Unfortunately, as she spoke it became more and more apparent that perhaps her personal actions in the past had not reflected this budgetary concern she spoke of. Ms. Williams was, in fact, the recipient of a $100,000 severance package from UCOP, only to be immediately hired as the associate chancellor of UC Berkeley, where she now earns $300,603 yearly. To Ms. Williams’ credit, President Yudof ended the program shortly after her hiring. But for some perspective, keeping our libraries open for 24 hours during finals week would only cost approximately $30,000.

I am eager to hear from representatives of the UC Office of the President, but I truly hope that next time, UCOP respects Berkeley students enough to send someone who has not personally benefited from the excess and dearth of oversight that caused the current squeeze on faculty and students.

Working with this data, and data from OpenSecrets.org on campaign contributions to Congress, I compiled a data table.

Findings:

Women are less likely to be uninsured than men.

There is no U.S. state where a higher percentage of women are uninsured. The general assumption attributes this to higher Medicare and government program eligibility among women; women are more likely to be below the poverty line, and thus qualify for these services. As of 2007, 56.6% of Medicare recipients nationwide were women. But in reality, there is a very weak correlation (.23) between women’s Medicare enrollment and uninsured rates.

The higher percentage of 2008 votes for Obama, the lower the state’s death rate from cervical cancer.

Here’s an example of how careful we should be with assumptions: I would love to assume by here that progressives cure cancer. But a better assumption is that women in liberal states are more likely to have access to healthcare and be encouraged to have regular cancer screenings. This graph shows each state represented as a blue dot, and the “best-fit line” showing what trend we can expect from the data– that the higher the votes for Obama, the lower the cervical cancer death rates, and vice versa.

The higher percentage of 2008 votes for Obama, the higher the state’s abortion rate.

Several assumptions, all unproven, could be made here. Women in more progressive states have higher access to abortions. Social taboos against abortion aren’t as present in blue states. (and so forth)

The higher percentage of 2008 votes for Obama, the higher wages women enjoy in comparison to men’s.

Predictably, higher rates of uninsured women are correlated to higher death rates from cervical cancer, and lower rates of breast cancer diagnosis.

Women who don’t get to the doctor have undiagnosed conditions, and are less likely to recover after the late diagnosis.

There’s a mild correlation indicating that states that voted for Obama in higher percentages enjoy lower rates of uninsured women.

There is no correlation between how many women receive mammograms and the amount of money a state’s Congressmembers received from the healthcare industry.

That is, states receiving more money from healthcare lobbying efforts don’t see the yield in better coverage for women.

There is no correlation between the percentage of 2008 votes for Obama and the amount of money that state’s congress members are receiving from the healthcare industry.

There is no correlation between the abortion rate and rate of uninsured women by state.

This implies that having access to insurance does not ensure access to abortion. Similarly, there’s no correlation between medicare enrollment and abortion rates. This reflects on the current dialogue about healthcare- the government is NOT funding abortions, especially not through Medicare.

I think in general, this shows how little positive impact the healthcare industry has on coverage and women’s health. Women in progressive states may enjoy more mammograms, fewer deaths from cervical cancer, and lower rates of uninsured, but the nationwide healthcare crisis can still strike women the hardest. Knowing that women are better-covered in more progressive states, what does this data say about the town hall responses to the Congressional health insurance reform plan?

On August 12, Equality California (EQCA) announced their decision to put an initiative to repeal anti-marriage Proposition 8 on the 2012, rather than the 2010 ballot. As the self-described largest queer rights advocacy group in California, EQCA deciding to wait until 2012 received statewide coverage and was perceived as representative of the LGBT activism community as a whole.

EQCA was the defendant not only in the original 2008 California Supreme Court case in which same-sex marriage was first allowed, but also in the 2009 case to challenge Proposition 8 after its passage. EQCA has traditionally set the agenda for marriage equality in California, even passing a bill in the state legislature Wednesday night to recognize same sex marriages from other states.

