I got a fundraising e-mail from Amnesty International the other day. It was from a celebrity, as so many non-profit fundraising e-mails are. But this one really made me stop and look. It was from actor Patrick Stewart and it was about supporting Amnesty International's campaign concerning violence against women. He wrote:
I know too much about violence against women – as a child I watched in terror as my mother was abused by an angry and unhappy man who could not control his emotions, nor his hands.
and
Amnesty was instrumental in the passage of the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 – signed into law by President Obama in July. This law begins to reverse the alarming rate of sexual violence against Native American and Alaska Native women. Survivors of sexual assault finally stand a real chance of getting a police response, a rape kit and the opportunity to see their case prosecuted.
Amnesty is also a driving force behind the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA), which aims to revolutionize the way U.S. foreign policy confronts abuses like domestic violence, rape, honor killings and human trafficking worldwide. If passed, IVAWA will support measures to prevent violence, protect survivors and bring perpetrators to justice.
I knew this about Amnesty International but I didn't know this about Patrick Stewart. So I did some research and came across this powerful video.
As someone who grew up in a home much like Stewart's, a good bit of this resonates with me. The first time I dialed 911, I was ten years old. I watched in fury as one police officer after another refused to arrest my step-father. He was walked around the block. He was believed when he said my mother open wounds were the result of a fall. Not only was my step-father never sanctioned in any way for beating my mother, no police officer ever called an ambulance or offered to help her get medical care. As a ten, eleven, twelve year old, it was my job to mop up the blood. And there was a lot of blood. Night after night.
The neighbors knew, of course, but no one helped. I was never even offered a safe place to stay for the night as we waiting in fear for my step-father to bang on the door.
As an adult, when I was Litigation Coordinator at the Women Against Abuse Legal Center in Philadelphia in the early 1990s, I found that not much had changed since I argued with New York City police officers in the 1970s. My clients were accused of provoking the men who broke their arms. My clients lost their children to protective services because there was violence in the home but I could not get protective orders enforced that would keep abusers out of the home. And one day I got a call from a priest who ran an in-patient drug rehab program. He wanted to talk to me about a man in his facility. The man was distraught to discover his wife had filed for a protective order against him. The priest told me he thought the man was a good man. That he wasn't dangerous. That I should help him resolve this without going to court. He put the man on the phone weeping bitterly about losing his family and never having hit her. I told them when the next court date was and that he could make his arguments there. The priest thought me heartless.
Indeed I did make a huge mistake that day. A fatal mistake. I did not confirm whether the man was free to leave the facility if he wanted. If I had known, I would have called the client immediately to report the conversation. I would have, and should have, warned her. But I didn't. And within a few hours of that phone call, the man left rehab, went home, and stabbed his wife twelve times in front of their two toddlers. I will live forever knowing that maybe, just maybe, I could have saved her life.
The violence I and Patrick Stewart saw as a child, and that I saw as a lawyer, continues today. The law has changed significantly in most places in the U.S. but enforcement is still woefully inadequate. Women who defend themselves end up going to prison while their abusers are still walked around the block.
Please give. If not to the National Clearinghouse, find a local battered woman's shelter and give generously.
Has domestic violence touched your life? Is ending violence against women something you are working on? How has your experience of violence against women changed your life?
Q. In any earlier interview you said you hadn't received an apology from the TSA but the TSA claims you accepted an apology from it. Did you receive an apology from the TSA?
A. In March of this year, TSA sent me a statement. It stated that they were responding to my report that on “numerous occasions [I was] urged to put the breast milk through the x-ray machine and [was] subjected to additional screening.” They stated that the “screening workforce [had] been briefed regarding this situation.” The letter also stated that it was their “understanding that…the issue has been resolved” and they “extend [their] sincere apologies to [me] for the discomfort and inconvenience [I] experienced during the screening process.” The letter concluded by stating that TSA “appreciate[d] that [I] took the time to share [my] concerns with [them].” Of course, the complaint that I sent over to TSA on 2/2/10 addressed many important issues this letter did not acknowledge at all including being retaliated against, harassed, humiliated, degraded, threatened with arrest, held in security for an hour, among other things. Frankly, I disregarded this letter from TSA in March as a standard form letter they would issue to any complaint and did not view it as an apology for what happened on 2/1/10.
