Author: Feminist Newswire

Yesterday Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the epidemic of sexual assault in the military demonstrated the role of the record number of women in the Senate. The seven women Members of the Committee, five Democrats and two Republicans, were united yesterday as they asked hard questions of the all-male military leadership.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), said, “This isn’t about sex. This is about assaultive dominance and violence, and as long as those two get mushed together, you all are not going to be as successful as you need to be in getting after the most insidious part of this, which is the predators in your ranks.” Even Republican Senator John McCain (AZ) was candid in his outrage, telling the panel of officials, “I cannot overstate my disgust and disappointment over continued reports of sexual assault in our military. We’ve been talking about the issue for years.” Senator Deb Fisher (R-NE) expressed a similar sentiment when she said “this is not a gender issue, it is a violence issue.”

While the senators and the military officials in attendance agreed that military sexual assault had gotten extremely out of control, debate centered around whether or not sexual assaults cases should be taken out of the chain of command. Many of the military leaders argued that removing the cases from the chain of command will cause the problem to escalate. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who has proposed legislation to take sexual assault cases out of the hands of superior officers, responded, “You have lost the trust of the men and women who rely on you that you will actually bring justice in these cases.”

Yet some senators in the hearing attributed to the rampant rate of sexual assault in the military to external factors such as hormones and the availability of pornography to service members. Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) decried the military’s response to sexual assault while at the same time arguing that hormones were responsible for such a high number of cases. He said, “The young folks who are coming into each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22 or 23. Gee whiz, the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur… But guys, we are not doing our job. You’re not doing yours, and we are not doing ours with the rates we are seeing on sexual assaults.”

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) argued that with the prevalence of pornography available to service members it was no wonder that assaults rates were so high. “Mr. Chairman, I’d just add a letter, a document here that was given to me from Morality in the Media,” he began. “[They point] out that, a picture here of a newsstand and an Air Force base exchange with, you know, sexually explicit magazines being sold. So, we live in a culture that’s awash in sexual activity. If it’s not sold on base, it’s right off base. There are videos and so forth that can be obtained, and it creates some problems, I think.”

A debate over military sexual assault is likely to occur in the House Armed Services Committee as they prepare to debate a defense policy bill on Wednesday. Provisions regarding sexual assault, in addition to Guantanamo Bay, the war in Afghanistan among others are likely to see generous discussion while a vote in anticipated in the evening.

Media Resources: Associated Press 6/5/2013; Los Angeles Time 6/5/2013; Christian Science Monitor 6/4/2013; Huffington Post 6/4/2013; ThinkProgress 6/4/2013; Washington Post 6/4/2013; Feminist Newswire 6/4/2013

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New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg (D) passed away this morning due to complications from viral pneumonia. The Senator was 89 years-old and was the oldest currently serving member of the Senate. He holds the record for most votes cast by a Senator from New Jersey and cast his 9,000th vote in December 2011.

Lautenberg served five terms in Congress despite stomach cancer and other various health problems throughout the years. A champion of progressive legislation, Lautenberg was responsible for many laws that are considered standard today such as no smoking on airplanes, 0.008 blood-alcohol limit for driving, and a legal drinking age of 21. Lautenberg was also key in advancing several women’s rights and gun control laws, such asprohibiting convicted abusers from owning guns, attempting to defund abstinence-only education, and enforcing truth in advertising laws on crisis pregnancy centers.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) will decide how to fill Lautenberg’s Senate seat.

The Senator was the last World War II veteran in Congress. He is survived by his late wife and six children.

Media Resources: Huffington Post 6/3/2013; Lautenberg Press Office 6/3/2013; NorthJersey.com 6/3/2013; Feminist Newswire 5/21/2013, 3/16/2011

Official Lautenberg Press Photo

A bill legalizing same-sex marriage in the state of Illinois failed to gather enough support to pass before the end of the legislative session.

The law would have redefined marriage as the legal union of two people, not specifically a man and a woman. It would also have converted civil unions to marriages within a year’s time. Religious institutions and individuals that oppose homosexuality would not be required to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples. The bill passed the state Senate in February with a vote of 32 to 21.