Still, several organizations who were fighting for 2010 before the announcement have not backed down. EQCA’s primary competitor for funds and political clout in the California marriage equality fight is the Courage Campaign, which works on myriad political issues unrelated to equality.

After meeting a $100,000 fundraising goal for the 2010 initiative and announcing intentions to move forward, Courage Campaign sent out emails campaigning for lobbying reform, health insurance reform, farmworker deaths, and fighting Maine’s similarly egregious Proposition 1.

The Courage Campaign’s varied public activities do not match their commendable equality agenda. Meriting no comparable newspaper headline to EQCA, Courage Campaign has quietly continued to subvert EQCA’s efforts and fundraising for a 2010 campaign.

One such smaller marriage advocacy group, Love Honor Cherish, openly plans to move forward with the 2010 initiative. It could not be more obvious that Love Honor Cherish intends to fundraise, gather signatures, and put an initiative on the 2010 ballot for marriage equality. They wrote a blueprint describing exactly how it will hypothetically happen. Furthermore, the California Coalition for Marriage Equality, which includes the Courage Campaign, met in late August to strategize. Lawyers are currently vetting the language for the proposed initiative.

Equality California’s hegemony over marriage equality organizations should be challenged from time to time. But, as two leaders from a San Francisco LGBT Democratic club argue:

The current situation is untenable. Both factions are working with one hand tied behind their backs. The 2010 proponents are moving ahead with an undeveloped, piecemeal strategy with very little fundraising support or infrastructure. While we commend their energy and commitment, this is an overly risky way of running a campaign when so much is at stake.

A March 2009 Field Poll showed that a constitutional amendment to allow same-sex marriage would receive 48% support, and 47% opposition among Californians. Same-sex marriage advocacy groups still have much ground to gain. Still, the lesson to be learned is that whether 2010, 2012, or both, the year that we push for equality does not matter.

Repealing 8 in 2012 has many advantages; four more years of elderly voters will be removed from the rolls and four more years of young voters will be added, two more years of Californians will come out to their families and friends, volunteers have two more years to regroup after post-2008 burnout, and the 2012 presidential voter turnout will be significantly greater than the 2010 turnout for the gubernatorial election. Yet by bringing the issue of marriage equality back into the public eye sooner, in 2010, the repeated messaging will allow for greater visibility and acceptance of queer California culture.

This conflict between organizations is why we will fail, if we fail, in 2010. EQCA and Courage Campaign both recognize why we lost in 2008, but overlook their obvious failure to collaborate now. The No on 8 support from the San Francisco Bay Area was channeled into ineffective campaign methods– to borrow a phrase from Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, California’s queer community lacked “unit cohesion.” Bigotry was codified because its opponents ran a bad campaign, preaching mainly to supporters of same sex marriage. Visibility, or holding signs with slogans on a street corner, was considered effective campaigning. It’s not.

Fortunately, both Equality California and Courage Campaign have demonstrated their commitment to a statewide ground campaign to win allies where there were none in 2008. Unfortunately, completely failing to communicate, the two have separately set up dozens of competing field offices in California counties from which to run their equality campaigns.

In college in California, I don’t feel the urgency of marriage, but I do feel the urgency of my rights. Assuming the coalition pushing for 2010 is successful, there are thirteen months left before 40 million Californians vote on marriage again. If they intend to win, the Courage Campaign must stop closeting their direct involvement in the 2010 ballot measure, and sit down with EQCA to strategize. Neither organization can succeed without the other. Do it right, or don’t waste the time and hopes of queer Californians.

The recession is driving up recruitment rates for the U.S. Armed Forces. When men and women are laid off, they frequently turn to the one agency that is always hiring: the Army. But women, increasingly seeking out the Army for employment, are being turned away because of the struggles of the Army to accommodate their mentally and physically wounded. One woman I know who enlisted in January had her basic training canceled, while 2009 ROTC graduates in America’s colleges have to wait until well into 2010 to take Officer Basic Courses, their first step towards deployment after graduation. This is not unique to women who attempt to enlist, but disproportionately affects women because of the recession.

