Monthly Archives: July 2003

Should Indian Women Who Kill Their Babies Be Punished?

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Should women who kill their babies be punished? That might sound like an absurd question to ask, but in fact a group in India is arguing that women who commit female infanticide are themselves victims and should not be punished.

The BBC reported this month on the controversy in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It cites surveys suggesting that the infanticide rate among female infants is as high as 1.6 percent of all live female births. In some areas, the BBC claims, the rate of infanticide may approach 15 percent.

The standard response, not surprisingly, is to arrest, try and jail women who the state can prove have killed their infants (the BBC mentions that two such cases resulted in life in prison for the convicted women). But the Campaign Against Female Infanticide maintains that the women involved are themselves victims of violence and threats from family members and that punishing them simply exacerbates the problems with poverty that their families face.

The BBC quoted retired Bombay judge Justice Suresh as saying that women have no choice but to kill female infants,

The decision to kill the baby is made by her husband and parents-in-law. If she disobeys, she has to face the wrath of the family.

On the other side is Tamil Nadu’s Women’s Commission who argues that while penalties against women who commit infanticide may be too severe, that removing any and all punishment would send a signal that female infanticide was acceptable.

But, according to the BBC, the anti-infanticide activists “say even milder punishment could leave the mother with social stigma and cause several psychological problems.”

If you have a society in which “milder punishment” from the state leaves social stigma and psychological problems distinct and more severe than the stigma and psychological problems attendant in killing one’s child, then Tamil Nadu has even larger problems than the anti-infanticide activists will admit.

Source:

India rights campaign for infanticide mothers. Sampath Kumar, The BBC, July 17, 2003.

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Tucker Carlson and False Rape Accusations

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CNN’s Tucker Carlson recently wrote a book, Politicians, Partisans and Parasites, which includes an account of Carlson being falsely accused of raping a woman. Carlson’s reaction to the false accusation is illustrative of how even a patently false accusation can potentially ruin a man’s life, especially thanks to the nonsense touted by advocates that such false accusations are so rare as to be negligible.

Tucker writes about learning of the accusation,

For an hour I sat on the front steps thinking about my life, my wife and my three children, my job, and how it was all going to end because of something terrible I didn’t even remember doing.

In the end, Carlson spent thousands of dollars defending himself against the accusation. Fortunately for him it turned out that the woman who had accused him was not only had a chronic mental disorder, but she accused Carlson of raping her in a city that Carlson had never even visited.

The sad part is that Carlson not only felt he couldn’t talk about the accusation, but also did not take legal action against the woman’s lawyer because of the effect that even word of a false accusation might have on his career. As Carlson admits,

I always assumed, like every other journalist does, that all sex scandals are rooted in truth, period. You may not have done precisely what you’re accused of, but you did something.

Carlson is quite correct that this is the stigma attached to even false rape accusations. Another conservative journalist, John Fund, has seen his career derailed after also being falsely accused of assault by a mentally unstable woman.

Unlike Carlson, Fund was unable to keep the accusation from hitting the press, and his career has suffered notably from it.

An important, and still unresolved, question is just how common are false accusations of rape. On the one hand are the radical feminists who repeat the claim that making a rape accusation is so serious that women rarely lie about it. They typically use Susan Brownmiller’s claim that only two percent of reported rapes are false, although they rarely point out that there is a paucity of evidence to back up this claim.

In a column about the Kobe Bryant case, Wendy McElroy pointed to a study by a Purdue researcher who examined reported rapes at a Midwestern city from 1978 to 1987 and found that fully 41 percent of all reported rapes were later determined by police to be false accusations.

Sources:

‘Crossfire’ Co-Host Dishes Liberally. Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, July 16, 2003.

False Rape Charges Hurt Real Victims. Wendy McElroy, iFeminists.Com, July 22, 2003.

An alarming national trend:
False Rape Allegations. Eugene J. Kanin.

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Feminists Against Silicone Breast Implants

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An interesting example of the hypocrisy of groups like the National Organization for Women is its recent public opposition to the possible re-introduction of silicone breast implants. NOW argues that there is not enough long term data to justify saying that silicone breast implants are safe, but NOW’s real objection seems to be that silicone breast implants are not politically correct enough.

There are plenty of long-term studies of the effects of silicone breast implants in women who had them before the FDA’s temporary ban on the implants — almost all of which found that there simply were no adverse health risks associated with implants. The concerns that implants increased the risk of breast cancer or contributed to chronic diseases of the early 1990s turned out to be simple hysteria.

