NEWSBYROXANN MTJOY

When female boxers enter the ring, the Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) would like them to be wearing skirts, according to a recommendation by the sport's governing organization. After all, nothing says pugilistic prowess like a good miniskirt.

The AIBA came up with this brilliant idea as a way to help distinguish female boxers from their male counterparts. Apparently, this has been a problem for some folks in the past, though I can't imagine who.

Female boxers have already had to fight long and hard outside the ring to get the respect they deserve inside of it. The 2012 London Games will mark the sport's Olympic debut, after having been previously rejected by the International Olympic Committee  in 2005 for not meeting safety and universality standards. AIBA's sartorial suggestion undermines that progress.

After AIBA issued this suggestion, only two nations had their female boxers wear skirts: Romanian and Polish fighters wore them in the the European Championships late last year. Most athletes seem to share the opinion of  Ireland's three-time world champion, Katie Taylor. "I don't even wear miniskirts on a night out," Taylor said. "So I definitely won't be wearing miniskirts in the ring."

The AIBA, responding to criticism, has said that, as of now, the skirts are merely a suggestion. Final uniform dress codes will not be decided until they meet this month from January 18-22. Until that time, the organization is asking for input from the wider boxing community and from the general public.

Change.org member Rachel Walden seized the opportunity to have her voice heard and created a petition asking the AIBA to rescind its recommendation that female boxers wear skirts. "The ideal result of this petition is to send the message that this sort of misogyny is intolerable, " says Walden. Join her in asking the AIBA to play and not require female boxers wear skirts.

Photo credit: babastever

Earlier this week, we told you about the deeply problematic contest sponsored by an Edmonton radio station. The Bear 100.3 FM is offering as a prize in its Win a Russian Romance (formerly called Win a Wife): a trip to Russia to meet potential brides, courtesy of A Volga Girl, an international marriage broker. After public outcry -- including from the over 8,000 Change.org members who signed this petition -- the station finally responded.

Rob Vavrek, Brand Manager at the Bear, stated in an email that their contest was  “a concept very similar to many other such contests held on reality-TV shows over the past few years around the world (i.e. - the Bachelor/Bachelorette).” Riiiiiight… only add in a dash of human trafficking. Unlike shows such as The Bachelor, relationships facilitated by international marriage brokers are fundamentally and dangerously unequal. One half of the couple (almost exclusively the male) has all the power (money, social power, native immigration status, etc) and the other half (in this case, the potential Russian bride) has none. This results in a situation where a foreign bride finds herself isolated in a new country, completely at the mercy of her new husband.

Amanda Kloer, Director of Organizing in Human Rights here at Change.org, puts it like this: “It seems to me like no matter how they phrase it, the prize is a human being. Not a trip to Russia where romance might flourish, but something more akin to a gift certificate for a person, which is objectifying and offensive.”

Everyone is familiar with radio station contests. You know, the kind where if you are caller number 100, you are entered into a drawing to win concert tickets, backstage passes, and weekend getaways. An Edmonton station is taking this promotional standard to an unbelievable new low in its Win a Wife contest. Yes, you read that right: win a wife.

The Bear 100.3 FM is calling for male listeners to submit an application (which poses  soul-baring questions like "What do you have to offer a smokin hot foreign girl?" and asks men to name the "Stupidest thing you've done in the hopes of scorin"). From the pool of applicants, the station will select five finalists to compete for the grand prize of an all-expenses paid trip to Russia. The contest is sponsored by A Volga Girl, an American company that bills itself as an "integrity-based" agency that helps American and Canadian men find Russian women "who have expressed a sincere desire to find emotional stability."

Applications are posted on the station's website. A quick perusal of the current top-rated men in the contest reveals that many of them consider good food, a clean house, and frequent, casual sex to be in their top three reasons for wanting a Russian bride. In other words, they want a maid that they think has to sleep with them.

Get ready, because later this month it is time to make it RAINN. Thursday, September 22 is RAINN Day, the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network annual campaign to raise awareness and educate students about sexual violence on college campuses. With one out of every six American women the victim of a rape or attempted rape in her lifetime, and 80% of all victims under the age of thirty, I don't think there is a better cause for Change.org members to throw their considerable weight behind.

So, how can you get involved on your campus? First, go here and sign-up to be a RAINN Day organizer. You'll get a planning packet, including t-shirt designs, promotion guides, and everything else you'll need to get started. Whether you want to plan a march or a rally, pass out fliers or stage a show, RAINN wants to help you achieve success in getting the word out on your campus about the facts surrounding sexual violence.

You don't have to be a student to get in on the action. Anyone with a college or high school aged friend or family matter should make sure she knows RAINN's Back to School Safety Tips, including being aware of your surroundings, being careful with social media, and drinking responsibly. Frankly, these are tips that everyone, not just students, should practice. As my mother is found of saying, it is better to be safe than to be sorry.

With 750 million users worldwide, Facebook is the second-most popular internet site. While most of those people use the site to do things like reconnect with long lost high school friends, share interesting cat videos, and post dinner plans, others use the social networking site to promote hatred and violence against women. Despite being in clear violation of Facebook's own Statements of Rights and Responsibilities, the site currently hosts pages like "Riding your Girlfriend softly, cause you dont want to wake her up," "Punching Pregnant Women in the Stomach," and "Kicking sluts in the Vagina."

Change.org member John Raines was sickened by what he saw. "I have several family members who have been the victim of sexual abuse and even rape," Raines said,  "I have seen the physical and mental scars of sexual violence. Yet, Facebook continues to allow pages full of harassment, hate speech, threats of violence, the plotting and encouragement of sexual violence and even murder to go unchecked." Because these pages went against, not only his own moral code, but Facebook's own stated policies, Raines started a petition to remind Facebook of its obligation to remove these pages.

