On the Invisibility of Things Female

1.  US News does a Best Countries ranking which has several sub-indices.  There's even a methodology page where you can learn how the various parts of the final index are weighted and so on.  Looks very sciency, it does.

I was bored the other day and scrolled through its various sub-indices.  One was about the best places for you to start a career.  The three top countries, in order from first to third, were Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Never ever drink coffee while reading silly stuff, because the coffee goes all over the screen and the keys and up your nose, too.  In any case, this example is a wonderful one about the way women are still mostly invisible.

But not to worry!  The overall index has a separate sub-index about the best countries for women!  In that one Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates don't rank terribly high.  So wimminz have their own slot in this index.  This makes me wonder if all the other subindices are to be interpreted as applying to men only.

Welcome to Gilead. Or More On the Reasons Behind Alabama's Abortion Ban.

Alabama's Republican governor , Kay Ivey, has signed the new abortion ban.  It criminalizes almost all abortions:

Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed the measure Wednesday. The law will make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by 10 to 99 years or life in prison.
The bill contains an exception for when the pregnancy creates a serious health risk for the woman, but not an exception for rape or incest.
There would be no punishment for the woman receiving the abortion, only for the abortion provider.

The ban is created so stringent on purpose.  The forced-birthers want the Republican-tilting Supreme Court to address one of the many new Republican-created abortion bans, in order to overturn Roe v. Wade, and a stringent ban is more likely to end there.

Thus, in one sense everything is going according to their plans.  But there's a PR price to be paid:  People who don't live in Alabama can now see how that state regards its women and their rights.  As uterus-havers... 

Speaking about women's status in Alabama, one index judges it to be the fifth-worst state to be a woman in the US,  and the Alabama legislature has one of the lowest percentages of female lawmakers.  The twenty-five Alabama senators who voted for the bill are all men, though the sponsor of the bill is a woman and so is the governor who signed it into law.

As the Washington Post article notes, though:

Coleman-Madison and Democratic state Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, the only women who spoke during the four-hour debate, acknowledged in interviews with The Washington Post that the divide on the issue is primarily one of ideology rather than gender; the Republican sponsor of the bill in the Alabama House, for example, is a woman, and Republican Gov. Kay Ivey will is expected to sign it.

What might that ideology be?  I'd wager my money on fundamentalism.  According to a 2014 Pew survey 51% of Alabama Christians believe that Scripture is the word of God and should be taken literally.  That percentage is the second highest in the country.  Only Mississippi has a higher percentage of fundamentalists among Christians (56%).  And fundamentalists of all religions preach male dominance and female subjugation and strongly prefer the exclusion of women from public life.

But the scarcity of women in the Alabama legislature is probably also a consequence of this ideology!  In other words, the two are not competing theories about the reasons why Alabamans want abortions banned.  It could even be the case that a ban on abortions is seen as more desirable because it will make women's participation in the labor force and politics and so on more difficult.

Third Fundraising Post, 2019

You have to read Alexandra Petri's latest piece.  It imagines how the forced-birthers in Alabama, Georgia and other similar places who legislate on abortion might explain to us the female body and its reproductive system, how ovulation works, how early you might know that you are pregnant, and so on.

Petri is roaringly funny.

After that enjoyment you can give me some money to keep this site going.  I'm not as funny as Petri, but I have my moments.