off our backs back issues from January 2004:
Special issue: Women and Work.(From the Collective)(Editorial)
Jan 01, 2004 ... This issue's theme is Women and Work. Our first article asks whether the workplace reforms feminists have worked hard for, such as flextime, childcare, and job sharing, are enough, and suggests that more radical change is really needed. Next, an article examines the difficulties women have ...
Cameroon: women protest displacement for land.(Africa)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... WUM -- In a protest that lasted more than two months, 6,000 women in northwest Cameroon rallied together to prevent their farmland from being dispossessed. They staged a sit-in at the royal palace, taking seven local chiefs hostage, halting traditional celebrations, and effectively ...
Democratic Republic of the Congo: hundreds of thousands of women brutally raped.(Africa)
Jan 01, 2004 ... EASTERN DRC -- Violence against women has been used as a weapon of war throughout history and the 21st century proves to be no exception. Although the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been ongoing for five years, only recently has attention been drawn to the astounding ...
Afghanistan: new charter proposes equal rights.(Asia)
Jan 01, 2004 ... KABUL -- On January 4, a constitutional assembly approved a charter that says women and men have equal rights. However, the process by which the constitution was drafted was questionable. Only about 100 of the 502 delegates to the loya jirga, or constitutional assembly, were ...
India: rape cases must have female judges.(Asia)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... NEW DELHI -- India's Supreme Court established in January that courts that deal with rape cases must have female judges presiding. These new courts will also try cases of sexual harassment and dowry-related violence. The Supreme Court justices ruled that rape is a crime ...
Iraq: governing council votes to adopt sharia family law.(Asia)
Jan 01, 2004 ... BAGHDAD -- Women have little voice in governing postwar Iraq. The U.S. authority that is running the country appointed only three women to Iraq's Governing Council, and there are none on the committee that is drafting a constitution. This lack of power for women was underlined when the ...
Philippines: exploited women slam government.(Asia)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... MANILA -- Women attending the First National Conference of Victims-Survivors of Prostitution, held in Manila in October, charged the Philippines' government with committing human rights abuses. The women said that local governments, the Philippine National Police and the armed forces ...
Saudi Arabia: wife punished for being pimped.(Asia)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a man who pimped his wife to two years in prison and 1400 lashes; the prostituted wife was sentenced to one year in prison and 480 lashes. A newspaper reported that the woman, who remained unidentified, was "misled by the devil to become involved in vice." ...
Thailand: government debates legalizing prostitution.(Asia)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... BANGKOK -- The government of Thailand is considering legalizing prostitution, suggesting that legalization would improve the condition of prostitutes--and that it would generate a lot of money for the economy and for the government. The Ministry of Justice held a public forum on ...
Albania: soldiers arrested on charges of sexually abusing girl.(Europe)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... TIRANA -- In December, Albanian police arrested several service members on charges of raping a 16-year-old girl and selling her to a gang in Kosovo that forced her into prostitution. UN staff rescued the girl and returned her to Albania. The Army chief issued a public apology and suspended ...
Italy: lawmakers vote to ban sperm donations.(Europe)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... ROME -- The Italian Senate has voted to curb a variety of reproductive techniques; the bill includes a ban on sperm and egg donations. The bill has already passed the lower house of Parliament; it needs to go back to lower house, but analysts consider final passage certain. The vote in ...
Canada: court OKs women-only rape crisis center.(North America)
Jan 01, 2004 ... VANCOUVER, B.C. -- On December 19, the British Columbia Supreme Court rejected a decision of the Human Rights Tribunal. The Tribunal ruled that the rape crisis and shelter for battered women did not have to accept as a peer counselor someone who did not have the life experience of being ...
United States: girls attack flasher.(North America)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... PHILADELPHIA, PA. -- On Oct. 30, a group of Catholic schoolgirls chased and attacked a neighborhood man known as a "sexual predator" by local authorities. The man, Rudy Susanto, aged 25, routinely exposed himself to the underage students outside St. Maria Goretti School, on up to seven ...
United States: Hardees and Hef.(North America)(boycott of Carl's Jr. and Hardees over campaign with Hugh Hefner)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... Media of activists are calling for a boycott of all Carl's Jr. and Hardees restaurants. The new ad campaign for Carl's Jr. has Playboy founder Hugh Hefner as its spokesperson, equating his sexual lifestyle and image with the variety available in burger toppings. In the ...