Indeed, it could not be clearer that these pages are in clear violation of Facebook's Terms of service. Prohibited content includes that which is “hateful, threatening,” or contains “graphic or gratuitous violence” (Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Section 3, item 7). Moreover, users are specifically barred from posting content that aims to “bully, intimidate, or harass” any user.

Raines wants Facebook to start enforcing these rules. That includes immediately removing these sexually violent pages once they have been reported. He also wants the company to issue an official statement condemning these pages and then add specific language to the Statement of Rights and responsibilities that makes it clear that pages promoting any form of sexual violence will be banned.

"A friend once told me there is a big difference in free speech and hate speech," said Raines, "Hate speech is never free.  It comes at a heavy price for its victims." Sign the petition and demand that Facebook take a stronger stand in enforcing its own policies and stop promoting rape and rape culture.

Photo: Sean MacEntee

When it comes to defining rape, the FBI has a shockingly narrow stance on the subject. According to the Uniform Crime Report (the annual report of crime statistics compiled by the FBI) some of the acts not considered rape by the FBI include: forced anal sex or oral sex, rape with an object, and statutory rape. It also never counts when men or transgendered persons are raped, nor when alcohol or drugs are used to incapacitate the victim. That's why Ms. Magazine launched the No More Excuses: Rape is Rape campaign to ask the FBI to update this dangerously inaccurate definition.

This is about more than just semantics. As I said back in September, how can you effectively fight an enemy when you don't know its size? It is hard to believe that law enforcement agencies are taking rape seriously when they refuse to acknowledge so many of its devastating forms.

More than just an modern definition (the FBI's is almost a century old), Ms. wants action. There is an unacceptable backlog of untested rape kits -- collections of any physical evidence the attacker may have left behind, including vaginal swabs, urine samples, blood tests, and fingernail scrapings -- in the United States. Tens of thousands (some estimates even put the number closer to 200,000) of these kits sit in police custody, gathering dust. That means countless rapists are walking free, able to rape others. Just last week, a suspect was named in a 1995 rape of a teenager in Houston because it took the police twelve years to get around to testing the evidence collected.

When Holly Yeager got the news that she was expecting her third child, she wanted to make sure that she could have the same incredible, safe birthing experience that she had with her first two babies. So, Holly contacted her new insurance company, Geisinger Choice, to find out if her midwives were covered by her plan. Geisinger Choice said yes, so Holly proceeded as planned with her pregnancy plans. Unfortunately for her, things were about to get very complicated.

At Holly's initial appointment at her preferred midwife practice, Birth Care and Family Health Services in Bart, Pennsylvania, she was asked about her wishes regarding where she'd like to give birth. She indicated that she'd prefer a home birth, but was willing to compromise and deliver at the birthing center, depending on what her insurance carrier allowed. Three days later, Holly received a letter from Geisinger Choice denying coverage for both options.

So, why would an insurance company who previously stated in covered care by midwives deny Holly these options? A call to the customer service department netted this response: while midwives as individual practitioners are covered, the actual spaces where they do their work (homes, birthing centers, etc) are not. The director of Birth Care and Family Health Services has been trying for years to get someone from Geisinger Choice to meet with her and visit the center without luck.

Back in 2008, an 18-year-old Washington state woman was raped. She bravely reported her attack to the police. But they only then further traumatized the teenage woman when they accused her lying and charged her with false reporting. Except recent evidence came to light that proved the rape occurred as she said. While the police department reopened the case and refunded the woman her money, Ms. Magazine felt more needed to be done and asked Change.org members to help. Today, I am proud to report that your efforts have once again paid off.

Represented by a public defender, the teenage survivor ended up pleading guilty to the charge of false reporting and was sentenced to undergo mental health counseling, a deferred sentence, and a $500 fine. One slight problem with that -- a few weeks ago Colorado police caught a serial rapist and discovered photo documentation of his attack on this woman. Oops?

"We were wrong. Everybody feels terrible about it," Lynnwood Police Chief Steve Jensen said after the truth of the assault came to light. "We take sexual assaults very seriously." He claims inconsistencies in the victim's original account of the attack is what led to the disastrous false reporting charge. Yet rape survivor's stories often include inconsistencies, because the victim is attempting to reconstruct a severe trauma. Jumping to the conclusion of false reporting on this weak evidence, and treating a survivor like a criminal instead of a victim, is unacceptable. It's a striking example of the harm that can be done by a widespread tendency among law enforcement to blame or disbelieve victims.

Last month, a midwife in North Carolina was arrested for doing her job. Amy Medwin, a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) licensed in the state of Virginia, had been attending home births in North Carolina and the state was having none of it. They brought her up on charges of practicing midwifery without a license. A charge that might make more sense if North Carolina if the state in fact actually offered professional licensure for midwives, but it doesn't.

Apparently, the North Carolina government doesn't want its women having home births. Why they think it is the lawmaker's job to choose individual women's birthing experience is beyond me. Unfortunately, it isn't the only state that feels that way. Fourteen states currently fail to recognize CPMs.

Right now, despite the best efforts of midwifery advocates, Illinois women do not have access to state-licensed midwives. Illinois provides no certification for midwives, leaving the roughly 800 to 1,000 women annually who want to have a home birth to rely on an unlicensed, unregulated midwife. This creates a home birth situation without standardized care, potential difficulty in obtaining  birth certificates, and trouble getting smoothly transferred to a hospital in the event of a medical emergency. While there is still much work to get fully-licensed midwives in Illinois, in the meantime a new bill has been introduced that would address that would take their first baby steps to ensuring safe home births.