Q. The TSA states in its blog response: "The passenger has flown since these events occurred and has provided TSA a written confirmation that she no longer experiences issues." Is this true?
A. The following week (2/9/10), I was ‘shadowed’ by a TSA authority assigned to me by Phoenix Airport to see what I go through each week. As soon as I asked for an alternate screening, I was told to put the milk through the x-ray machine. The TSA authority had to immediately make herself known to the TSA agent and said to give me an alternate screening. It was clear that any briefing or training that had been done was futile. In the weeks following that, after speaking with a Phoenix TSA customer service manager, I traveled out of a completely different gate. I didn’t experience any more harassment or retaliation thereafter. After a few more weeks, I resumed travel out of my original gate mindful never to encounter the four or five agents I had dealt with on 2/1/10. If there was a choice between two lines, I would pick the one with agents that were not part of the incident. I resumed travel out of my original gate fearful that I would encounter the same agents as on 2/1/10. I literally would start sweating wondering who I would encounter and how I would be treated.
On 4/22/10, after one of the final trips I took with breast milk, I emailed the Phoenix TSA customer service manager. I wanted to make sure he knew that every week since 2/1/10, I had been instructed to place the milk through x-ray and had to ask again for an alternate screening…every single time. I brought this to his attention so he knew the agents still had no knowledge or, possibly, no regard for the breast milk screening rules. The response back to me was they were okay with that so long as, at some point, the agents remembered that my request [for alternate screening] was allowed.
Q. How do you think the TSA should have responded to your complaint and how did its response fall short?
A. My attorneys have advised this I do not address specifically how the TSA should have responded. It may jeopardize my current tort claim against them, especially if they try to limit my relief to what I put in this response. After we exhaust all administrative remedies, we will file a lawsuit in federal court that addresses exactly what should have been done by the TSA.
What do you think about how the TSA has responded to Stacey Armato? Is the TSA "apology" and a "refresher" to TSA staff enough?
[UPDATE: After the original publication of this blog post, the following went up on The TSA Blog: "Updated on 12/9/2010 at 8:25 P.M. to add that proper procedures were followed." Oh, really? ]
Over at The TSA Blog, they have posted TSA Response to "TSA Breast Milk Screening" Video. It is quite short but has already acquired a large number of comments, the vast majority of which find the response inadequate.
Here are some interesting bits:
We extend our sincere apologies to any passenger who may have experienced discomfort and inconvenience during the screening process.
So is this directed at Stacey Armato whose video is being discussed or just airline passengers generally? And if they are talking about Armato, are they saying she may have experienced discomfort and inconvenience? Are we really in doubt on this point?
Well, actually maybe not. The TSA Blog's "Blogger Bob" also writes:
We acknowledge this particular passenger experienced an out of the ordinary delay, and have worked with our officers to ensure we proceed with expediency in screening situations similar to this.
So the TSA acknowledges something happened that should not have happened. And what do they tell us about what happened to the agents involved?
After the investigation, the officers received refresher training for the visual inspection of breast milk (an infrequently requested procedure).
Really?? How about a refresher course on retaliation and false imprisonment?
There is something Blogger Bob writes that may raises some questions for those of you who have read my previous posts about Stacey Armato's visit to the TSA plastic detention booth in Arizona here and here. And that is:
TSA investigated the matter and sent a letter of apology to the passenger in March of this year. The passenger has flown since these events occurred and has provided TSA a written confirmation that she no longer experiences issues.
Armato has said she did not receive an apology, that she continued to see the same crew at the same gate as she made her weekly flight back from Phoenix to L.A., and she is in the process of filing a lawsuit against the TSA for the damages she suffered on February 1st when she was detained. So what does she have to say about the TSA response to her video? Hang in there. Armato's response will be posted here shortly.
Please feel free to leave a comment at The TSA Blog with your feelings about the TSA response to the video in which Armato is detained for asking her pumped breast milk go through "alternate" screening.