United States: prostitute fights back.(North America)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... BAKERSFIELD, CALIF. -- A 275-pound prostitute decided to fight back when Andres Ramirez, a 140-pound unregistered sex-offender, tried to rape her. The prostitute stripped him naked and paraded him in front of other prostitutes, asking them how many of them had ever been raped at ...
When opponents of legal abortion dream ...(Commentarys)
Jan 01, 2004; ... Under Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal, a woman's decision to have an abortion in the first two trimesters of pregnancy is legal. In the case of late-term abortions--in the third trimester, or roughly after fetal viability--states may regulate or ...
What are we working for? Equality or ... radical transformation?(Women & Work)(Cover Story)
Jan 01, 2004; ... <Pre> In the U.S. we have no way to address women's economic disadvantages except through the concept of gender. We see the problem as discrimination on the basis of gender. But what's really going on is a disadvantaging of mothers in the workforce. --Susan Pederson, Historian As quoted ...
More pain less gain: reauthorizing welfare.(Women & Work)
Jan 01, 2004; ... In June of 1997, off our backs wrote about the changes in the social support network brought by the new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ("TANF") under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, popularly known as "welfare reform." Two of the most ...
In middle-management land: semi-alienated labor.(Women & Work)
Jan 01, 2004; ... In my paid-work life, I am an editor, which makes me what is known as "middle management." My labor seems to be semi-alienated--not, I hasten to say, because I am middle management, but because I work for a nonprofit organization. (I'm not referring to my work for a feminist collective, ...
Freedom: getting out of the box.(Women & Work)
Jan 01, 2004; ... We live in boxes. Houses are boxes. Apartment buildings are large boxes. The rooms we eat and sleep in are basically boxes. And we work in boxes within boxes: offices, cubicles, and cubby holes. Workers in the information age work in boxes. And fears keep us in the boxes: fear of ...
Hippies at the health food sto'.(Women & Work)
Jan 01, 2004; ... When I heard that this issue was about women and work, I couldn't resist sharing my story with the world. I work at my neighborhood organic food and supplement store somewhere in the midwestern United States. (Sounds like a research project, I know, but whatever. I don't want to get ...
Steak & eggs.(Women & Work)
Jan 01, 2004; ... I am a diner waitress. I work breakfasts at this hole-in-the-wall Greek joint straight out of the recent movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, complete with a diminutive Windex-wielding patriarch who calls himself "Jimmy the Greek." From eight to two I pace the chessboard floor behind the ...
Making the philosopher cry.(Women & Work)
Jan 01, 2004; ... I sit in a cubicle office, surrounded on either side by fake walls that extend just beyond my hand's reach, if I were to extend my arm. The fake walls are light gray, like the chair, like the computer across the desk where a young dark haired woman with a slight Puerto Rican accent sits ....
American Gerbil--and Mother Earth.(Women & Work)(single mothers)
Jan 01, 2004; ... I get up at 5:30, get ready for work and get the kids ready, make lunch money arrangements and run like hell out of the door. I drive for an hour to work, get there, work a demanding (and rewarding) job, drive an hour's drive home, take kids to scouts ballet church Tae Kwan Do ROTC band ...
Women's work and women's values.(Women & Work)
Jan 01, 2004 ... This is a call for homemakers and a notice and warning for those who care about homemakers. I am a homemaker who ended up homeless after divorce. I am a domestic violence victim who left the home, but the abuser continued to abuse me through the court system and through his ...
Housework under capitalism: the unpaid labor of mothers.(Women & Work)
Jan 01, 2004; ... I've worked laying sod, painting cars, selling donuts, and flipping burgers. I have also lived and felt the invisibility of being "only a mom." Nothing compares with the stress of looking after small children, cooking for them and cleaning up after them. Housework gets no recognition, no ...
Striving toward self-sufficiency.(Women & Work)
Jan 01, 2004; ... All living things must work to survive. A tree inches its roots to nutrients and water, its limbs up towards the sun for photosynthesis. A squirrel builds a shelter against the elements, gathers and hordes nuts and seeds. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As humans we must also ...