Back in July, a U.S. fighter plane called the F-22 was essentially discontinued by the Senate, because Secretary of Defense Gates deduced that the U.S. owns enough. He proposed using the saved money to expand the Army by 22,000 troops. This was approved.

My knee-jerk reaction was “No more troops.” The Army is requesting additional troops because, on paper only, it has bumped up against its Congressionally-mandated end strength (maximum size) of 547,000 soldiers. The Army is “full.”

Active duty soldiers sustaining mental or physical injuries are classified as Wounded Warriors. There are 55-60,000 Wounded Warriors in the lengthy process of medical evaluation under the Department of Defense, but not yet discharged into the Department of Veterans Affairs. In limbo, these 55-60,000 are unable to deploy, while their numbers count against the Army’s limit. The Army is 10% smaller than we think it is.

For now, Secretary Gates justified the 22,000-troop replacement force as a stopgap until the VA can process the backlog. While not a permanent solution, the recommended troop replacement will prevent women from being turned away from the Army with such frequency while the VA gets its processes back on track. Moreover, it shows that the administration is acutely aware of the weaknesses in the treatment process of Wounded Warriors.

And while the increased entry of women into the workforce during the recession necessitates this job creation, it overshadows the problematic recruiting practices in communities of color and lower-income schools. No Child Left Behind required that high schools give military recruiters access to students and student information. In my plurality-white high school in 2004, a signature-gathering campaign drove recruiters off campus, while nearby campuses with greater populations of students of color devoted entire buildings to the Army. Enlisting is presented to students as young as 11 as an alternative to college in a time when tuition and state deficits decimate financial aid, driving women and communities of color towards instant employment and away from higher education.

It’s known that the U.S. Armed forces are trans-unfriendly, and can be a dangerous work environment for women. There is an unofficial Military Sex Offender Registry, and the Army launched its own Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention Program. A task force was created in 2004 that found that between 1999 and 2004, 67% of all reported assaults occurred on-post. Ann mentions that this NY Times article profiling women in Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) glossed over the problems faced by women in the military. Congresswoman Jane Harman recounted that 41% of women at an Los Angeles VA hospital reported being raped by a fellow soldier in 2008.

For women who enter the military knowing the risks of sexual assault, or who are not offered the choice of a different career path, Secretary Gates’ troop increase means a paycheck. The base pay for ROTC graduates (2nd Lieutenants) is $26,204.40 regardless of sex. At the very least, this represents entry level pay equity and an assurance of continued employment. Veronica at Girl With Pen showed how starting salaries straight out of college differ for graduates. Entry-level army positions can be financially equitable.

Women still cannot serve in the Infantry or Army Rangers. Since 2001, the floodgates have opened for women facing military threats– the Army reports that 95% of positions are open to women. Women are allowed in combat theater, meaning the geographic region in which combat occurs. Because of the high operational tempo (exhausting pace of military operations), close proximity to Improvised Explosive Devices, and high exposure to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, women are, for the first time, being diagnosed at record rates with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Fortunately, as of June, Congress has the chance to take the tremendous step extending PTSD resources to all service members “in combat theater,” instead of just those in “combat with the enemy.” This expands those eligible for PTSD benefits to those on active duty who are not necessarily in the infantry: that means women. Every Monday, the VA publishes statistics about its unresolved benefit claims. That’s how the VA’s progress is monitored.

Post-Vietnam, 30% of servicemen and 27% of servicewomen were estimated to have PTSD. In today’s wars, where women are increasingly exposed to trauma, a doctor at the VA’s Puget Sound healthcare system estimates that servicewomen exposed to a trauma develop PTSD at twice the rate of servicemen exposed to the same. The expanded resources for servicewomen, both in benefits after combat and in mental resiliency training beforehand, should help. But knowing the VA’s overwhelming workload, it is doubtful that they are able to cope with this new benefit eligibility.