And leave a comment here with your thoughts. How do you feel about the TSA response posted on its blog?
Was a "refresher" enough? Should there have been a more severe sanction for the TSA staff? How do you feel about how the TSA is responding to the complaints of flyers?
Take note also that in The TSA Blog post about Armato, there is a link which we are encouraged to use to share our experiences with the TSA. I filed a formal complaint with the TSA on November 22nd after my teenage sons were separated from me without warning while going through a TSA security checkpoint at Logan Airport in Boston. Other than an acknowledgment that my complaint was received, I have received nothing from the TSA in response to my complaint.
So why is the TSA encouraging people to communicate with it if it does not respond meaningfully to complaints?
[UPDATE: Within seconds of publishing this post, I received an email from TSA customer service in Boston restating my complaint and apologizing for any "discomfort." I have replied asking again some more specific questions concerning TSA policy on screening families traveling together. Another post coming on that point.]
Stacey Armato, the mother who was detained by TSA agents in Phoenix last February when she asked for "alternate" screening for her pumped breast milk, has filed a TSA Tort Claim Package, the last step before she can file a lawsuit against the government employees who she claims detained her in retaliation for filing a complaint against them. Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, in order to sue the United States government or its employees for certain claims one must exhaust all remedies available to you by the relevant government agency. Armato, who is due to give birth to her second child on December 25th, plans to file a lawsuit against the TSA and the individual agents as soon as it is legally possible.
According to Armato's complaint filed with the TSA concerning what happened when she presented her pumped breast milk for screening at the Phoenix airport on February 1st:
All the same TSA parties were present from the week before surrounded [stet] me . I was demanding an explanation and wanted to speak with the manager but was refused. I was told to be quiet and do as I was told or I wasn’t going anywhere. I felt like a caged animal, stared at by multiple TSA agents and other travelers. After 15 or 20 minutes, my anger turned to tears. I couldn’t stop crying. I felt harassed, degraded, violated, falsely imprisoned, and retaliated against.
Finally, three Phoenix police department officers came. One … came in to tell me that I needed to calm down or TSA could have me arrested. He instructed me to go through alternate gates for security on my following trips because they seemed to have it out for me. He said these TSA agents saw me coming, remembered me from the week before, and wanted me to play along with their ‘horse and pony’ show or they would have me arrested.
Armato alleges as well:
The incident on February 1, 2010, was an obvious retaliation against me for lodging a complaint with the TSA the previous week. It is absolutely unforgiveable that these TSA agents would hold me like a caged animal in an apparent act to “teach me a lesson.” The TSA agents knowingly, and willfully, disregarded their own rules and regulations. I was placed in a glass enclosure, in full view of all the other passengers. I was continuously yelled at, talked down to, and threatened with arrest if I did not adhere to the TSA agents’ demands. The TSA agents, as well as the TSA itself as employers of these individuals, is liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, battery, assault, trespass to chattel, false imprisonment, and civil harassment, among other causes of action
While news agencies have reported receiving a statement from the TSA claiming that Armato accepted its apology concerning the incident, Armato maintains she has received no apology.
Amato's story and the TSA video of her detention has gotten a great deal of press. Has the TSA's treatment of Armato changed your plans for travel? How do you think you might behave if you were in Armato's position?
Sustainable Mothering will continue to present the latest on this case, as well as other incidents involving the TSA that impact parents. Stay tuned.
My 16 year old son just sent me this YouTube video (it's long so I am placing it at the end of the post). It is a serious plea from Lady Gaga to call your Senator and ask him or her to ask for repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy. Specifically:
Working with the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, Lady Gaga has been bringing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and the hardship it causes, to the attention of young people a lot lately. She appeared at the Video Music Awards with a guard of servicemembers who have been discharged or resigned from the military because of DADT. One of them was a young woman who recently resigned from West Point and is interviewed here by Rachel Maddow.
