Stand with the National Equality March in October

From my NOW newsletter…
No woman will have full equality until all women have full equality, and we must seize every opportunity to ensure equal rights under the law for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The National Organization for Women has proudly endorsed the National Equality March taking place in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 11, [...]

Legislators Need More Daughters

Ebonya Washingon’s paper, Female Socialization: How Daughters Affect Their Legislator Fathers’ Voting on Women’s Issues, was published in the American Economic Review (2008, 98, 1, 311-332). Washington, Assistant Professor of Economics at Yale, describes her illuminating work this way:
Parenting daughters, sociologists have shown, increases feminist sympathies. I test the hypothesis that children, much like [...]

New Film Explores Sex Offender Status

A December 8, 2009 DVD release date has been set for the new dramatic film Warning!!! Pedophile Released, starring Kai Lanette, Sean Cain, Shane Ryan and Molly Wryn.

Synopsis
An 18-year old boy is accused of molesting a 12-year old girl. They call each other “soul mates” and claim they never more than kissed. He’s put away [...]

Quick, Check Your Stone Tablet For The Date!

A recent study reports that today, in 2009, 71% of Americans think women should take their spouses name after marriage — and half of the respondents said the act should be a legal requirement!
Researchers from Indiana University and University of Utah say these findings come despite a clear shift to more gender-neutral language. “The figures [...]

Supreme Wiener Marriage Humor

Deanna sent me this gem from a vintage 1950’s magazine called Quick: Supreme Frankfurter Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter responded negatively to a request to marry a couple saying, “A Supreme Court Justice does not have the authority to marry people. Perhaps it is because marriage is not yet considered a Federal offense.”

Quick, Check Your Stone Tablet For Today’s Date: More Legalized Rape News

At BUST Magazine’s blog, a post that Afghanistan Legalizes Marital Rape — which naturally reminded me that it wasn’t so long ago that we were writing on the same stone tablet. (I did post a comment there to that effect; but so far, it is not showing up at the site. I hate that.)
Anyway, as [...]

1965: Legal Marital Rape

Can a husband legally force his wife to have sexual relations when she doesn’t wish to? That 1965 Dell Purse Book by Richard T. Gallen, Wives Legal Rights, says, “Yes.” As long as his demands are “reasonable and her health is not impaired or endangered.”

No mention of hitting or physically forcing her exists [...]

Yes, I’m A Domestic Violence Survivor

This snippet on page five in Wives Legal Rights, by Richard T. Gallen (Dell Purse Book, 1965), breaks my heart. Not just because it’s about what we’d now call domestic violence which “may be” pursued as a crime, but because while the publication is over 40 years old, the cultural lag is so much [...]

Marriage: We’ve Come Along Way, Baby?

In Wives Legal Rights, by Richard T. Gallen, a Dell Purse Book, © 1965, marriage is defined as both an emotional relationship and a legal arrangement, “a valid contract between a man and a woman, granting certain rights to each, demanding certain responsibilities of each.” It’s taken decades for Webster’s to catch up on [...]