More servicewomen are being diagnosed with PTSD, often with severe symptoms. Some encounter sexualized violence by other soldiers. They are unable to sustain employment or personal relationships, and are undeployable. The backlog before they are discharged causes a false estimate of Army numbers. Then, additional women seeking to enlist are denied entry. This pernicious cycle affects women at every stage.

Thoughts?

Related:
The New Generation of Women Veteran Activists
Support Women Veterans
The Combat Within: Female Veterans and PTSD Benefits
Women at war in Iraq
Friday Feminist Fuck You: The U.S. Army
Piestewa Peak officially named
Homecoming: PTSD, violence against women and other consequences of the unjust, illegal war in Iraq
Female Soldiers’ Hell

Aung San Suu Kyi, the PM-elect of Burma, was sentenced Tuesday to 18 additional months of house arrest for being secretly visited by an American who swam to her house.

Of the last 20 years, Suu Kyi has been imprisoned for 14. For the first time, other South-East Asian nations have condemned the Burmese government’s sentence, widely seen as a preventative measure against allowing Suu Kyi mobility to participate in the Burmese elections, scheduled for May 2010. In the 1990 multi-party elections, Suu Kyi’s party won 392 out of the Burmese Parliament’s 485 seats and was denied power. Suu Kyi, the Prime Minister-Elect of Burma and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, is the daughter of General Aung San, the “father” of Myanmar. She has been offered freedom if she leaves her country, but refuses under fear of being denied re-entry, remaining under house arrest even while the father of her children died of prostate cancer in Britain. She is widely referred to as “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,” as “Daw” roughly means “aunt.”

Women are frequently rallying points for political movements, and even more frequently referred to as relatives, “Mothers” or “Daughters” of political activism. The familial rhetoric serves not only to endear these leaders to their followers, but also to uniquely characterize each movement as friendly and nurturing in media coverage to the international community.

In political messager George Lakoff’s book “Moral Politics,” he discusses the heteronormative American ideal of a strict father and nurturant mother figure (which also maps straight onto John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin). Well, the idolization of nurturant mother figures is reflected in the women leading political movements worldwide.

The leader of the Uighur protests in the Xinjiang region of China is an elderly woman named Rebiya Kadeer, described as a “paradigm of non-violence” by the Dalai Lama and a murderer by the Chinese government. Kadeer’s “mother credentials” were established when she created the “1,000 Families Mothers Project” to encourage small mother-owned businesses to flourish in Xinjiang. Then, her children were imprisoned by the Chinese government.

Benazir Bhutto, the first woman PM in an Islamic country, was killed in Pakistan in 2007. Like Suu Kyi, Bhutto inherited a political legacy from her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was assassinated in 1979. Upon her death, she was awarded the “Best Mother Award” by the World Population Federation, and much of the dialogue surrounding her focused on her relationship with her son and her intent for him to take over. Her assassination put a face on the struggle for democratic civilian rule in Pakistan, and gave the movement a digestible political narrative. Accused of corruption and thrown out of the government several times, Bhutto was far from Kadeer’s “paradigm of non-violence,” and might have sold state secrets to North Korea for nuclear technology, but her posthumous idolization highlights her motherhood.

Similarly, Neda put a face of innocence to the post-election protests in Iran, characterized as a peaceful daughter oppressed by a militant government. Indira Ghandi was Mother India. Corazon Aquino was the “Mother of Democracy.“

But unlike the dialogue surrounding “Founding Fathers,” the concept of motherhood, and its association with nurturance, are mutually exclusive with militancy. Cognitively, when people see a leader described as caring or nurturant, using familial words, first impressions stick. Neurons fire in our brains associating a leader with family, and violence that results because of the movement is less likely to tarnish that leader’s reputation, because it would require us to unlearn our mental association of that woman as a mother. When messaging highlights an individual’s nurturant values, such as family, personal loss, the end result is an image of peace.