But nonetheless, NOW President Kim Gandy complaints that the FDA is only reviewing two years wroth of data and, “Two years of data is not going to give you any valid information so that women will know what’s going into their bodies.”

Nonsense. In this case NOW has simply stooped to the level of its anti-abortion opponents who used and continue to use exactly this argument against both oral contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs such as RU-486. In fact when the FDA dragged its feet on approving RU-486, it was Gandy who was whining about excessive bureaucracy and overblown concerns about a drug that had proven safe through decades of use elsewhere in the world. As Gandy put it in a NOW press release,

It’s all too typical that our U.S. bureaucracy would take this important medical advancement for women and make it as difficult as possible for us to take advantage of its full potential.

If only makers of silicone breast implants could find a way to make them have some sort of contraceptive or abortion abilities as well, perhaps they would be politically correct enough for NOW to stop its ridiculous attempt to prevent women from making their own private health choices about implants.

Sources:

Groups oppose allowing silicone breast implants. Lisa Richwine, Reuters, July 21, 2003.

NOW Members Call for FDA Approval of Mifepristone (RU-486) for Abortion, Cancer and Other Treatments. Press Release, National Organization for Women, Summer 2000.

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Significantly Higher Death Risk for Girls than Boys in India

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The BBC reports on studies in India suggesting that infant girls have a substantially higher death rate than infant boys, even from diseases that should be relatively easy to treat.

The BBC notes that in 2001 that for every 1,000 male babies born in India there were just 933 girls born. This might sound horribly askew but in fact is just barely above the world average sex ratio. Worldwide the average is 105 boys for every 100 girls. Some countries have truly out-of-control sex ratios, such as parts of China where there are 140 boys born for every 100 girls. But in India, using the BBC’s figures, there are 107 boys born for every 100 girls. This could easily be explained by even moderate use of sex-selective abortions.

The BBC cites research from Delhi over a five-year period, however, that found the death rate for girls was almost one-third higher than for boys. In cases of “sudden, unexplained deaths,” 75 percent of victims were girls. The researchers behind the study believe that infanticide of female infants may explain the difference.

Which is not surprising — if parents are willing to go out of their way to ensure they abort a female fetus for cultural reasons, it’s not surprising to learn that females which are brought to term might receive substandard care and fewer resources.

This seems to be confirmed by the Delhi research which found that death rates among boys and girls for unpreventable deaths were roughly the same. But in the case of deaths from preventable diseases such as diarrhea, the death rate of girls was twice as high as that of boys.

Sources:

India girls ‘more likely to die’. The BBC, July 18, 2003.

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Scottish Men Sue Over Dress Code

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Following the lead of an English civil servant, almost a thousand Scottish civil servants have filed complaints charging that dress codes requiring they wear shirts and ties constitute sex discrimination.

Staff members at Scotland’s Department of Work and Pension argue that since their jobs do not bring them into contact with the public, it is sexist to force them to wear shirts and ties while women are allowed to wear less formal attire.

The Scotsman quoted employment lawyer Euan Smith as saying that the men likely had a strong case,

I see no reason why they won’t win their case. The question is whether they [the employers] also apply similar conditions to the women.

I suspect it stems from the hot weather. Where it is roasting hot, if you insist on men wearing shirts and ties in the office and women are in T-shirts and jeans, it must be annoying for them.

Source:

Men take employers to court over dress code. Tanya Thompson, The Scotsman, July 16, 2003.

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Men in South Africa Arrested for Botched Male Ritual Circumcision

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The BBC reports that five “traditional surgeons” were arrested this month in South Africa following the deaths of at least 20 boys from complications resulting from botched circumcisions. Another 100 boys were injured, in some case experiencing severe beatings.

The boys all belong to the Xhosa ethnic group which uses male circumcision as a rite of passage into adulthood. Typically boys are taken off to a remote location by a group of male adults where they are forced to undergo rigorous circumstances culminating in circumcision. Often the circumcision is performed with crude, unsterilized instruments such as knives.

According to the BBC, a law was recently introduced in South Africa that would make such ritual circumcisions illegal unless those involved are all 18 years of age or older.

Source:

South Africa circumcision deaths. The BBC, July 15, 2003.

