11.02.07

Mere Cognitive Dissonance or Genuine Schizophrenia? You Decide.

Posted in arrrrgh, law, outrage, patriotism, politics, sexuality, women at 9:55 am by Hanne Blank

From today’s Kaiser Family Foundation’s daily Women’s Health Report:

Exhibit A:

A House-Senate conference committee on Thursday approved a fiscal year 2008 appropriations measure that would include a $27.8 million increase in funding of abstinence education programs, CQ Today reports. The legislation combines a Labor-HHS-Education spending bill (HR 3043) with a spending bill for the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction (HR 2642) (Wayne, CQ Today, 11/1).

Exhibit B:

Sixty-seven percent of U.S. adults favor allowing public schools to provide contraceptives to students, including 37% who favor providing them only to children whose parents have consented and 30% who favor providing them to all students who ask, according to a recently released Associated Press-Ipsos poll, the AP/Columbus Dispatch reports.

The poll, taken from Oct. 23 to Oct. 25, found that minorities, older and lower-income people are most likely to prefer requiring parental consent, while those who support no restrictions primarily are younger and from urban or suburban areas. People who oppose providing birth control at school are more likely to be white and higher-income earners. The majority of respondents said young people should have access to birth control either beginning at age 16 or age 18, compared with one-third who chose age 15 or younger.

The poll also showed that 51% of people believe sex education and birth control are more effective ways to reduce teen pregnancies than emphasizing abstinence and morality, compared with 46% who prefer moral and abstinence messages. About 64% of minorities and 47% of whites consider sex education and birth control the most effective method. Nearly seven in 10 white evangelicals said they prefer abstinence, as well as about 50% of Catholics and Protestants. About 62% of all people surveyed believe providing birth control reduces the number of teen pregnancies.

… The survey involved telephone interviews with 1,004 adults.

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12.04.06

Call for Submissions — Essays on Menstruation

Posted in administrative, calls for submissions, making book, publishing, women at 3:10 pm by Hanne Blank

FINALLY, a book that isn’t afraid of a little blood!

Between puberty and menopause, most women spend close to a quarter of their lives dealing with menstruation. But except for coming-of-age stories and the occasional Stephen King novel, all this spilled blood hardly creates a blip on the cultural radar. It’s as if someone has removed it all with a super-duper magic cleanser… ironic, considering what the rest of us go through to get the stains out.

Breakthrough Bleeding is here to change all that. Thoughtful, challenging, political, and maybe even sexy, this collection of essays looks at menstruation from the inside and the outside, a super-maxi size dose of heavy-thinkin’ menstrual mojo.

We are looking for essays and creative nonfiction that analyze, question, and explore all aspects of menstruation and menstruation culture. Potential topics include:

• menstruation and gender – how does menstruation fit into (or conflict with) experiences of gender?
• menstrual products advertising & the “sanitary products” industry
• menstruation, personal relationships, and sex – from phobias to fetishes
• menstrual education – what do we learn and how do we learn it, what do we teach and how to we teach it?
• menstruation as a human rights issue – how are women’s periods dealt with in prisons, shelters, mental institutions, long-term care facilities, and other institutions?
• women who voluntarily/intentionally stop menstruating
• men’s experiences with / attitudes regarding menstruation
• menstruation humor
• menstruation and ridicule/shame
• transmenstruation – what kinds of issues come up around menstruation for intersex, transsexual and transgendered people?
• premature menopause (organic or induced)
• enjoying/appreciating menstruation
• menstruation and/in the workplace
• menstruation through the eyes of Western medicine
• the “menstrual alternatives” movement (e.g. reusable pads/cups/sponges) and its culture
• menstruation in straight vs. queer spheres
• feminist culture and menstruation

GENERAL GUIDELINES:

