Women's Rights

Amy Redditt Tomlinson knew she wanted to be in the military as soon as she enrolled in college and joined USC's ROTC. Though perhaps the desire went back further than that. Following in the fine footsteps of her father, who was a fighter pilot in Vietnam, she wanted to be an aviator even as a child running around in his flight gear. Now, she's one of eight numbered members of an elite Navy flying team, the first woman in this position.

Amy chose her warfare specialty — aviation — in her senior year of ROTC, but imperfect eyesight kept her in the backseat. She likes to tell people that she is like "Goose" to "Maverick" from Top Gun. She would become a navigator, a Naval Flight Officer, and a "wizzo," or a Weapons Specialist Officer (WSO).

As a Naval Flight Officer, Amy completed her flight school training in Pensicola, Florida, and then was assigned to fly F-14 Tomcats in Virginia Beach, VA. It was during this time that she fell nose over tail in love with the Navy's most elite flying team, the Blue Angels. She would later be assigned to F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, an aircraft on which she logged many of the 1,250 hours required for applying to the Blue Angels.

Lt. Cmdr. Amy Redditt Tomlinson has flown many aircraft in addition to her varied duties in different officer positions. Over two tours aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, she logged some 135 hours on 33 mission flights. Her awards include Strike Flight Air Medals, Navy And Marine Corps Commendation Medal (NAM) with a Combat — yes that's Combat — V, and a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, among others. Not too shabby for someone who was never supposed to fly or ever see combat.

Finding out that vegetables are bad for you is almost every child's dream. Really, those peas and carrots are poisonous? Bring on the chocolate! But this isn't a fantasy: canned vegetables really do pose a grave health danger, particularly for pregnant women and young girls.

Okay, it's not the green beans or carrots themselves that shoulder the blame. The menace is in the packaging: does BPA ring a bell? Bisphenol-A, to give it the long name, is a chemical used in most plastics. Despite how common it is, BPA is not as safe as one might like. It's been blamed for triggering earlier and earlier puberty in girls, with about one-third of eight-year-olds started on their bodily changes. And pregnant women are also warned to minimize their BPA intake, since fetal exposure can lead to breast cancer and infertility in female offspring later in life.

Sarah Parsons reports on the Sustainable Food blog that a new study found that pregnant women who ate canned veggies every day were about 1.5 times more likely to have BPA in their urine. Just when you think you're doing the right thing for prenatal health, loading up on the vegetables, getting all those good nutrients and vitamins, you find out you're actually harming your health. And despite the obvious risks of BPA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has thus far been unwilling to regulate its use in packaging, or even be upfront in admitting the dangers. So it's up to companies to voluntarily choose to go BPA-free.

Or, they can get a little help making their decision from concerned consumers like you. Join almost 2,000 Change.org members in asking Del Monte, one of the biggest producers of canned veggies, to go BPA-free. And until they step up, might I suggest fresh or frozen for your daily servings of vegetables?

Photo credit: krossbow

Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that the Afghan government and the Taliban had begun secret peace agreement talks. Conditions require the Taliban to renounce violence, surrender their weapons, and accept the constitution of Afghanistan. Sounds pretty basic, right?

But women's rights advocates are worried. In an interview with the Toronto Star, Jennifer Rowell, head of policy and advocacy for Care International in Afghanistan, expressed her concern that we are entering a very dangerous time for Afghan Women. "The greatest concern is the policy of reconciliation and reintegration (of militants) ... In the reconciliation process, women’s rights are a card on the table ... I’m afraid they will be the first thing to be sacrificed in the negotiations.” She said Care has talked to thousands of Afghan women and they are also worried, so this is not just Western NGO posturing. And even if it were, Care isn't the only NGO worried.

Earlier this month I received a good old-fashioned paper appeal (remember those?) from the Feminist Majority Foundation for their Campaign to Help Afghan Women and Girls. It included the following facts: nearly 1000 girls' schools have been destroyed. Girls and teachers have been killed in a return of the Taliban reign of terror. Only 18% of Afghan women have skilled medical personnel present when they give birth. One in six Afghan women are dying in childbirth.

As a proud New Yorker, I don't like to see my city behind anybody's when it comes to protecting women's rights. So I'm glad that we're finally catching up to Baltimore, MD, and Austin, TX, when it come to requiring deceptive anti-choice centers to own up about their practices, something Change.org members began asking for in April as part of our "Don't Be Fooled By Fake Clinics" month of action.

Today, the New York City Council announced that it's considering a truth in advertising bill that would require crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) to post signs admitting that they do not provide abortions or FDA-approved contraceptives and will not offer referrals; if they do not have a licensed medical provider on staff, as is frequently the case, that must also be revealed. The bill, sponsored by Council Member Jessica Lappin, would also mandate that CPCs keep women's files confidential.