The empowering lesson here is that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Bhutto, Kadeer, Neda, Aquino, and Ghandi inspired massive political movements. When women are rallying points for activism and characterized in a familial way, it can be a boon to their political movement to attain the legitimacy that comes with a peaceful reputation. Amid the widely held belief that the distraction of motherhood and family weakens women professionals and leaders, this messaging can be a politically helpful trend for women leaders confronting tools of oppression. If imprisoned, the negative light is cast on these womens’ governments for imprisoning an instrument of peace.

But motherhood is not a professional or political qualification, nor does it reflect on the soundness of ideas. This political messaging helped Burmese, Indian, Pakistani, Uighur, Iranian, and Phillipine movements. Yet it differs significantly from the treatment of men who are leaders of insurgencies or political movements, frequently characterized as militants.

Is the net result for women good or bad?

In Kinshasa, Congo yesterday, a Congolese student asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton her husband’s opinion on an international economic issue.

“You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not secretary of state, I am,” she replied.

Since Pres. Bill Clinton’s productive visit to North Korea, Secretary Clinton has faced this line of questioning, which endangers American foreign policy efforts.

On the day that Pres. Clinton went to North Korea, I predicted there would be a media backlash about her absence. Now we see U.S. media, including not only Fox but also Huffington Post, perpetuate the idea that Bill Clinton succeeded where Hillary failed. Why send a woman to do a man’s job? Clinton had obviously lost credibility with the North Koreans, but U.S.-North Korea relations had soured during the Bush administration, long before she arrived.

Fox News may have started it with the declaration that Hillary was excluded from negotiations, because she had to “eat crow” after calling North Korea an “unruly child”, and couldn’t “show her face” in the country. But Huffington Post continued the insult with their front-page headline, which dangerously falsifies an imagined rivalry between Bill and Hillary.

Why not Hillary?

Of course, Kim Jong-Il specifically asked to see President Clinton in exchange for a pardon for Lee and Ling. During his presidency, Bill Clinton oversaw strong relations with Kim Jong-Il’s father, then-leader Kim Il-Sung. Rumor has it that the good rapport between President Clinton and Kim Il-Sung launched Kim Jong-Il’s enthusiasm for the American leader.

Furthermore, the mission was a private one, undertaken not at the urging of the White House but at the urging of Al Gore.

In July, when Secretary Clinton attended the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Forum, she compared North Korea to an unruly child. She did so to warn against a possible nuclear arms race with an attention-seeking state actor, which is certainly a threat in the region. Moreover, she said it in the context of her understanding of attention-seeking behavior as a mother.

Secretary Clinton was right. Kim Jong-Il acts not only like an unruly child, but an unruly fanboy. N.K.’s “Dear Leader,” who has kidnapped movie stars whose films he enjoys, was indulging his own desire to meet President Clinton by making the offer.

But Sec. Clinton enjoyed a verbal lashing from the North Korean-controlled news agency, KCNA (now on Twitter!). KCNA’s report called her “by no means intelligent,” continuing:

“We cannot but regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community.

Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping.

Anyone making misstatements has to pay for them.”

Familiar messages appear: Aged women are irrelevant. Women who stand up and disagree violate etiquette and should speak only when spoken to. Women are crazy. Women who are vulgar are ugly.

These are very Victorian insults. Attacking her clothes, KCNA degrades Secretary Clinton as both a naive girl and a senile elderly woman. The undertones of asylums in the phrasing of “funny lady” imply insanity. If Clinton were living in the 1900 House, these accusations would have context. No news.

Bill Richardson, who traveled to N.K. in the 90′s to negotiate for the release of downed American pilots, noted that “the Obama administration could not send a sitting official to Pyongyang because North Korea does not want to talk to members of the administration.”