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A Look at Legalized Prostitution in Europe

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The BBC carried a report this week about proposals in Belgium to legalize — and heavily tax — prostitution in that country. Faced with a budget deficit, Belgian lawmakers are considering a bill to legalize the world’s oldest profession and, in return, force sex workers to pay a tax that would raise up to 50 million euros for the cash-strapped country.

Both Germany and the Netherlands have similar schemes, but at least one advocate for prostitutes claims that in those countries prostitutes simply exchanged one form of economic exploitation for another. The BBC quotes Marion Detlefs who works at a prostitute advice center in Germany as saying,

It has, however, been very difficult [to make the transition from illegal to legal]. When it was set up there was much talk of securing proper contracts, proper health insurance but a lot of this hasn’t materializes because of big holes in the legislation. At the moment it looks like all the government cares about is getting their hands on sex workers’ money — women who are already hard-up are giving their earnings away and getting very little return.

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that in the Netherlands the law legalizing prostitution only allows Dutch and EU citizens to work as prostitutes — effectively keeping immigrant prostitutes as part of the illegal, underground economy without the protections of legalization.

Source:

Making sex pay. Clare Murphy, The BBC, July 16, 2003.

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UK Considers Guaranteeing Alleged Victims in Domestic Violence Cases Anonymity

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The British government is considering a change in its laws that would guarantee alleged victims of domestic violence the same privacy granted to individuals in rape, divorce and sexual abuse cases. In the United States legal guarantees of privacy are only afforded to minors in such cases, but in Great Britain apparently the courts extend privacy to adults in such cases as well.

The change in the law has an odd motivation — the Home Office is concerned about the number of women who withdraw their allegations of domestic violence before the case against the alleged perpetrator can go to trial. An unidentified Labor Party source told The Independent (UK),

We need to address the problem of women who have suffered abuse and want the police to act but don’t want all their family and sexual history put on display. People in the family courts or who have been sexually abused don’t have their identity revealed but in many cases the same personal information will be disclosed in domestic violence cases.

But, of course, in the case of a marital domestic violence case it’s going to be difficult to hide the identity of the alleged victim unless the identity of the alleged perpetrator is also going to be made private.

Second, it seems to be a dubious contention at best that women withdraw their allegations of violence because of fear of publicity over the case. This assumes that victims of domestic violence always perceive their interests as best served by a legal prosecution of their victimizer but are being thwarted by an invasive media. The Labor government should be called to provide some evidence for that sort of claim.

That being said, the practice of granting anonymity to individuals involved in legal cases should be done only with great care and when the damage likely to be done to the individuals far outweighs the need for transparency in such processes. It’s hard to imagine, for example, how British citizens are served by having divorced proceedings hide the identity of litigants. Similarly, although the press in the United States generally chooses not to run the identity of alleged rape victims by custom, making it illegal to do so is an unnecessary limitation on the transparency of such legal actions.

Source:

Battered women may get right to anonymity in court. Marie Woolf, The Independent (UK), June 11, 2003.

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EU Proposal to Ban Sexual Stereotypes in Media Gets Chilly Reception

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This month the European Union had a controversy on its hands when the Financial Times got hold of a secret 26-page draft directive being prepared under the auspices of the European Commission’s Social Affairs Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou.

Article 4 of the draft proposed sweeping censorship of the media in order to banish any and all sexual stereotypes of men and women. As Richard Pollock noted in an op-ed for the Cato Institute on the proposal, Diamantopoulou’s office said that the goal was to,

. . . avoid throughout all forms of mass media notably all stereotypical portrayals of women and men as well as any projection of unacceptable images of men and women affecting human dignity and decency in advertisements.

Some European commentators noted that in order for such proposals to go into effect, they would have to go through a series of ratification processes including among member countries, but just the fact that freedom of speech is seen as something that can be casually interfered with to obtain some social goal or another is disturbing enough in and of itself.

As Pollock, who obtained a copy of the draft, noted,

The document is well thought out, indicating a sizable amount of work had progressed within the European Commission to advance to this late stage. It was not the work of an aberrant or idle commissioner. Apparently, no member of the European media knew of its existence as it passed through the EC labyrinth of bureaucratic offices, reviewers and officials.

This sort of legislation is exactly what feminist group such as the European Women’s Lobby have long been lobbying for with the European Union. European Women’s Lobby policy coordinator Cecile Greobval was quoted by Australian newspaper The Age as saying, “We want action by the EU in areas other than employment.”