I have never had to explain the injustice of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" or any other anti-gay policy to my son. I have had to explain that such bigotry exists because he couldn't understand it. Gay and lesbian people have always been a part of his life. He knows his mother is bisexual, though that didn't come up until he asked me for help when a friend of his was coming out to his parents. That conversation started with: "Mom, X is coming out to his parents this weekend and I told him he could stay here if his parents throw him out." My son makes me very very proud.
When my son was 12, a much larger kid in the neighborhood was making remarks my son found offensive. When my son called the kid homophobic, the kid threatened to hit him. There were a few lessons that came out of that incident – lessons I learned myself as a kid. First, you can get beaten up for having a larger vocabulary than bigger kids. The homophobic kid didn't know what "homophobic" meant and thought he was being called "homosexual." Second, pick your battles because sometimes you can get your ass kicked for standing up for what you believe in. My son told me it was something he was willing to get his ass kicked over – fighting homophobia is that important to him.
But should your kids be learning political activism from Lady Gaga? Well, my hope is that my kids learn lessons about political activism from a wide variety of sources, though it starts with me. If Lady Gaga were taking a political position with which my son disagreed, I would be hearing about that – though critically. My son sent me this video because he supports Lady Gaga's efforts. And so do I.
Do you talk to your kids about LGBT issues? What do you think they are learning from their friends? How do you feel about pop figures teaching your kids about politics?
There is a very good post over at Owning Pink – it had me at the title: Want a Raise? Wash Your Vagina. The post is about a full page ad in Women's Day magazine for Summer's Eve Feminine Cleansing Cloths. In that ad (a scan of which is on the blog post), there are 8 tips for asking your boss for a raise, the first of which is to use these cleansing cloths. Yes, the ad suggests you are more likely to get a raise if you "wash" your vagina.
Lissa Rankin of Owning Pink is pissed off and I agree with her. Be prepared, in her post she uses the word "pussy" a lot. With (great) respect to Eve Ensler, I don't use the word "pussy" to describe my vagina. I am not particularly offended by it. I just don't see the need to nickname or euphemise my body parts. I don't have a problem with using or hearing the word vagina and, used to accurately indicate a vagina, it seems entirely sufficient.
But back to the ad. Anyone here ever been sexually harassed at work? I have. A lot. Even after clawing my way through law school and getting hired at a major corporate law firm, I still faced a superior who ogled me, left me inappropriate notes and touched my body at every opportunity. Did he actually smell my vagina before giving me a raise? No. But he certainly made it clear that he wanted to. And the fact that I didn't let him smell my vagina didn't alter how my co-workers treated me since when a superior makes it clear he finds you sexually attractive, co-workers tend to assume you are giving in to his advances. So add social ostracism to fear, despair, humiliation and self-loathing. It was a sad, painful experience and one I don't wish on anyone.
There is a good deal to find offensive in the Summer' Eve ad. Rankin's Owning Pink post does a great job of addressing the whole notion that we need to change the way our vaginas smell. To suggest we do so is sexist AND unhealthy.
But this ad strikes a different nerve of mine. At 25, I graduated from law school at the top of my class, a law review editor, thrilled to be leaving a not-so-nice childhood behind. And I had barely passed the bar before I discovered the world up there with the rich folk wasn't much different from the world I came from. I grew up sleeping with one eye open, waiting to see if some stranger would reach under my sheets in the night. I was often homeless and hungry. My law degree, I was to discover, didn't change things all that much. I had a place to live and food to eat but I still had to endure sexual harassment. It was still all about my vagina. And Summer's Eve thinks it still should be.
Among the comments to Rankin's post is one by a person who says she is the Brand Manager for Summer' Eve. Her name is Angela Bryant and she says: "I want to know what you would like to hear and see from Summer’s Eve, so send me an email at summerseve_cares@cbfleet.com." So let her know what you think.
And let me know what you think. Tell me your sexual harassment stories. Do you think things have changed much since the 1980s when I was told nothing could be done and a lawsuit would destroy my career? Can you be valued for your work and not your sex?
Much of my work as a breastfeeding advocate/lawyer is about securing a right for mothers to be in public space. That means having a protected legal right to engage in the act of mothering in all the places people get to be. Mothers must own the public space along with all other citizens.