There was never a point where the White House needed to decide between sending the President or Secretary Clinton, and thus there was no rivalry for this particular job.

The only genuinely unfabricated competition between the Clintons was the competition for the news cycle– Secretary Clinton’s trip to Africa received less front page coverage because of the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee. Yet President Clinton was widely called the “Comeback Kid” evoking a scene where Bill Clinton battles his wife for media attention.

The idea of a power struggle within the Clintons’ marriage is not only sexist in its portrayal of Hillary as incompetent, but also dangerous to American interests abroad.

The message that Bill Clinton’s trip should send is not that our State Department failed, but rather that America boasts innumerable non-state actors with tremendous power for peacemaking, who can supplement and improve the efforts of officially sanctioned diplomacy.

I think the Clintons are encountering the question America encounters on an international scale: is a power increase necessarily a power shift? When China gains influence in Asia, does the United States lose influence? When Bill Clinton and HIllary Clinton share a stage, as Maureen Dowd coined it, does Hillary necessarily lose power?

Of course not! But the American media says it must be so, and as a result, she is put on the defensive to prove her authority in question-and-answer sessions with the African youth she meets.

Eliminating this farce will better serve American diplomatic efforts – the world stage is big enough for both of them.

The Feminist Majority Foundation’s Campus blog also touched on this.

“Since 1995, the White House has been required to deliver a report to Congress listing the title and salary of every White House Office employee.”

The Clinton administration invited this yearly report by refusing to disclose their White House staff salaries. In 1993, the Washington Post procured a printed list of White House staff and their salaries which was not even available, at the time, to the staff themselves. After publishing the full list on November 1, 1993, a kerfuffle ensued: White House staff learned that they really weren’t getting paid so much, after all. Their highest-paid earned $9,000 less than their George H.W. Bush-administration counterparts. This was great journalism on the part of the Washington Post. As a result, from 1995-on, the White House was incrementally more accountable to the public through the Annual Reports to Congress. It does make the 1993 data very skewed.

Just the numbers:

Just the charts:

Data tables are published for the 2009 numbers, 2007 numbers, and 1993 numbers.

The Clinton numbers are indeed skewed–for the 289 employees disclosed by the Washington Post in 1993, a refreshing 59.7% of the staff were women. Unsurprisingly, these women were concentrated in the lowest levels of staff. From the chart, it is clear that women far outnumbered men in the lowest paid positions. But of the 17 employees receiving the maximum salary of $125,000, only four were women. The median salary for a woman was $45,000, and $70,000 for a man. That is a monumental difference, reinforcing the difference in seniority. Of course, this entire thing reads like a joke about the proliferation of female interns and secretaries in the Clinton administration.

The Bush numbers are worse in some ways, better in others. Obviously, at 47.5%, women make up a significant proportion of staff, though not as much as the Democratic administrations. Yet the trend observed in the 2009 chart is strengthened in the 2007 chart; women outnumber men at lower-paid positions and are themselves outnumbered in higher-paid ones. Knowing that the Republican party does not enjoy the 60%-women demographic that the Democratic party boasts, I consider it unsurprising that the senior levels are all male-dominated. Out of the 122 highest-paid White House employees in 2007, only 35 were women.

This is where I really feel that the trend is self-perpetuating– and it’s not a trend of poor representation of women, because women were relatively well-represented (59%, 47%, 49%) overall, but rather a problem with upward mobility. Where, in the process of education, political involvement, recruitment, and retention, do women disappear?

Key Findings

• NUMBERS OF FEMALE AND MALE STAFF ARE EQUAL: Out of a total of 487 employees, women comprise 49.9% of the White House staff!
  

That is very close to the nationwide population average; 50.9% of Americans are women, according to US Census numbers from 2000. But should we be judging by a population benchmark? Of the Class of 2009, women were awarded close to 60% of all degrees, including Associate’s, Bachelor’s, Master’s, Professional, and Doctoral. The perceived gap between female WH employees and female graduates entering the workforce is larger: 49.9% vs 60%.

