Dubbed the “father’s right bill,” it would give the man the right to stand up and say he doesn’t want the fetus he contributed DNA to to be aborted. But it says nothing about then forcing him to be a good father or provide financial stability.

So yeah, way to go Ohio, if this bill makes it through to law, you won’t just be pulling a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body (be it having to go through pregnancy or not), but you’ll be sticking a mother with everything that comes with pregnancy and putting none of it on the guy. Woohoo – score another one for progress.

OK, sarcasm done with.

I’m sure this will be met with a fair amount of “Oh, but now she can give the child up for adoption, so why should the guy be held responsible?”

Because that’s not actually what’s behind the bill (again, a bill, not a law). Its sponsor, Rep. John Adams (who has reintroduced a bill first put forth in 2007), has stated publicly that this is an attempt to “keep the two people who have created that child together.” In other words – he’s trying to force a family unit out of pregnancy rather than the other way around. He’s not aiming for adoption, he’s aiming for one big happy.

And realistically, that isn’t the way the world works. If it did – how do we account for all of the divorced parents out there? According to most studies, children don’t keep people together (the most oft-repeated stat figures half of all of America’s children will see their parents divorce at least once).

Throw in the fact that Adams’ plan would prohibit an abortion in cases where mothers don’t know the identity of the father (and bringing forth a fake would carry jail time), and I’m still trying to see how this could possibly be anything but punishment for the women involved. There’s a clear message here of “you made your bed, now lie in it.” But it’s focused solely on the woman, who has a federally protected right to make a brand new bed, and again lets men off scot free.

This isn’t about babies or foetuses, folks. It’s about a return to the patriarchal order where men are handed the right to dictate the way a woman can live her life, and she’s stuck with it.

No related posts.

It’s not often that supermarkets tempt shoppers with cheap tampons. Yet that’s exactly what supermarket giant Coles has done with week-long special on the price of all feminine hygiene products bought in stores.

What is clever about the discount is that they are just taking of the GST, i.e. the “luxury” tax imposed by the government on many consumer goods under John Howard. Because we all know that having your period is a total indulgence, right?

Hopefully the campaign will bring the issue of sexist taxes to the table again. If you want to stock up on those expensive matenity pads be quick, the sale ends tomorrow.

[Via The Dawn Chorus]

The report’s co-author, Jennifer Baxter, a research fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, said: “This may be through mothers working hours that allow them to maximise the quality time they spend with their child. The other factor is the extra time the child spends with their father, or other relatives, or carers.

You mean babies of working parents aren’t locked in a cage all day and denied love and affection? Well blow me down with a feather!

The problem with studies like these — and reporting of said studies — is that they make a few assumptions.

1. That it is abnormal for women to work

2. That women should feel some guilt if they do work to provide for their families

3. That love and affection is a mother’s responsibility and a father’s responsibility is a paycheque.

4. That being a good mother is quantifiable by hours spent with child, or by a ‘cuddle count’

Do women really hate eachother so much that we need to start comparing how many times a day we hug our children?

And would we ever see a press release about how often working fathers cuddle or read to their babies?

The important thing is that a child is being nurtured, cuddled and read to. It is up to families to work out how to make that happen.

THANK GOD. Because apparently you can send your ten- to fourteen-year-old daughters to be Stepfordized, er, finished off, at a camp in Canada this summer.

At Make-Over Camp, they’re not taking the ugly duckling and turning her into a beautiful swan. They’re taking your uncouth pre-teen and “instilling confidence, social charm and grace in an atmosphere of fun and friendship.”

So, no burping contests, but plenty of “personal grooming and care, choice and co-ordination of attire, reception planning and hosting.”

Oh goodie. She’ll be able to throw a party AND pick out a pair of heels to match her dress.

The program is part of the Lambda School of Music and Fine Arts where Make-Over Camp organisers say girls need to learn “presence” and “appropriate topics of conversation and appropriate attire.”

And to teach them all that, they’re throwing them back into the 1950s were boys don’t need to learn to plan a reception or match tie to vest because there’s a little girly learning to do it for them. Remind me again, which college accepts students based on their posture?

There’s no doubt that kids today could benefit from some social skills, but learning to look an adult in the eye when they’re talking to them should be picked up at home along with “personal grooming.” It shouldn’t take $US750 to accomplish.

Of course, Lambda says this isn’t sexist. They’re “empowering” girls. Which is the word we hear bandied about anytime someone wants to protest something eminently sexist as an idea the feminist community should embrace.