• NONFICTION only.
• NO fiction, poetry, or memoir. (This means that unless there is a specific reason for it to be in your piece, we do not want to hear about when you got your first period or how bad your PMS is. This is not a collection of first-person narratives.)
• Submissions should be between 1500 and 5000 words in length.
• TWO (2) copies of your submission will be required.
• Hard copy (paper copy) submissions ONLY. No electronic or emailed submissions will be considered.
• Typed or computer printed ONLY.
• Formatting: 12-point type in some generic traditional font (Times, Georgia, Geneva, Courier, etc.), one-inch margins, double spaced. Please include all italics, boldface, blockquotes, section breaks, etc.
• References, if any, may be either footnote or endnote according to author preference and should use Chicago Manual of Style format. No inline references please.
• Please number your pages
• Each submission should be accompanied by a cover sheet that contains ONLY the following data: Author Name, Pseudonym (if used), Title of Submission, Author mailing address, Author e-mail address, and Author telephone number.
• The author’s name or pseudonym should NOT appear anywhere on the submission itself.
• Each submission should be accompanied by a single business-sized self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE, with first class letter postage already affixed). Submissions from outside the USA do not require the SASE.
• Please DO NOT send additional cover letters with your submission,, only the cover sheet as indicated above.
• Please DO NOT send your only copy/copies of your work.
• NOTE: Manuscripts will not be returned. Manuscripts not chosen for the book will simply be recycled.

SUBMISSIONS ADDRESS:
Send all submissions to the following address

Breakthrough Bleeding – SUBMISSIONS
C/o Hanne Blank, Editor
44 E. 26th Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218 USA

COMPENSATION:
Writers whose work is included in the book will receive a cash honorarium (amount TBD) and two copies of the book.

DEADLINE:
Deadline for all submissions is March 20, 2007.

Writers will be informed of editorial decisions no later than June 1, 2007.

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11.20.06

Required Monday viewing

Posted in good things, links, sexuality, squeeeee!, women at 8:53 am by Hanne Blank

Now it may be that you’ve seen one of these before.  Perhaps you’ve seen both of them before.

But if you have, then you know that there is nothing at all wrong with seeing them again.  And again and again, if you like.

Lo-Rider, “Skinny” (uncensored and very likely not safe for workplaces)

Anthony Hamilton, “Sista Big Bones” (more worksafe yet still ooohbaby)

I noted to my spouse this morning that had the “Skinny” video been made in 2000, I probably wouldn’t have had to write Big Big Love, I could’ve just told people to go watch.

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11.17.06

It’s becoming a tradition…

Posted in arrrrgh, outrage, patriotism, politics, women at 12:34 pm by Hanne Blank

… in the Bu$h administration, it seems, to hand-pick for administrative appointment the precise kind of people who will be the biggest prickliest possible burrs under the saddle of reasonable egalitarianism.  The harder they are for anyone else to remove from their hand-picked posts, the better, too, so that the burrs will stay in place as long as possible, and for the remainder of the Shrubidency at the very least.

The latest in this long and infuriating list is a guy named Eric Keroac.  You’ve probably never heard of him before.  (That’s another Bush hallmark: if you pick people no one knows, it’s less likely that people will have reasons to complain about them.  Except, er, not in this case, that’s for sure.)  Here’s a little bit of what the WaPo has to say about Eric Keroack [Link]:

The Bush administration has appointed a new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who worked at a Christian pregnancy-counseling organization that regards the distribution of contraceptives as “demeaning to women.”

Eric Keroack, medical director for A Woman’s Concern, a nonprofit group based in Dorchester, Mass., will become deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the next two weeks, department spokeswoman Christina Pearson said yesterday.

Keroack, an obstetrician-gynecologist, will advise Secretary Mike Leavitt on matters such as reproductive health and adolescent pregnancy. He will oversee $283 million in annual family-planning grants that, according to HHS, are “designed to provide access to contraceptive supplies and information to all who want and need them with priority given to low-income persons.”

The appointment, which does not require Senate confirmation, was the latest provocative personnel move by the White House since Democrats won control of Congress in this month’s midterm elections. President Bush last week pushed the Senate to confirm John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations and this week renominated six candidates for appellate court judgeships who have previously been blocked by lawmakers. Democrats said the moves belie Bush’s post-election promises of bipartisanship.