However, in the House, the bill failed to gain enough support to pass. As a result, the bill’s sponsor Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago) announced that he would not bring the bill up for a vote. He said before the chamber, “And I’ve never been sadder to accept this request, but I have to keep my eye, as we all must, on the ultimate prize. They’ve asked for time to go back to their districts, talk to their constituents and reach out to their minds and hearts and have told me they’ll return in November with their word that they’re prepared to support this legislation.” He continued, “We will be back and we will be voting on this bill in this legislature, in this room… Until that day, I apologize to the families who were hoping to wake up tomorrow as full and equal citizens of this state.”

If passed, Illinois would have become the 13th state to legalize same-sex marriage. The Minnesota state legislature voted to approve same-sex marriage in mid-May, shortly after Rhode Island and Delaware.

Media Resources: Associated Press 6/1/2013; Chicago Sun-Times 5/31/2013; Reuters 5/31/2013; Feminist Newswire 5/14/2013, 2/15/2013

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Yesterday Facebook announced that it will revise its harmful content policy to include gender-based violence after a social media campaign pressured advertisers to pull their ads from the website.

Last week Women, Action, & the Media (WAM), Everyday Sexism, and a coalition of other organizations and leaders launched the Twitter and email campaign #FBrape in an effort to convince Facebook to change their policy. In addition, the coalition pressured advertisers to remove their ads from Facebook as the ads appeared on groups and images that incited and condoned rape.

In their open letter to Facebook the campaign wrote:

These pages and images [encouraging rape] are approved by your moderators, while you regularly remove content such as pictures of women breastfeeding, women post-mastectomy and artistic representations of women’s bodies. In addition, women’s political speech, involving the use of their bodies in non-sexualized ways for protest, is regularly banned as pornographic, while pornographic content – prohibited by your own guidelines – remains. It appears that Facebook considers violence against women to be less offensive than non-violent images of women’s bodies, and that the only acceptable representation of women’s nudity are those in which women appear as sex objects or the victims of abuse. Your common practice of allowing this content by appending a [humor] disclaimer to said content literally treats violence targeting women as a joke.

The coalition called on Facebook to “1. Recognize speech that trivializes or glorifies violence against girls and women as hate speech and make a commitment that you will not tolerate this content; 2. Effectively train moderators to recognize and remove gender-based hate speech; and 3. Effectively train moderators to understand how online harassment differently affects women and men, in part due to the real-world pandemic of violence against women.”

The campaign generated over 60,000 tweets and 5,000 emails to advertisers who appeared on pages and groups that condoned violence against women. 15 advertisers, including Nissan UK, eReader Utopia, and Specialty Natural Medicine, pulled their advertisements from Facebook while others such as Zappos and Zipcar contacted Facebook and even urged people to delete their ads.

On Tuesday, Facebook released a statement in response. The statement read “Facebook’s mission has always been to make the world more open and connected… This requires us to make difficult decisions and balance concerns about free expression and community respect. We prohibit content deemed to be directly harmful, but allow content that is offensive or controversial. We define harmful content as anything organizing real world violence, theft, or property destruction, or that directly inflicts emotional distress on a specific private individual (e.g. bullying).”

Facebook continued, “In recent days, it has become clear that our systems to identify and remove hate speech have failed to work as effectively as we would like, particularly around issues of gender-based hate. In some cases, content is not being removed as quickly as we want. In other cases, content that should be removed has not been or has been evaluated using outdated criteria.”

Facebook has pledged to update their Community Standards guidelines for hate speech and update the training for the teams that monitor and review reports of hate speech and harmful content. In addition, Facebook has called for more collaboration with women’s groups and other cyberbullying/cyberhate prevention groups to help with the process.

Media Resources: WAM Statement 5/28/2013; Facebook Statement 5/28/2013; WAM Campaign Wins 5/28/2013; Open Letter to Facebook 5/21/2013

Guangdong, China – Feb 02: Facebook website Initial public offerings (IPO) for financing 5 billion dollars, but this website still could not accessed over China, Feb 02, 2012 in Guangdong, China. by Pan Xunbin / Shutterstock.com

The North Carolina House of Representatives is considering an anti-immigration bill that would allow law enforcement officials to police a person’s immigration status based on “reasonable suspicion.” The bill has already advanced in committee.