How is it empowering to learn to co-ordinate your clothes? To learn to be a good hostess? Wouldn’t it be just as empowering to hold business classes on organising conferences and meetings… which carry with them hostessing skills on a much broader (not to mention more marketable) level? Or how about teaching the girls color co-ordination in art classes… which would equate to learn coordination of clothing? Let’s throw in nutrition classes where they get a grasp on grooming that goes beyond hair and make-up. That’s how you “empower” kids (kids, not just girls, kids).

I won’t argue the bones of a good idea aren’t there, but the execution is absolutely awful. As one critic said, the current set up is essentially a “wife camp” for girls.

Image: Lambda School of Music and Fine Arts

One 6-year-old lass I’m keeping my eye on, for instance, likes to pee standing up when she’s naked in the summer (quite impressive!) and take unexpected nose dives onto patches of ice in the winter.

When I look at her doing such things, I am heartened by the belief that girl power, feminism or whatever you want to call it, is alive and well in the generation coming up now.

For her, it’s nothing like that at all, of course. For her, it’s just about doing what you wanna do when you want to do it. Which, for me, is all feminism is about anyway.

But I’m not always so heartened by what I see when I look at the young girls growing up today.

I see a lot of things that worry me. We all experimented with our sexualities at some point in our youth; dressing in too-sexy clothes, being flirty, acting ‘bad.’ But today, with this foolish idea that feminism is no longer needed being so widely accepted, I get more than a little concerned by the way some young women are conducting themselves. Too many young women and teens today seem to be preoccupied with looking good, being sexy, and pleasing men. Those things in themselves are not worrisome, but when they happen in the absence of any real connection to a code of female empowerment, to an understanding of where women have been in the past, it scares me. Alcohol, cigarette and drug use rates among girls are higher than ever and on the rise. The popular icons of young girls too often seem to be women with little to offer between the ears and everything to offer below the neck. There’s even a wide-spread idea among young people today that oral sex when done by a girl to a boy is really no big deal and is done casually with no strings attached. I think the singer P!nk took the pulse of the situation and explained it brilliantly in her song Stupid Girls. “Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back,” she sings, “Porno Paparazzi girl, I don’t wanna be a stupid girl. Baby if I act like that, flipping my blond hair back, Push up my bra like that, I don’t wanna be a stupid girl.” She goes on to wonder where all the smart people have gone, then sings, “What happened to the dreams of a girl president? She’s dancing in the video next to 50 Cent.”

More women now attend university than men, so clearly things aren’t desperate. But with so very few of us finding our way into the technology jobs of the future (we’re missing the technogical wave, Ladies), with it going to take another 100 years for us to reach wage parity at the rate we’re going and with women of the world still doing two-thirds of the world’s work, earning just ten percent of its wages and owning less than 1 percent of its property, I don’t think we can afford to rest on our laurels.

Clearly, we need to continue to instill feminist ideals in our girls. Do you agree?

Karen Bridson is a journalist, TV producer and author of Stunned: The New Generation of Women Having Babies, Getting Angry and Creating a Mothers’ Movement (HCI, 2009). She blogs at http://angrymamas.blogspot.com.
She also produces a parenting show for Canadian Public Television.

I was very lucky in many ways to have this option as it meant I didn’t miss a single step, a tooth, a word. I was there for everything. But all the while, I have to say I felt a level of anxiety about the fact that I wasn’t paying into a superannuation fund, my income was a mere fraction of my husband’s and I was acutely aware of my financial dependence on him.

When I started working full-time outside of the home a year ago, I felt a huge sense of relief. I’m now making enough money to support myself and my son if I ever needed to, I’m paying into a super fund and I feel like I’m a whole lot safer financially.

That is not to say that my husband has ever made me feel like I had to worry. It’s just that being in that situation made me feel very vulnerable and I didn’t like it. I feel stronger, safe and more empowered now. And as it turns out, I have every right to feel that way. According to former New York Times economics reporter Ann Crittenden, in her book The Price of Motherhood, women lose up to $US1 million over a lifetime in lost income, pensions, savings and so on, by making the decision to stay at home with their kids, to work part-time, work lower-paying/more flexible jobs, and so forth.

That’s a pretty significant sacrifice we’re making for our families. While I think most of us feel it’s well worth it, we can’t ignore the fact that motherhood is the single greatest risk factor for poverty in old age. Many women are a divorce away from real financial trouble.

The courts, our partners, and society in general needs to recognise this sacrifice and look for ways to offset it. At the very least, we as mothers need to go into our decisions knowing the risks.