It's hardly an onerous requirement — just slap up a sign — and it doesn't require CPCs to say anything untrue. But it can go a long way to protecting women from being snared by anti-choice fake clinics, which regularly resort to tactics such as extreme shaming and lying about the medical consequences of abortion. A Congressional report (pdf) found that nine-tenths of the nation's CPCs provide false or misleading information, and NARAL Pro-Choice New York, looking at 16 New York City CPCs, documented in a new report extensive "lies, manipulations, and privacy violations." Many CPCs set up near Planned Parenthoods to confuse women or present themselves as doctor's offices.

Of course, it would be nice to make certain that, in pursuing their anti-choice agenda, CPCs were kept from employing deceitful tactics, but this proposed legislation provides a simple means to immediately protect women's rights.

Over the last few months, the BBC's Lucy Ash has been reporting on bride kidnapping in Chechnya, a longstanding tradition that, while illegal, continues to be a problem for women in the Russian republic.

When I mentioned the practice to my history-loving Scandinavian partner, he immediately recited anecdotes about Viking bride stealing, noting how common the raptio-esque tradition was in a variety of cultures. In the past, the practice was often linked to securing a place in a wealthy woman's family and had more to do with inheritance than sex or marriage. These days, in a place like Chechnya, men actually pay fines to the government whenever they're caught kidnapping a woman. Little deterrent for wealthy men, poor men "suffer" under this classist, patriarchal system, and by and large, women remain unprotected as they can still be snatched by men rich enough to essentially buy legal compliance.

Many countries consider bride kidnapping a form of sexual assault rather than valid marriage, and it's pretty obvious why. This arranged and forced marriage seems to have nothing to do with love or companionship. In recent years, thanks to unrest from Chechen battle for independence, there has been a marked surge in the rate of bride stealing once again, perhaps a way to hang onto any cultural relic available. As Ash reports, many in the region struggle with a way to make sense of what is right when presented with Chechen tradition, Islamic Sharia law, and Russian law. It's not an excuse as much as an explanation.

Although this is a bold statement to make, I will go ahead and make it: Fawzia Afzal-Khan is one of the most overlooked creative nonfiction writers of our time. She has a linguistic gift that gives her prose a weight and depth that appear effortless yet is painstaking in its profundity. Lahore with Love: Growing Up With Girlfriends Pakistani Style is the story of Afzal-Khan’s life through the lens of her female friendships. It is also an emotional narrative of the growth of a fraught nation, and the intimate impact it has had on relationships teeming with both love and tragedy.

I was introduced to Afzal-Khan’s work in early 2003 when she sent me an essay that is now a chapter in this collection entitled “Hajira.” At the time, I was the editor of a small social justice magazine that sought creative submissions for its premiere issue. We were seeking groundbreaking work, and Afzal-Khan’s easily fit the bill. Her beautifully crafted story of a woman who chose to forgo her own success in order to support the career of her stifling husband blew me away in the same way Hajira’s self-inflicted bullet snuffed out her brief yet impactful existence. With stinging eyes, I accepted the submission posthaste and kept a lookout for more of her meaningful work.

Until now, Afzal-Khan’s writing has been found only in small doses — a response to Salman Rushdie’s erasure of Muslim feminist voices here, a meditation on the Swat valley there — with the exception of her scholarly work, which appears in numerous academic journals. (Afzal-Khan is a university professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey.) She even gave a glimpse of what was to come in her contribution, “Bloody Monday,” to 2008’s And Then the World Changed. But the scattershot pieces were not enough to satiate my appetite for the loveliness of her words or the personal way in which she writes the people (and country) she holds so dear. Lahore With Love has made up for lost time with inspired provision in excess.

If you follow Change.org's Gay Rights blog, you're up to date on the spate of school suicides that have occurred recently as a result of anti-gay bullying. David Badash reports that there have been at least half-a-dozen (and he counts more like ten) suicides connected with homophobic bullying in September alone.

While these suicides reported were almost all male students, anti-LGBTQ bullying torments and endangers boys and girls alike. And homophobic bullying doesn't let the fact that the children are young and maybe haven't figured their own sexual orientation out yet stand in its way: two of the students who committed suicide were only 13, while an 11-year-old cheerleader had his arm broken for his participation in a "girl's" sport (thankfully, he's still cheering).

Today, October 11th, is National Coming Out Day. And in order to make it possible for LGBTQ to feel safe coming out, addressing homophobic bullying in schools is a top concern. Gay Rights blogger Abbie Kopf suggests "Five Ways To Help Save A Life In Your Community," including buying a "Safe-Zone" school kit and talking to your local school board to get anti-bullying policies in place. You can also support the passage of the Safe Schools Improvement Act, which would create federal anti-bullying law covering sexual orientation and gender identity. Schools and universities can keep students safe by instituting strong anti-discrimination policies and having at least one staff member devoted to LGBTQ issues.