Is inflaming anti-Muslim sentiment worse than beheading your estranged wife?

A coalition of eight family and women’s groups are calling on the National Organization for Women to retract comments by its New York president linking the death of Aasiya Z. Hassan to a Muslim “honor killing.”

“We were so shocked by her comments,” said Laura Grube, coordinator for Child & Family Services Haven House, a coalition member.

The comments by Marcia Pappas, NOW’s state president, were insensitive and harmful to domestic violence victims, she said.

But Pappas stood her ground and said that dozens of Muslim women have written to thank her for speaking out.

“There will be no retraction,” she said.

Hassan was found beheaded Feb. 12 in the office of Bridges TV in Orchard Park. Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, the chief executive officer of the television channel, is charged with her slaying.

In a statement Feb. 16, Pappas criticized the media for paying little attention to the case, which came to light the same day as the crash of Continental Flight 3407 in Clarence.

“Why is this horrendous story not all over the news?” Pappas asked in the news release.

“Is a Muslim woman’s life not worth a five-minute report? This was, apparently, a terroristic version of ‘honor killing,’ a murder rooted in cultural notions about women’s subordination to men.”

Linking the death to the couple’s religion “inflamed anti-Muslim sentiment and let the non-Muslim community off the hook for addressing the real issue—ending domestic violence,” the coalition said in a statement.

[h/t James Taranto]

Michael Ignatieff threw a party and I wasn’t invited. I wonder why?

A long yet interesting piece on breastfeeding – not against it but fairly skeptical. I especially like this bit:

So I was left feeling trapped, like many women before me, in the middle-class mother’s prison of vague discontent: surly but too privileged for pity, breast-feeding with one hand while answering the cell phone with the other, and barking at my older kids to get their own organic, 100 percent juice—the modern, multitasking mother’s version of Friedan’s “problem that has no name.”

And in this prison I would have stayed, if not for a chance sighting. One day, while nursing my baby in my pediatrician’s office, I noticed a 2001 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association open to an article about breast-feeding: “Conclusions: There are inconsistent associations among breastfeeding, its duration, and the risk of being overweight in young children.” Inconsistent? There I was, sitting half-naked in public for the tenth time that day, the hundredth time that month, the millionth time in my life—and the associations were inconsistent? The seed was planted. That night, I did what any sleep-deprived, slightly paranoid mother of a newborn would do. I called my doctor friend for her password to an online medical library, and then sat up and read dozens of studies examining breast-feeding’s association with allergies, obesity, leukemia, mother-infant bonding, intelligence, and all the Dr. Sears highlights.

I believe each mom should make her own decisions based on what’s best for her and her family. What I don’t like, in this as in anything else aside from the obvious superiority of dark chocolate over the milk kind, is people who insist their views must be followed by all.

Oh, and this is pretty good, too:

The debate about breast-feeding takes place without any reference to its actual context in women’s lives. Breast-feeding exclusively is not like taking a prenatal vitamin. It is a serious time commitment that pretty much guarantees that you will not work in any meaningful way. Let’s say a baby feeds seven times a day and then a couple more times at night. That’s nine times for about a half hour each, which adds up to more than half of a working day, every day, for at least six months. This is why, when people say that breast-feeding is “free,” I want to hit them with a two-by-four. It’s only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing.

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Rebecca adds:

Let’s say a baby feeds seven times a day and then a couple more times at night. That’s nine times for about a half hour each, which adds up to more than half of a working day, every day, for at least six months.”

Someone told me once (pre-kids) that feeding and bathing and changing one baby’s diapers takes up more than 8 hours a day.  That’s your full-time job, right there. I don’t wear a lot of “message” T-shirts, but one of my favourites says “every mother is a working mother.”

That’s also further evidence, if anybody needed it, that OctoMom is bananas.

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Tanya says: Of course this woman’s frustrated with breastfeeding. She thinks she should be able to answer her cell phone whilst nursing.

I’m called on annually to serve as the official photographer at the Breastfeeding Challenge in my area. Being part of that circle made me aware of the amount of support and resources needed for breastfeeding to be something every woman can do, if she so wishes. (You’ll notice, if you look at 2008’s results, that Quebec, Canada is the place to breastfeed.) In my area, there are breastfeeding counselors, breastfeeding clinics, breastfeeding newsletters, breastfeeding support moms (mentors within the breastfeeding support group, of course)….  At no point did I ever get the impression that it’s supposed to be easy; that it isn’t a full-time commitment.

So if you don’t feel it’s a commitment you’re able to make, then don’t do it.  There are endless other options.  But build a case against breastfeeding?  Puh-leeeze!

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Véronique adds: Typing this comment while nursing. Given that healthy children can be brought up on formula, I don’t think that the decision to breastfeed should be held as a moral absolute. That being said, I am of the “human milk for human babies” type. It just seems to make sense in the big scheme of things, regardless of academic studies and expert opinions.

What troubles me in the type of opinion expressed in that column is that it seems to gloss over the fact that parenting is made of sacrifices. You can stop  feeding if it makes you feel better. But thinking that you can (or should be able to) skirt self-sacrifice somehow is asking for a rude awakening.

Today was Tax Day. I am happy to report that my accountant’s head did not suddenly burst into flames at the sight of my paperwork. That’s very good. I like my accountant a lot. But boy, I really do hate doing my taxes. So much time and effort just to make sure I give enough money to the government…

I was all set to write a snippy little post about my experiences, and then I saw this:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuMHSFPOzpc]

No, it doesn’t make me happy to pay taxes (nothing could). But it sure shuts me up.

[h/t LifeSiteNews]

Barbie turns 50 today. We can either celebrate by starving ourselves all day, or by eating something fattening and gooey. I’m going with ice cream.

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Tanya adds: I’m just impressed that, after 50 years, Barbie can still pull off heels with a swimsuit.  And it’s good to see she’s not anemic anymore.

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Andrea adds: Didn’t Barbie just have a 50th birthday? At this rate, she’ll be 100 soon. (And still not looking a day over 12.)

Belinda Stronach hasn’t completely disappeared. Here she is in the Star discussing the horrifying plight of women – or something. It’s not entirely clear what she wants given the long way women still have to go in order to get to a destination that is not specified by ways that are altogether imprecise.

“We need to encourage policies and build institutions that help to empower the equal treatment of women,” she says at one point. Huh? What kind of institution helps empower the equal treatment of women? For the matter of that, what kind of equal treatment is amenable to being empowered? Or is it equally empowering institution building?

I get lost amidst all those buzzwords, forgive me. Where were we? Oh yeah. Institutions that empower the equal treatment of women. Such as?

Among other things, that means stepping up the pressure on governments to make a priority of implementing quality and affordable child care right across our country. It is distressing that at a time of massive government spending in the name of stimulus, there has been little public pressure on Ottawa to fund a system of child care and early learning, an investment that would create jobs in the short-term but would pay off again down the road in the form of better educated children and more successful women in the workforce.

Of course. Nothing says institutionalized empowering equal treatment of women like a crazy expensive national program they don’t even want.

Happy Women’s Day, everyone!

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Andrea adds: Since I’ve been humming ABBA all weekend, why I don’t know, but why not, I also say–I might as well say I have another dream, another song to sing… I dream of the complete and total defunding of Status of Women Canada. I have no political aspirations, none. But if I did, I’d dream of being the person to cut all that funding, and I’d do it on International Women’s Day. Just for fun.

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Brigitte says: Me too! I’ve been humming ABBA all weekend, why I don’t know…

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Tanya thinks she’s mentioned this before… but it warrants being repeated.  Cheap daycare is a lifesaver for the single mom who would work regardless.
Don’t get me started on the fact that most of the low-paying jobs are not Monday to Friday 9-5.  What’s the single mom working retail supposed to do with her toddler on Thursday night and Sunday?  Especially when the following week, she’s actually working Wednesday night and Saturday.
For the middle class, that big ambiguous cloud somewhere in the middle of all this, cheap daycare is something of a curse, too.  For that woman who dreamed of getting to stay home with her kids, her sense of financial obligation scoots her out into a working world while her children are being cared for at the cost of half an hour’s salary a day.  Now her family can go on that vacation and buy that big sectional couch.

R.E.A.L. (Responsible for Equality and Liberty) is holding a “Save Women Now” Rally on Sunday.

Every day, women are under attack by Islamic supremacism that supports and approves of oppression, mutilation, and murder of women. According to leaders and followers of Islamic supremacism, they have the right to commit violence against women. Islamic supremacism views oppression of women as a legitimate “right,” violence against women as a legitimate “right,” and murdering women as a legitimate “right.”

Humanity’s inalienable human rights include equality and liberty, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, and the freedom to pursue happiness. No one has the “right” to oppress women, no one has the “right” to violence against women, and no one has the “right” to murder women. Humanity must defy the dark and twisted vision of Islamic supremacists who believe that they can act without challenge and without consequences.

More information here.

A pretty thorough smack-down:

But how does the young non-mother have standing to sue? She came to the clinic to have the baby removed from her body and destroyed. The baby was removed and destroyed. What’s the actual harm to her? She didn’t like the method?  The issue seems to be that she was forced to witness the ordeal that was a direct, if messy, consequence of the procedure she requested.  Would it have been better to see the baby taken out in parts? Injected with poison and born dead?

Her lawyer claims she was ambivalent to begin with. Sure. But so what? She made her decision. Her lawyer responds, “She came face to face with a human being. And that changed everything.”  While that is emotionally plausible — even likely — again, so what? She was aborting the baby precisely because it was a human being which, she says, she was not mature enough to care for. What was it she thought would happen?

If you think that sounds harsh, blame the “pro-choice” activists who say nothing should prevent a woman from exercising her “right” to “choose” without ever getting into the details of what, exactly, that “choice” entails.

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Andrea adds: Thanks for posting this, Brigitte.

You know, once in a while a story will surface–the specific one I recall from about three years ago was from India–about the bones of babies found in the gutters on streets, either after infanticide or abortion. The response tends to be one of horror and shock from this part of the world. Because over here, we conceal the remains and body disposal. How civilized.

That mother went in to have her baby killed. Her baby was killed. Et voila: that’s what we here in North America call a screaming success and an advancement of women’s dignity. And yes, I do blame those “honest, informative” abortion providers. The girl involved is not without her share of the responsibility. But if she’s been told her whole life this is a valid option, a workable solution, and a compassionate course of action–and then meets face to face with a gruesome reality–well, it’s a gruesome reality the abortion provider fails to see because he/she is so used to it.

Off to get some valium now. (This stuff, for all the fun we have blogging, does make me angry.)

In Australia, extra-marital relationships can lead to “divorce” litigation:

Mistresses can now claim income maintenance, property and even superannuation funds under the Family Law Amendment (De Facto Financial Matters and Other Measures), dubbed the “mistress laws”, which were passed by the Senate last November and came into effect today (March 1).

The main objective is to remove same-sex discrimination from the Family Court system, but they have left the door open for a raft of de facto relationship claims.

The laws declare that de facto couples who satisfy basic criteria – such as being in the relationship for at least two years – will be treated in the Family Court in the same way as a married couple. It also applies to same-sex couples.

The laws will change the way property is divided by enabling the court to consider the “future needs” of partners, as it does for married couples.

Men or women who have a second relationship outside a marriage are now liable to legal action in the Family Court should the second partner decide he or she deserves income support or a share of assets. This is particularly the case if a child is involved.