How about you? Have you made financial sacrifices to accommodate your family? Did you feel vulnerable too?

Karen Bridson is a journalist, TV producer and author of Stunned: The New Generation of Women Having Babies, Getting Angry and Creating a Mothers’ Movement (HCI, 2009). She blogs at http://angrymamas.blogspot.com. She also produces a parenting show for Canadian Public Television.

They’re not alone – men actually enjoy more leisure time than women in every one of 18 countries examined by the OECD. Polish men had the second-highest amount of additional leisure time at  around 55 minutes, while Australian men are looking a little more equitable at 27 minutes.

If you want an egalitarian household, head to Norway, where it seems men sneak only an additional four minutes couch time.

Do these generalisations fit your experience?

What makes this edition different from the original Ouija board that can be handmade in minutes? I’ll give you one guess. You got it: It’s pink!

Not only that, but this new edition also comes with 72 question cards, since a big problem for young girls is that they always freeze up when it’s their turn to ask a ghost a personal question about their lives.

According to the product description, girls needn’t worry their pretty little heads any longer:

It has always been mysterious. It has always been mystifying. And now the OUIJA Board is just for you, girl. With 72 fun questions included, you’ll never run out of things to ask. Who will call/text me next? Will I be a famous actor someday? Who wishes they could trade places with me?

Who would have guessed that a splash of pink is all it takes to get the catty, boy-crazy girl ghosts to spill the beans?

You might be interested to learn that the game is marketed for girls between the ages of eight and twelve. Now third graders don’t have to worry whether that “special someone” will send them a text. They can just ask a dead
person! Progress never looked so good.

Image: AV Club

In a piece for excellent new women’s interest site DoubleX, Roiphe writes, “If Betty Friedan were to review the Facebook habits of the over-30 set, she would turn over in her grave. By this I mean specifically the trend of women using photographs of their children instead of themselves as the main picture on their Facebook profiles… What, some future historian may very well ask, do all of these babies on our Facebook pages say about the construction of women’s identity at this particular moment in time?”

It’s an interesting question, and certainly provoked divided comments by DoubleX readers.

Is the trend symptomatic, asks Roiphe, of the kind of mummy-makeover you have when you are a parent, where toilet-training becomes an acceptable dinner-party topic and you start eschewing a pre-child wardrobe for trackie daks and pony-tails? The effect is to make one’s old, original self invisible.

Critics of the article claim Roiphe is over-reacting. Says Kelmick:

“These parents aren’t suppressing their true selves, or hiding or sacrificing their identities – they are celebrating their lives and sharing the all too temporary period that is the youth of their children. Let’s share in their joy, and not chastise them for it.”

Others say that having your kid in your profile pic is unprofessional and looks bad for future employers.

From a writer’s perspective I think it all comes down to who your audience is. If most of your Facebook friends are family and other mums from Playgroup, then daily status updates on your child’s toilet training efforts will probably be well received. If it’s mainly ex-colleagues and co-workers, it may pay to mix it up a little- and provide a pic of yourself so old contacts can actually find you.

My current profile pic is of me. But I have no qualms in uploading endless photos and videos of my delightful son – “friends” can feel free to ignore at their leisure.

Whose pic do you use?

A new survey of 2500 Australians has found that while the mothers of today’s children stopped playing with dolls between the ages of 10 and 11, their daughters were discarding dolls at an average age of six or seven.

Researcher Mark McCrindle told the SMH,

“These kids are ‘up-ageing’, they’re moving into a technological world much earlier and it’s partly coming from their peers … but it’s also partly coming from parents who are pushing their children towards more structured educational toys.”

Even more ’sophisticated’ (some would say slutty) dolls like Bratz have failed to stop younger girls from ditching the dolls by age 7.

So how do we interpret this?

Child psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg, a conservative commentator, said the up-ageing syndrome, fuelled by the premature sexualisation of children, has resulted in a generation of young girls deeply dissatisfied with their age, no matter how old they are.

“You take your average six- or seven-year-old girl and they’re into High School Musical – they want to be 10 or 12. The 12-year-olds are trying to be 16 and the 16-year-olds think they are 21. There’s not many girls out there who are happy with their age any more. There’s widespread dissatisfaction at being a child.”

But maybe there is also an element of girls rejected typical gendered toys in favour of unisex toys like gaming consoles and outdoor play equipment. As Jeanne’s post on toyboys this morning illustrated, girls don’t need to be labelled as tomboys anymore as they are just doing what they want, without being conscious of ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ play.

Perhaps the end of the doll era is not such a bad thing after all?