignity and literally forced to fight for the essentials of life.”

The suit was especially critical of the hospital’s emergency ward, saying it is so poorly staffed that patients are often marooned there for days while they wait to be evaluated.

Sometimes, the unit runs out of chairs, according to the lawsuit, forcing people to wait on foam mats or on the waiting room floor. The suit also claims that bathrooms are filthy and filled with flies, and that patients who complain too loudly are sometimes handcuffed, beaten or injected with psychotropic drugs.

In case this doesn’t make it clear, mental health (and health care in general) is a feminist issue. This should appall and enrage all of us.

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Craziest Smear Ever: Obama Worships His Monkey God Keychain
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 30, 2008 at 6:00 AM.

So we’ve all heard the rumors: Obama is a Muslim. Obama isn’t American. Obama hearts terrorists (and gives terrorist fist-jabs). Obama is too black. Obama is not black enough. Obama is a thug. Michelle Obama is Barack Obama’s baby-mama. Obama wants to give up all of our rights to the Muslims, and probably the French, too. Obama is every right-wing scare tactic ever:

“I think Obama would be a disaster, and there’s a lot of reasons,” said Pollard, explaining the rumors he had heard about the candidate from friends he goes camping with. “I understand he’s from Africa, and that the first thing he’s going to do if he gets into office is bring his family over here, illegally. He’s got that racist [pastor] who practically raised him, and then there’s the Muslim thing. He’s just not presidential material, if you ask me.”

But… for serious?

Yes, for those of you foolish enough to click over, that headline does in fact read, “Is Obama devotee of monkey-god idol?”

And I know it’s on WorldNet Daily, which is where the most paranoid and hateful wingers tend to congregate. it’s the same site that sells a “Darwin led to Hitler” video — in other words, not exactly the most reliable source of news and information.

But it’s nonetheless a widely-read site, and their take on the story isn’t unusual (just check The Google to see what the other right-wing sites are reporting).

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