The Keroack appointment angered many family-planning advocates, who noted that A Woman’s Concern supports sexual abstinence until marriage, opposes contraception and does not distribute information promoting birth control at its six centers in eastern Massachusetts.

“A Woman’s Concern is persuaded that the crass commercialization and distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality and adverse to human health and happiness,” the group’s Web site says.

You know what’s really demeaning to women?  Assuming that not having any voluntary control whatsoever over their fertility ennobles them.
You know the address to write to about this, right?  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C., 20500.

I always have the feeling I should be using really short words when I send nastygrams to Shrub, but have yet to actually give in to the temptation.  You do as you will on that score.  But do be a good patriot and write and tell Mr. Bush that he’s making a wrong choice, won’t you?  The wellbeing of your fellow countrywomen is on the line.

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11.16.06

Hire Me To Talk About Virgins!

Posted in Virgin book, advertisement, helping, making book, public speaking, publishing, sexuality, women at 4:09 pm by Hanne Blank

The fascinating, misunderstood, controversial topic of virginity is the subject of Hanne Blank’s groundbreaking new book Virgin: The Untouched History. Aspects of this history—a history chronicled for the first time in this sweeping new survey—are also the subject of four vibrant, information-packed, surprising, and entertaining talks that Hanne is offering for 2007.

Reviews have raved that Blank’s work is “a huge helping of stereotype busting, old-fashioned feminist consciousness raising” that “does for sex what feminism does for women: gives us context.” Conference and event organizers say “fantastic speaker… and a huge part of why the conference went so well!” and describe her as “at once learned and accessible, informative and provocative.”

To bring Hanne Blank and Virgin: The Untouched History to your campus, conference, or other organization, contact her at hanne at hanneblank dot com or contact Jennifer Baumgardner or Amy Richards at Soapbox, Inc. at (646) 486-1414.

Gypsy Flowers and Piss-Prophets: A Historical Tour of Virginity Testing

Human beings have been inventing virginity tests for as long as we have recognized the status of virginity itself—since before written history began. Some of the earliest documents of Western culture discuss the problem of how to verify virginity. Across the centuries, women and girls have had their genitals inspected, endured having their breasts and buttocks groped, drunk bizarre concoctions, and literally had smoke blown up their vaginas, all in the name of determining whether they were virginal. No virginity test has ever done better than chance at determining anyone’s sexual status. Even modern medicine cannot offer us anything more conclusive than conjecture. But the methods that we have tried over the centuries, whether seemingly abstract (astrological forecasts), bizarre (sniffing lettuce), or seemingly scientific and modern (gynecologists’ exams), reveal volumes about what we have believed to be true about the body, about sexuality, and about the elusive quality of virginity itself.
(Includes audience participation. Approximately 50 minutes, plus Q&A.)

Hymen Wars: The Two Thousand Year Search For Anatomical Proof of Virginity

Ask most people how you can tell whether or not a woman is a virgin, and it is likely that they’ll mention the hymen. The condition of this storied membrane has, in recent history, been considered so definitive of virginity that reports of its condition have been admitted as evidence in courts of law, and we often assume that this is not only warranted but that the hymen has been known and understood this way throughout human history. Nothing could be further from the truth: the hymen’s physical reality wasn’t even confirmed by dissection until 1546, after twelve centuries of medical debate about whether it existed at all. Even then, some physicians dismissed it as nothing more than a minor birth defect. The startling history of the hymen, stretching from ancient Greece to the pages of modern medical journals, is a saga of controversy, projection, paranoia, and medical mystery that continues to infuriate and amaze.
(Visual component includes graphic clinical photographs. May not be suitable for all audiences. Approximately 50 minutes, plus Q&A.)