The European Women’s Lobby openly called for government monitoring and censorship of mass media in a March 2003 policy statement on the subject,

2.1 Mass media and gender equality

Comprehensive policy frameworks and regulatory mechanisms need to be put in place in order to make the media a useful tool to promote a and contribute to greater gender justice, respect for women?s human rights, sustainable development, and a culture of peace.

  • Governments need to formulate standards, based on equality between women and men that should be reflected in all communication productions, including programming and media portrayal.
  • Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms should be put in place in order to halt sexism and gender-based stereotypes in mass media, including strengthened policies against sexist images in publicity.
  • Governments must develop policies for the safeguarding and development of public broadcasting, community based media, women?s alternative media, and alternative print media in order to counteract the negative trends of the commercialisation of information in national and transnational media and ICT corporations.
  • Governments and relevant bodies should implement programmes that will increase women’s access to media, including assigning resources to promote gender equality through the use of both mainstream and alternative media.
  • Governments should put in place policies and financial support, including within international cooperation programmes, with regard to support the strengthening of women?s communication and media initiatives.
  • Gender balance need to be established at all decision-making levels within the media industry. This could be achieved through measures such as affirmative action and quota systems.
  • A media critical analysis should be supported, in order to raise awareness of both audiences and journalists on how gender power asymmetries are at play in the media. Feminist analysis should be made an integral part of the curriculum in journalism schools.

    Back in 2000, it summarized its views on government media regulations as follows,

    While the role of governments is weakening, the media is becoming more powerful and complex, therefore, it is essential to re-establish a balance, in order to secure respect for women?s human rights and dignity. In order to impose restraints on sex stereotypes and sexist image in the different media and in the world of publicity, measures, mechanisms and bodies to regulate the content of media productions are essential. Currently, the media is auto-regulated which is often reduced to closed consultation with the managers and the proprietors of the media industry.

    Many years ago in the United States, movies would be reviewed by quasi-governmental film boards before being released to the general public. The film boards would order the elimination of anything that might offend anyone in the audience, focusing especially on anything of a sexual nature. The Pennsylvania Film Board, for example, required that all images of a pregnant woman be excised from Cecil B. DeMilles’ “Kindling” on the grounds that it would raise questions of sexuality among the children who might see the film.

    Some European feminists apparently believe that system was so good that they would like to replicate it for all mass media and have government regulators determine what is and is not fit for audiences to see.

    Sources:

    Sexist ads face ban in gender agenda. The Age (Australia), June 24, 2003.

    Human Dignity At The Eu Stomps On Degrading Women / Men. Grant Swank, Ameircan Daily, June 30, 2003.

    EU: Tabloids’ Topless Attractions Safe. Paul Ames, Associated Press, June 27, 2003.

    The New Europe Looks a Little Like ’1984′. Richard Pollock, Cato Institute, July 8, 2003.

    Contribution of the European Women?s Lobby to the CSW, New York, 3-14 March 2003. European Women’s Lobby, March 2003.

    Women and the media. Europan Women’s Lobby, 2000.

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    Norway Proposes to Set Quotas for Women on Corporate Boards

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    Norwegian legislator Laila Daavoey has introduced a bill that would require Norway’s top 600 companies or so to create a quota system for filling board positions. Comapnies that fail to fill at least 40 percent of their corporate board positions by 2005 would face financial penalties begining in 2007.

    This follows an announcement in November by Sweden’s Vice Prime Minister Margareta Winberg that Sweden would begin taking action against companies that failed to increase female representation on their corporate boards from the curretn 8 percent to 25 percent by 2004.

    Daavoey offered up a saying which she apparently highlights the need for such drastic actions, but actualy does a nice job of pointing out the idiocy of such quota systems. According to Daavoey,

    There will not be equality until you have incompetent women in the boardroom.

    That certainly is a lofty goal worth fighting for.

    Maggie Gallagher had a better comment on this proposed regimen in an op-ed,

    In Europe, it appears that in the name of democracy, elites are pursuing an autocratic centralized power, seeking economic control and social regimentation. They seem to have no hesitation about using the law to forcibly suppress opposition. Call it Eurofascism, lite. Only they call it democracy.

    Sources:

    Norway eyes law to shatter glass ceiling. Lizette Alvarez, Contra-Costa Times, July 18, 2003.

    Eurofascism, Lite. Maggie Gallagher, Yahoo.Com, July 15, 2003.

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