House Bill 786, or the Reasonable Enactment of Comprehensive Legislation Addressing Immigration Matters Act (RECLAIM Act) [PDF], would allow law enforcement officials to question someone on their immigration status as part of minor offenses, such as broken headlights, if the officer has any reason to suspect that the individual is in the country illegally. In addition, the bill would not recognize matricula consular IDs, which are issued by the Mexican Consulate in North Carolina, as valid forms of identification. The bill would also force undocumented individuals who are getting a driver’s license to get a vertical restricted driver’s permit that shows their legal status, and have prepaid nonrefundable car insurance for the entire duration of the time they will hold their permit. However, the bill is actually a small step forward from the original refusal of lawmakers to allow undocumented individuals from obtaining driver’s licenses.

Many of the provisions in House Bill 786 reflect Arizona’s controversial “Show Me Your Papers” law. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement officials must check the papers of any individual suspected of being undocumented. The Court struck down other provisions of the law that prohibited undocumented immigrants from soliciting work, required that papers are carried at all times, and gave police the right to arrest an undocumented immigrant without a warrant. Later that year, a federal court upheld the rulings by refusing to block the provisions allowing officers to request proof of legal immigration, residency, or citizenship of anyone they suspect might be an illegal immigrant.

Media Resources: Inquisitr 5/24/2013; ThinkProgress 5/27/2013; Winston-Salem Journal 5/14/2013; House Bill 786 5/2/2013; Feminist Newswire 9/6/2012, 6/25/2012

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An 18-year-old high school senior in Florida who was charged with a felony and expelled from her school for a consensual same-sex relationship with a 15-year-old classmate rejected a plea deal from the state on Friday.

Kaitlin Hunt was arrested in February and charged with “lewd and lascivious battery on a child 12 to 16” after the parents of her partner filed charges against Hunt. The State Attorney, Brian Workman, had offered Hunt a plea deal of two years house arrest and one year probation. Instead, Hunt will go to trial on June 20th. If convicted she could face 15 years in jail.

In a statement, Hunt’s attorney Julia Graves said, “This is a situation of two teenagers who happen to be of the same sex involved in a relationship. If this case involved a boy and girl, there would be no media attention to this case… If this incident occurred 108 days earlier when she was 17, we wouldn’t even be here.”

The case has gathered widespread media attention since it went public earlier this month. The ACLU of Floridareleased a statement in support of Kaitlin Hunt, saying “This is a life sentence for behavior by teenagers that is all too common, whether they are male or female, gay or straight. High-school relationships may be fleeting, but felony convictions are not… This prosecution does nothing to protect Florida’s young people but instead causes a great deal of harm.” Even the hacker group Anonymous has come out in support of Hunt, posting a letter that read, “While in the course of performing your duties we feel that you’ve lost perspective… The truth is, Kaitlyn Hunt is a bright young girl who was involved in a consensual, same-sex relationship while both she and her partner were minors. She has a big future ahead of her and there are people, thousands of people in fact, that have no intention of allowing you to ruin it with your rotten selective enforcement.” Anonymous also threatened actions calling for the resignation of the state attorney and those involved in the prosecution.

Media Resources: Washington Times 5/25/2013; Huffington Post 5/24/2013; ACLU of Florida 5/21/2013; Feminist Newswire 5/21/2013

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An 18 year old high school senior in Florida was charged with a felony and expelled from her school for a consensual same-sex relationship with a 15 year old classmate.

Kaitlin Hunt was arrested in February and charged with “lewd and lascivious battery on a child 12 to 16” after the parents of her partner filed charges against Hunt. According to Hunt’s mother, Kelley Hunt-Smith, “These people never came to us as parents, never tried to speak to us… and tell us they had a problem with the girls dating…They were out to destroy my daughter. [They] feel like my daughter ‘made’ their daughter gay.”