• WOMEN EARN LESS: On average, a White House woman earns $9,390 less than a White House man.

The average salary for a male employee is $82,346, while the average for a female employee is $72,956. Women are earning $0.89 for every $1.00 men make. Heck, that’s better than the national average of $0.77. But alone, these averages DO NOT confirm that White House women are paid less than men in comparable positions. Here, averages only imply differences in seniority and pay level. A woman’s median WH salary is $57,314, while a man’s median WH salary is $65,000.

Where is this disparity occurring?

Ah.

• WOMEN ARE IN LOWER PAID POSITIONS: in the lowest earning brackets, $30,000-$59,999, the number of female employees outstrips the number of men.

From the data table, the position titles for these lower-paying jobs stand out as traditional women’s (lower-level) positions: Staff Assistant, Correspondence Analyst, Executive Assistant, Greetings Coordinator, Scheduler, and Receptionist. A trend emerges, especially from the $90,000-129,999 and $140,000-179,999 brackets: women are employed in the White House for traditionally lower level positions, but are outnumbered at the levels of senior staff.

Rudimentary statistics tells us correlation does not imply causation. Because it is impossible to compare the seniority of every employee granted the title “Staff Assistant,” these figures say nothing of hiring practices or of attitudes toward women in the administration. But it is disappointing to see just as government functions as a large corporation, people at the highest levels are increasingly male. Is this like the Women’s Campaign Forum’s findings that women must be encouraged to run for office? Are women reluctant to step up to positions of higher seniority? Do women receive preference in traditionally lower-ranking administrative jobs? Or, as Sen. Amy Klobuchar commented today during Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing…

So, I think it’s worth remembering that when Justice O’Connor graduated from law school, the only offers she got from law firms were for legal secretary positions. Justice O’Connor – who graduated third in her class at Stanford Law School – saw her accomplishments reduced to one question: “Can she type?”

In this White House, we can’t know for sure.

Notes about my process:

• Besides making “assumptions” about the 487 names, there were about 50 gender-ambiguous names (Ashley, Jamia, Tracy, etc) that I researched to confirm the person’s pronouns. I do realize this process is not trans-inclusive. Numbers and the data table have been edited since the original posting to reflect 3 miscategorized employees.
• Patricia McGinnis and Michael Warren were counted into the total number of employees, but not into the salary averages and medians, as both earned $0.00
• The total percentage of staff includes detailees, but the average salary does not. Detailees are essentially employees on loan from other federal agencies, whose salaries are determined and paid for by the other agencies.

Dr. Walsh’s female colleague, Dr. Maggie Blott, had to clarify his comments.  She says he does not advocate pain, but only “encourages alternative ways to deal with pain such as yoga, hypnosis, massage and birthing pools.”

Access to home birth, natural birth, midwives, etc. is still decided by privilege. High costs associated with the lack of health insurance coverage restrict the average mother-to-be’s alternative pain management tools, and some governments have even bowed to healthcare industry pressure to all but ban midwifery. Yet Dr. Walsh intimates that women who choose epidurals lack a certain moral fiber that can only be won through pain and suffering, which he accepts as the common experience of women in childbirth.  Americans do have problematic dependencies on pain relief drugs, and there is a myth that a hospital birth is always the best option. But those who follow the healthcare industry’s track of a hospital birth and have an epidural, either by choice or by lack of access to alternative pregnancy care, need not be vilified.

Pain without an epidural is not a rite of passage for mothers, but rather a failure of our world healthcare systems to provide alternative care.  Get the message straight.

The American Red Cross will not accept blood donations from men who have had sex with men, and women who have had sex with these men (who have had sex with men).  The official United States FDA policy forbids it (updated May 2007), stating:

“Men who have had sex with other men, at any time since 1977 (the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the United States) are currently deferred as blood donors. This is because MSM are, as a group, at increased risk for HIV, hepatitis B and certain other infections that can be transmitted by transfusion.