True Love Legislates: “Abstinence,” Education, and the Politics of Virginity in America

Since 1996, the United States has been the only nation in the developed world—and one of only a few worldwide—with national legislation regarding the virginity of its citizens. Why, and what does this mean in the larger context of American history and culture? With hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and the staunch support of powerful political and religious conservatives, the legislation that created “abstinence”-only sexuality education was never subject to public referendum, yet it neatly encapsulates nearly a century’s paranoia about the sexuality of young women and men. Devoid of oversight requirements or even proof that “abstinence” programs work (and indeed with increasing evidence to the contrary), “abstinence” education policy is creating a chilling effect on freedom of information and expression not just in America’s public schools and youth programs but in the halls of public research institutions like the Centers for Disease Control. Public figures, including several former Surgeons General of the United States, have called for an end to this controversial Federal program, but economics, social history, and politics alike make repeal a difficult task. A hard-hitting and layered look at the big picture of “abstinence” in the context of American history and culture.
(Approximately 50 minutes, plus Q&A.)

Virgins, Veils, and Eunuchs For The Sake of Heaven: Virginity in the World of Early Christianity

In the fifth century BCE, the Greek poet Bacchylides wrote that “as a skillful painter gives a face beauty, just so chastity gives charm to a life of high aims.” But what Bacchylides meant by “chastity” was light-years away from what Saint Augustine, writing at an equal distance into the Common Era, meant by the same term. The development and spread of Christianity brought with it a startling new philosophy of sexuality and of virginity in particular: to a world in which the married household was the cornerstone of the social and political order, it introduced the notion that “…he who gives in marriage does well, he who does not does better.” (I Cor. 7:38) In order for this radical reprioritization of virginity to succeed, the virginity culture of the pre-Christian world had to be encompassed and transformed, and the results aggressively promoted in doctrine, ritual, organizational structure, and the rapid generation of a vast and fascinating literature. The result was nothing less than a paradigm shift in the Western culture of virginity, one which continues to shape our thoughts, emotions, and experiences of virginity a millennium and a half later.
(Approximately 50 minutes, plus Q&A.)

While visiting your campus as a featured speaker, Hanne Blank may be available (pending scheduling) to enrich student experience by speaking in undergraduate and graduate classrooms on general subjects relating to her work as a feminist writer, activist, and historian. With abundant classroom experience and guest-teaching credits at institutions including Johns Hopkins University, Tufts University, Brandeis University, University of Delaware, Virginia Commonwealth University, and many others, she is happy to speak to many topics related to her past and current work.

For educators who would prefer more structured and topical guest-teaching on subjects relating specifically to virginity and the book Virgin: The Untouched History, Ms. Blank is also offering
topic-based classroom teaching on the following subjects:

Virginity as a Problem in Contemporary Medical Ethics
Suitable for women’s and gender studies, applied philosophy, and ethics classrooms, this topic requires students to read two articles from major medical journals (four for graduate classes) in preparation for a wide-ranging discussion about issues of institutional and cultural misogyny, issues regarding medical definition of anatomical “normality,” patient consent and confidentiality, legal and forensic issues regarding physician interpretation of anatomical evidence, and physician liability for patients’ social and cultural safety. (Bibliography for this class will be provided to the professor upon confirmation of booking. Study questions for students will be provided.)

Under Wraps: Gender, Appearance, and Power in Tertullian’s De virginibus velandis
Suitable for women’s history, history of Christianity, ancient literature, and Classical history classrooms, this class centers around close historical reading of Tertullian, De virginibus velandis (On the Veiling of Virgins), with the goal of better understanding the role that gender, sexuality, biological sex, appearance, and women’s agency played within the intersecting cultures of Tertullian’s world and within the developing theology of third-century Christianity. (The core text may, depending on the nature of the class, be read either in Latin or in English translation. Study questions for students will be provided.)

Virgin Sexy: Sex, Power, and the Eroticization of Virginity
Suitable for women’s and gender studies, cultural studies, human sexuality, and modern social history classrooms, this class considers the complicated issue of how virginity is eroticized in Western culture and what ramifications this has for the personal well-being, cultural and legal agency, and sexual self-image and experience of women. Discussion centers around 3 readings (graduate classes may have more) from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (Bibliography for this class will be provided to the professor upon confirmation of booking. Study questions for students will be provided.)

To bring Hanne Blank and Virgin: The Untouched History to your campus, conference, or organization, contact her at hanne at hanneblank dot com or contact Jennifer Baumgardner or Amy Richards at Soapbox, Inc. at (646) 486-1414.

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