Hunt and her partner were both on the Sebastian River High School basketball team and in some classes together. Hunt-Smith maintains that the two had completely consensual relationship. According to the Free KateFacebook page, “Kaitlyn’s girlfriend denies that Kaitlyn ever pressured her and is adamant that their relationship is entirely consensual, but her parents are out to destroy Kaitlyn’s life.” When the basketball coach found out the two were dating, Hunt was kicked off the basketball team and the coach notified the other girl’s parents, who pressed charges. Hunt was able to remain at Sebastian despite repeated efforts by her partner’s parents to have her expelled. When they petitioned the school board, Hunt was expelled from school despite two judges and the school’s administration denying their previous requests.

The State Attorney, Brian Workman, has offered Hunt a plea deal. If she accepts, she will face two years house arrest and one year probation. If she does not accept, she could go trial and if found guilty become a registered sex offender. She must decide whether or not to accept the offer by Friday. Her family has also created a petition on change.org that received so much traffic it crashed the site.

Media Resources: CBS News 5/20/2013; Huffington Post 5/19/2013; WPTV 5/19/2013; ThinkProgress 5/18/2013

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A federal judge has issued a temporary injunction against a twelve week abortion ban in Arkansas while the constitutionality of the bill is in question.

U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright of Little Rock granted the request of two doctors involved in the case to block the enforcement of the bill. In her decision she said, “I believe that there is a threat of irreparable harm, because these doctors… could face loss of their license… They also have established that their patients could suffer irreparable harm by not being able to have abortions post 12-weeks but during that pre-viability period.” The injunction will prevent the bill from going into effect until after Wright has heard closing arguments in the case and issued her decision. Currently, no date has been set to hear arguments in the case.

The “Human Heartbeat Protection Act,” or Act 301, bans abortion once a human heartbeat is detected using a standard abdominal ultrasound, usually at 12 weeks gestation. The bill was passed into law when the state legislature voted to override the governor’s veto. The ACLU and Center for Reproductive Rights have filed a lawsuit on behalf of two doctors in the state who are challenging the constitutionality of the pre-viability ban.

Media Resources: Associated Press 5/17/2013; Los Angeles Times 5/17/2013; New York Times 5/17/2013; Feminist Newswire 5/17/2013

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Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ) has introduced a bill that will ban abortion after the 20th week of a pregnancy in the United States.

The bill, also called the D.C. Pain Capable Unborn Protection Act, originally would have banned abortion at 20 weeks gestation only in the District of Columbia. However, Franks decided to expand the bill nationwide following the murder conviction of Kermit Gosnell, a rogue doctor who performed illegal abortions in Pennsylvania. Franks has introduced the bill in previous sessions of Congress, but it was defeated.

Senator Eleanor Holmes Norton, who was scheduled to testify on the bill before it was expanded nationwide, issued the following statement,

“As we have always argued, the intent of my anti-choice colleagues in pursuing a D.C.-only abortion ban bill was to use the District of Columbia to get a federal imprimatur in their effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, and they thought they could do so in a stealth way by using the District. However, our efforts, together with our pro-choice allies nationwide, to highlight the nationwide intent and implications of the D.C. bill brought my anti-choice colleagues unwanted national attention, leaving them unable to hide behind the D.C. bill. Senator Mike Lee, the Senate sponsor of the D.C. abortion ban bill said he could not support a nationwide abortion ban bill because, ironically, it would violate ‘states’ rights,’ so there could still be a unique threat to the District. With the help of women nationwide, we defeated the D.C. abortion ban bill on the House floor last Congress. Now that the Franks bill will expressly target all U.S. women, we can expect an even stronger national response to this attack on women’s health.”

Though Franks cites the case of Gosnell as the reason behind the ban, pro-choice activists argue that this type of law would lead to more cases like Gosnell. President of NARAL Pro-choice America, Ilyse Hogue said in a statement “Gosnell was a criminal whose activities were made possible by the very kind of anti-choice policies Franks is advancing. By cutting funding, reducing access and imposing unnecessary restrictions on safe and legal abortion, anti-choice politicians have forced women – especially low-income women – into the waiting hands of unscrupulous operators like Kermit Gosnell. We will fight this senseless attack and protect the rights of all women.”

The bill will be read before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice on Thursday. The subcommittee is chaired by Representative Franks.

Media Resources: Huffington Post 5/17/2013; NARAL 5/17/2013; Statement of Eleanor Holmes Norton 5/17/2013

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