This striking photograph vividly represents the position breastfeeding women are forced into by a definition of public space that excludes mothers as mothers. In order to mother, she must hide in dark corners. Society views her as refuse – necessary but to be kept where no one has to look at it.
See other photos from this extraordinary exhibit on Facebook – at least until the areola police takes it down (see here and here).
So is the photograph shocking or beautiful or does it elicit some other response from you? Anyone ever make you feel like you should breastfeed by the dumpster?
Today is the 90th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, also known as Women's Equality Day. You probably (hopefully?) know that the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote (okay, theoretically…this was many years before the passage of the Voting Rights Act so in reality we are probably talking about white women who were married to white men who owned property who got the right to vote but let's celebrate anyway, okay?).
But how much to you really know about women's suffrage and the struggle to get the 19th Amendment passed? Here is a video that should help. Watch carefully. There will be a quiz. No really. There will be a quiz.
Okay, now for the quiz. Go to 9 Questions About 90 Years of Suffrage on the MS. magazine blog. Get ready because it is hard. I got a 4 our of 9 which was rated as "just passed" but I am pretty embarrassed.
How much do you know about women's suffrage in the U.S.? How did you do on the quiz? What do you teach your kids about the right to vote in the U.S. – particularly who got it when?
Many in the U.S. hadn't heard of "blood diamonds" until the popular film with Leonardo DiCaprio. The mining and sale of diamonds from Sierra Leone, the Congo and other African countries have long financed and fueled war, slavery and unspeakable violence in parts of Africa.
Here is a video that can help. Humorous and informative, the actors and activists in it explain what conflict minerals are, how they hurt people, and how a simple pledge to purchase products once they are available without conflict minerals can help draw attention to this problem.
Raise Hope for Congo, the organization that made this video, also has educational materials for individuals and schools that can help in learning about conflict minerals and the situation in the Congo. It also has activist resources for such projects as taking a campus conflict mineral free.
While the content is not appropriate for all ages (at what age do you explain the concept of rape to your kids?), learning about Congo's present and past can help our children make a safer world for all children – including those in conflict regions.
How do you teach your children how their spending affects people in other parts of the world?
Hands Across the Sand is a movement with a simple message: NO to offshore oil drilling, YES to clean energy. In the literal wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, there seems no better time to join hands at the waters' edge in solidarity with others who wish to protect the world's oceans.
I am spending a few weeks with my family at the New Jersey shore. Knowing a Hands Across the Sand event was planned for yesterday, my eldest son and protest buddy came with me in search of a gathering. We had to do a bit of searching – knowing only cross streets and that we would be looking for some unknown number gathering at 11 a.m. and holding hands beginning at noon (local time) the world over. We has just about given up when we saw this:
It looked like perhaps six or seven people off in the distance but we ran toward them and as we got closer, they looked like this:
And when we reached them, they looked like this:
My son and I joined the line and as it grew closer to noon, the line grew longer.
The mission for this event was to join hands across the sand silently for fifteen minutes, 12 p.m. to 12:15 "draw[ing] a line in the sand and embrac[ing] a clean energy future." We held hands and even though none of us had signs or chanted anything, people asked, "Is this about the oil spill?" Strangers saw a line of strangers holding hands looking out into the Atlantic Ocean and knew: yes, this is about the spill and drilling and protecting the oceans. And more people joined the line. And then it looked like this:
And at 12:15, we all walked into the ocean together still holding hands.
Hands Across the Sand is a movement made of people of all walks of life and crosses political affiliations. This movement is not about politics; it is about protection of our coastal economies, oceans, marine wildlife, and fishing industry. Let us share our knowledge, energies and passion for protecting all of the above from the devastating effects of oil drilling.
While Hands Across the Sand began in Florida just this past February (and before this most recent horrible oil spill), yesterday's event was international and co-sponsored by a long list of environmental and other activist group including MoveOn.org, Greenpeace and Clean Water Action.
And I was there wearing this T-shirt from We Add Up you can get by clicking through the sidebar. Ten dollars of your purchase of this limited edition BP Oil Spill T-shirt goes to the Gulf Restoration Network.
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