Lessons from the labor movement.(Women & Work)
Jan 01, 2004; ... When one is in a room full of Union women, one understands the meaning of both diversity and solidarity. When we come together, we share our stories from every other working profession as women who are descended from the people of almost every continent. Some say that Jesus saved their ...
Discredited junk science justifies custody for fathers.(Commentary)
Jan 01, 2004; ... An unfounded psychological theory has been used to unfairly wrest child custody from mothers, threatens to influence more custody cases, even after these theories were discredited. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In some of the worst cases many mothers have been forced to file ...
No guts, no glory: where are the feminists on Terri Shiavo?(Commentary)(right-to-die controversy)
Jan 01, 2004; ... Once upon a time, I believed being a feminist meant never having to say, "I agree with Randall Terry." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Times change. As a woman with a disability and a progressive, I have never felt so alone as I have this week following the ...
The skinny on the L Word: loser ludicrous lewd lame laughable lacking leering laborious lazy leaden lying limited lugubrious lackluster lousy loo low-fat lackluster lamentable languid languorous lassitude loathsome loutish loveless loopy lobotomized lithium limited lima beans lies.(Television Program Review)
Jan 01, 2004; ... Insemination isn't all that's artificial about "The L Word." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Showtime drama being billed as "groundbreaking" should come with a warning: Best avoided if you are offended by images of heterosexual sex acts. That's right: The hot ...
Sex Equality.(Review)(Book Review)
Jan 01, 2004; ... By Catharine A. MacKinnon, Foundation Press, 2002, $81.50.. Catharine A. MacKinnon, surely the nation's leading feminist legal theorist, has produced an astounding book on sex equality. I was mistakenly daunted when I saw its size and noted that it was a casebook--a book with ...
Ugly Ducklings a play by Carolyn Gage.(Review)(Theater Review)
Jan 01, 2004; ... "Ugly Ducklings" is a play that deserves a central place in the lesbian feminist literary canon. Its setting is a girls' camp in Maine; all the characters are women and girls. It focuses on the complex relationships between and among campers, counselors, and the camp director, which range ...
Review of Dar Williams' "The Beauty of the Rain".(Review)(Sound Recording Review)
Jan 01, 2004; ... With her latest album, "The Beauty of the Rain," folk singer-songwriter Dar Williams brings her audience another set of inspiring songs with social justice messages and an easy dance beat. An out Pagan, Williams offers a nature-themed first track, "Mercy of the Fallen," that ...
Monster: the retelling of the Aileen Wuornos story.(Review)(Movie Review)
Jan 01, 2004; ... The movie Monster is based on the story of Aileen Wuornos, a woman who was executed two years ago in Florida for killing seven men. I left the movie in shock, partly because of the movie's violence, but mostly because the portrayal of Aileen's life in Monster, no matter how much it was ...
Defending women's space.(women's land)(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
Jan 01, 2004; ... Sisters at oob, I just wanted to thank you for a fine issue on women's land. I know it is an effort to do each issue and even to do a special issue on a particular topic. These days there is not a lot ...
Transgender women.(terminology)(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
Jan 01, 2004; ... Dear oob, While I appreciated much of the content of your recent issue (Sept./Oct. 2003) and was glad to see a short report on the recent violence against the D.C. transgender communities, it was really disappointing to me to see that you consistently used the term "transgender ...
Suppressed women's history.(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
Jan 01, 2004; ... Hello oob, I was very happy to see the article, "Women's Studies Beyond Academics" written by Max Dashu included in a recent oob. I had been surfing the net a year ago and found Dashu's web site (www.superpressedhistories.net.). This web site is a wonderful glimpse into the ...
The D.C. Rape Crisis Center.(Volunteer)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... The D.C. Rape Crisis Center provides free counseling and support to sexual abuse and assault survivors. The center currently seeks volunteer hotline ...
Dykes, Disability & Stuff.(Losses)(newsletter discontinued)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... Dykes, Disability & Stuff served disabled lesbians and their allies for over 16 years, but is now ...
The National Women's Alliance.(Resources)(2004 election guide)(Brief Article)
Jan 01, 2004 ... The National Women's Alliance wants you to arm yourselves with the 2004 National Election Guide: A Resource for Policy Makers, Community Leaders and Concerned Citizens, which they created. The Guide examines all the Democratic candidates and President Bush on 12 issue areas from ...
Dykes to watch out for.
Jan 01, 2004; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION ...