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This is wrong, too

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If some actor demanded his fiancée changed her appearance for his sake, we’d say something, right? That’s what I thought. So why aren’t we hearing widespread condemnations in this case?

Sienna Miller has ordered fiance Rhys Ifans to get into shape.

The 26-year-old Alfie actress, who has previously dated Hollywood hunks Jude Law and James Bond star Daniel Craig has bought Welsh Rhys, 39, a Power Plate and started him on an exercise regime, in the hope of beefing him up before their wedding this northern summer, reports Showbizspy.com

A source said: “Poor old Rhys must find it hard to measure up to her exes.

“He’s always been quite skinny.

“Sienna loves him but she just wants him to tone up a bit so he looks great for their big day.”

Riiiiight.

Is nudity a form of exploitation?

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Certainly, yes, according to this guy: [gentle warning: link shows nude picture in question]

A doctor running hospitals in Cambodia has refused a donation raised by selling a nude photograph of France’s first lady because Cambodians disapproved of exploiting female flesh for money.

The 1993 picture of Italian ex-model Carla Bruni, now married to President Nicolas Sarkozy, raised $US91,000 ($98,300) at a New York auction last week.

“My decision [to turn down the donation] was taken out of respect for our patients and their mothers,” Swiss paediatrician Beat Richner said in an interview with the weekly Le Matin Dimanche.

“Accepting money obtained from exploitation of the female body would be perceived as an insult.”

In Cambodia “use of nudity is not understood in the way it is in the West,” he added.

Dr Richner said he did not wish his institution, the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital Association, “to be involved in the media exploitation of Madame Bruni.”

“The idea behind this gift was to get publicity for the auction and the photographer,” Dr Richner was also quoted as saying.

“It was a way of using us.”

 

Apparently, it would now be easier to create a cloned child

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Please keep in mind that I understand very little about these things. But what I do get, I don’t particularly like.

A new form of cloning has been developed that is easier to carry out than the technique used to create Dolly the sheep, raising fears that it may one day be used on human embryos to produce “designer” babies.

Scientists who used the procedure to create baby mice from the skin cells of adult animals have found it to be far more efficient than the Dolly technique, with fewer side effects, which makes it more acceptable for human use.

The mice were made by inserting skin cells of an adult animal into early embryos produced by in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). Some of the resulting offspring were partial clones but some were full clones – just like Dolly.

Question: What exactly are “partial clones”?

 

Half-way there?

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We’ve mentioned a few times already (see here and here) that it was somewhat odd for someone like Ujjal Dosanjh to be in favour of the abortion status quo yet against sex-selection abortion. Here he is again explaining his position, in today’s Ottawa Citizen.

While we firmly support a woman’s right to choose as paramount, there is a clear distinction to be drawn between supporting access to safe abortions, which we vigorously defend, and the abortion of fetuses solely to prevent the births of female babies due to biased socio-cultural norms, which we abhor.

I don’t see the “clear distinction”, and I sure don’t think it’s OK to see choice as “paramount”. I believe it’s wrong to discard “inconvenient” babies, regardless of the reasons why such babies are considered inconvenient. But hey. Better oppose some abortions than none at all.

Stuff I wish I’d made up

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Tired of dancing every night, and never getting ahead? “Become a SuperStripper!”

[h/t SJD]

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Andrea adds: It’s almost hard not to see this as a joke. Like all those offers of advanced degrees I get in my junk mailbox. But no, I see it’s real. Legalizing prostitution and legitimizing stripping: guess we can look forward to advanced degrees in pole dancing, lap dancing, and a whole lot more. Whose betting the “profs” are all men?  

What to say…

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Go read and weep.

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Rebecca adds: I hate to seem unsympathetic, as this woman seems genuinely to be in pain, albeit (as she acknowledges) because of her own choices. But isn’t this a symptom of some mental health issue or other – compulsive lying to avoid dealing with the reality of one’s life? At best, it’s Walter Mitty syndrome, and depending on how much she deludes herself, maybe something worse.

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Andrea adds: Does this culture demand women deny themselves something they actually really want? I have wondered that, especially given that in one poll, now slightly out of date (1997, I believe) one in three Canadians said they desired three kids–a far cry from the 1.5 we currently have. But there’s something awfully strange about lying that you have children, when in fact, you don’t.  I believe there is a greater pressure to deny wanting to be a mother. That’s personal experience of course, and unscientific. But our birth rates go a little ways to proving it.

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Tanya adds: This is quite a bit of presumption on my part, but as we make plans for our lives, we envision things going a certain way. Perhaps this women had a vision for her childless life that never came to fruition: travel, successful career, building a dream home…  In the end, many women sacrifice children for the sake of another ideal. But hopes for the future are like vapour, and we can do little to grasp them.

Sometimes I’m so grateful I had my daughter by “accident.” Otherwise, perhaps my own purposeful intentions would have kept me from the joy she now brings to my life.

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Patricia adds: I agree with Andrea that there is pressure on women to deny wanting to be a mother. At least, on young women. In pursuing a society in which “girls can be anything”, we seem to have arrived at a society where a girl “had better be something” and motherhood isn’t enough of a “something” to count. That’s how you end up with the horrible scenario of mothers pressuring their own daughters to abort an unexpected and unwanted child. It’s better to be “something” first and then you can be a mother. Or not. And all of this is complicated by the fact that the erosion of marriage makes it risky for a woman to aspire to motherhood. The result is that motherhood is no longer a legitimate aspiration of a young woman, except if it’s fitted in after the fulfilment of meaningful personal goals. And I think that is hard on a lot of women.

The debate is back… (just not here)

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Interesting piece in the Los Angeles Times about the resurgence of abortion as a public debate in Italy and Spain (funny they don’t mention Britain – I guess it didn’t fit in given that it’s not a Roman Catholic country).

In Italy and Spain, two of Europe’s most predominantly Roman Catholic countries, opponents of abortion are finding new ways to challenge laws and use the issue to influence national elections, a generation after most citizens thought the issue was resolved.

Spurred on by the church, antiabortion activists have staged demonstrations and circulated petitions, gathering thousands of names. On the other side of the debate, thousands of women have turned out in demonstrations to demand that laws allowing the termination of pregnancy be protected.

When it came to power four years ago, Spain’s socialist government made liberal social reform a hallmark of its administration and promised legislation to expand access to abortion.

But by the time it ran for reelection last month, it had dropped abortion from its platform as Spanish bishops all but directed citizens to vote against candidates who didn’t oppose it.

In the campaign for Italian elections next Sunday, abortion has emerged unexpectedly as a major issue. One particularly vocal political figure, a conservative newspaper editor and former government minister, is running for parliament on a single point: ending abortion.

“I care not for a man’s religion…”

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Abraham Lincoln once said: “I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.” I wonder what he would have said about religious fundamentalists who are suspected of abusing young girls and marrying them to older relatives. Probably not something nice.

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Update, Sunday morning: The situation is not getting any better. Standoff continues at Texas polygamist compound…

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Rebecca agrees: Polygamy and forced marriage are fundamentally incompatible with the ideals of a civilized society. It’s a good thing that the only group guilty of this in North America and Europe is a fringe offshoot of the Church of Latter Saints. We’d never tolerate this in our midst, surely.

Right?
Or maybe we would.

Wouldn’t it be simpler to be more discriminating?

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An Australian MP wants women to sign sex contracts, in an effort to “combat false rape allegations”. The MP, Ann Bressington, explained that new proposed laws would “make it an offence to continue a sex act with a person after consent if they changed their mind” and that:

… “one-night stands” and casual relationships would become a “high-risk activity”. “Perhaps this parliament could devise a contract which men could carry around in their pocket, next to their condoms,” she said during a speech to Parliament.

“There could be a waiver should a man meet up with a woman who has had a couple of drinks before they engage in sexual intercourse.

“The contract may contain the name and address of the women, with her driver’s licence number, so that the man can see the signatures match, clauses that state that the woman has or has not been drinking or taking drugs – licit or illicit – and that she consents to foreplay.”

The proposed contract would also include details of the woman’s marital status, whether she has children and whether she consents to being taken to another location to engage in sexual activity.

On the romantic scale, this is pretty bad. But then again, I sympathize to some extent. There are apparently more than a few cases of women falsely accusing men of having raped them. Rape is a serious crime and it’s pretty disgusting to accuse someone of it who’s innocent. But as I reach back for my crusty old goat crown, I can’t help thinking that things would be a lot easier for folks of either gender if they were a little more discriminating in their choice of companion.

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