[...]

Blood donor testing using current advanced technologies has greatly reduced the risk of HIV transmission but cannot yet detect all infected donors or prevent all transmission by transfusions. While today’s highly sensitive tests fail to detect less than one in a million HIV infected donors, it is important to remember that in the US there are over 20 million transfusions of blood, red cell concentrates, plasma or platelets every year. Therefore, even a failure rate of 1 in a million can be significant if there is an increased risk of undetected HIV in the blood donor population.”

Prominent countries who allow gay men to donate blood:
Switzerland
France
Italy
Spain
Australia (12-month deferral)

The U.S.’s current alleged risk rate is HIGHER than France’s. I know that correlation does not imply causation. France and Italy’s respective HIV transmission rates via blood transfusion did not drop BECAUSE they began to allow gay donors. But these trends are a challenge to the doomsday FDA model; the U.S. could allow gay donors while pursuing its ever-important mission of reducing the risk of HIV infection via blood transfusion to 0. Lifting the ban would save lives. Period.

The policy stigmatizes gay men as diseased people who need to be quarantined in a time when knowledge about safe sex in the gay community is widespread. Although places like DC are in an HIV epidemic (3% of DC’s population is HIV-positive), the screening methods today preclude any suspicion about gay men and transmission rates. Also, heterosexual donors are not asked if they have had unprotected sex; logically, two gay men having protected sex are less likely to transmit HIV than a straight couple swapping fluids.

This policy also creates unfortunate consequences; some gay men I know lie about their behavior, while most others just refuse to donate. The former means this FDA policy is encouraging donors to lie about their behavior or “risk level” (which is undesirable), and the latter means that blood donations are still a scarce resource, because a significant chunk of the population is banned for LIFE from donating.

Current avenues of changing the policy

1. Legislative: There is currently a joint resolution up in the California Legislature, AJR 13 (Ammiano), that officially classifies blood drives as discriminatory activities that oppose the CA State Legislature’s policy of nondiscrimination. It recognizes that the American Red Cross has urged the FDA to lift the ban. It was referred to Judiciary Committee on April 20, where it remains and from which it probably will not move.

2. Highbrow: The American Association of Blood Banks (which includes the Red Cross) provides 80% of blood donations in the United States (according to their website). The American Red Cross previously issued a letter to the FDA urging them to lift the ban, because of adequate testing measures. The FDA refused, probably because letters achieve nothing.

3. Grassroots: Via student government, college campuses nationwide are banning blood drives from their campus because of the flagrant violation of nondiscrimination policies. These savvy campuses include:
CSU San Jose
Southern Oregon University
UPenn
UC Berkeley

Cal Berkeley tried and failed, in April. Queer members of the student senate were split on the issue as well; one made the outlandish comment that he’d rather have his rights taken away to save lives. This is clearly moot, as gay blood bans do not necessarily lower the incidence rate of hiv transmission via infusion. It was also based in the ignorance as to the number of new donors and potential new lives saved due to a greater blood supply.

This is controversial. Gradually, students are realizing that it costs MORE lives to ostracize millions of healthy potential donors. There seems to be little debate at universities, however, as to whether blood drives discriminate: they simply disagree on banning them from campus.

Step back. Change happens when people are inconvenienced. When the Red Cross can go to the FDA and say, “We are running out of blood because young people refuse to donate, in solidarity with the movement for equality,” then, THEN, the FDA might consider lifting this antiquated piece of discrimination.

*U.S. numbers (1 in 1.4 million) are from the Natural Standard, Worldwide from UCSF, Italy (2007) numbers from Haematologica: The Hematology Journal, Italy (1992) numbers from Italian Blood Centers, France (1991) from the International AIDS Society and the International Journal of Epidemiology, and France 2003 numbers from Eurosurveillance and L’Etablissement Français du sang.