Maquiladoras

Right now, women in Mexico working in the maquiladoras are facing hardships, sexual assault and abuse. Maquiladoras refers to individuals working in factories that import material for assembly and then export the assembled product, to become a fixed aspect of the local and national economy (COHA). The majority of these workers are women according to Nidya Sarria, a research associate of Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Sarria states that the majority of women are maquiladoras because “men are seen as trainable and intelligent. They are valued higher than female workers due to their alleged ability to constantly learn and produce value over a protracted period of time, where as women and there work decline over time because, according to her managers, her value as a worker is used up after years of endless, exhausting hours of factory work.” Maquiladoras women face cruel working conditions. They are forced to stand at hours at a time with little to no break in between shifts. They are also routinely subjected to mandatory urine testsin order to determine a pregnancy. If they are, they will be forced to face even more unbearable work in hopes that they quit, which occasionally happens. Events such as these merely skim the surface of the atrocities that the Maquiladoras face.

As of “February 2005, more than 800 bodies have been found and 3,000 women are missing, majority of the women are maquiladoras workers” (COHA). That is due to the constant relocation of families into the city of Juarez because of the need of workers in the factories. Because these families are from such poor stricken neighborhoods the idea of making $55 a week draws thousands of women into maquiladoras. These malquiladoras are often run by U.S. companies such as General Electric, Alcoa, and DuPont. Not only do women face the constant abuse from their managers (the majority of whom are males) they now face the terror of being kidnapped, tortured and murdered. This happens because the hours they start their shift are late at night. Therefore, they have to walk in the dark with no sidewalks or street lights to help them guide their way. In order to stop the murders, the factory owners provided a bus service but.  Despite their intentions, this has not been an effective preventive security measure. The killings of these women are known as “femicide”. As for the Mexican government, authorities have completely dropped the investigation of the femicide as of August 2006.

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Virginia's Transvaginal Ultrasound Bill

By Hannah Clause, GSEC

In the last year women’s health has been under serious attack. From trying to defund family pact to trying to pass personhood amendments, conservative politicians are stopping at nothing to take away women’s right to choice and health. This should not come as a surprise considering the amount of legislature that has been proposed to compromise women’s bodies, but this particular bill left me so outraged I felt sick. On Wednesday, February 15, the Virginia state House of Delegates passed the Transvaginal Ultrasound Bill with a 63 to 36 vote. This bill forces a woman seeking an abortion to have a vaginal probe inserted into her vagina, even if she and her doctor do not want it, in order to obtain an image of the fetus which will then be shown and described to her. This will be the first time the government has mandated that a physician perform an unnecessary medical procedure on a patient, even if it is against the physician’s recommendation or patient’s wishes. 

Here is an image of the vaginal probe and how far it must be inserted into the vagina, as well as the up down motion it needs to make, in order to obtain an image of the fetus:

               

As you can see this is an incredibly invasive and uncomfortable procedure. I want to say this again, even if the doctor and patient do not recommend or want this procedure, the will be forced to do so. Even if a woman is a victim of rape, she still must undergo this procedure in order to obtain a legal procedure of an abortion. The federal definition of rape is “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” With this said the transvaginal ultrasound bill will be a form of legalized rape. The woman has no choice but to be penetrated by an unnecessary transvaginal probe procedure if she wants to obtain a legal abortion. How is this possible? How is it possible we are making an unnecessary, raping, procedure law? How is it possible that we could do this to the women of Virginia?

                 State Delegate Todd Gilbert, one of the legislators of the bill, said that abortion was a ‘lifestyle convenience’. A lifestyle convenience is proper access to birth control, having a car, ability to higher education. An abortion is not. Having a baby is not. Republican mayor Bob McDonnell has said that he will sign the bill into law if it passes in the Senate.

Women of America we need to speak up. We need to take a stand. Let our representatives know we won’t be subjected to having our health and rights compromised. Tell your senators and House representative to stop playing politics with women's health. The link below is a petition started by Planned Parenthood to tell congress to leave our birth control alone.

https://secure.ppaction.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=14158&s_src=BCAccess_0212_c3_e2_NonAction&autologin=true&JServSessionIdr004=m41a3k22a5.app202b

Mississippi Personhood Amendment

By Carina Gutierrez


Earlier this month, Mississippi took a vote on a proposed state constitutional amendment. This amendment sought to define the word “person” as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the equivalent thereof.” This would equate abortion with murder without making exceptions for rape, incest or even when a woman’s life is in danger.

Although it did not pass, let’s take a moment to consider how our lives as women would have been affected by a positive vote: had this passed in Mississippi, it is likely that the rest of our country would have followed suit and possibly led to the US Supreme Court revisiting its Roe v. Wade decision. It would cut off our access to birth control, such as the morning after pill or the intrauterine device, as well as discourage physicians to carry out in vitro fertilization for fear that they may be criminally charged if the embryo didn’t survive.

The voting for this amendment was very close and perhaps was due simply to its ambiguous wording. So, women of America, vote to keep your body yours. If you are Pro-Choice, the voting results in Mississippi were too close for comfort, defeated 58-42, and unfortunately may foreshadow a coming change. Already a similar personhood amendment is planning to be proposed to Georgia's General Assembly next year. And these aren't the only attacks on women's rights; bills and legisation are constantly being created to stop our access to complete family planning. Just ask yourself, can we afford to lose our right to choose?

TTF - Transgender Task Force

By Nicole Walker

The gender of a person paves the way of one’s life at the first gift of a pink or blue blanket after birth. There are men, women, gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender and transsexual students.

           Chico State has a wide range of people that are supported by organizations varying from different sexualities, cultural backgrounds, beliefs, values and experiences.One organization that exists - one that CSUC students are not as aware of - is the Transgender Task Force (TTF), which was created three years ago.

TTF creates an ongoing awareness that there are trans students on campus, through tabling and events such as Transgender Day Of Remembrance, as stated by Aydin Kennedy, a Grad student in Social Work and co-founder of TTF.

TTF works to remove many of the barriers that trans students face, such as finding safe bathrooms on campus, changing university forms to create a more streamlined system for name and gender changes, collaborating with others campus resources to help get trans students connected to supportive allies and advocates and creating educational opportunities to the campus community to directly make Chico State a more trans-inclusive campus and community, Kennedy said.

Although the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer community is very known on campus, the trans students aren’t always comfortable identifying in that community, he said.

Transsexual has two meanings; one indicates medical interventions such as hormones or surgery, while the other refers to someone who feels as if their assigned sex (Male or Female) is not related with their actual sex, Kennedy said.

Transgender also has two meanings, one being an umbrella term that throughout its history has included many different expressions of gender and gender identity similar to the use of gay to include gay men and gay women, and the second referring to someone who feels as if their assigned gender, man/masculine or woman/feminine is dissimilar with their gender identity.

“I am both transgender and transsexual,” Kennedy said.When Kennedy transitioned as an undergraduate student in 2007-08, he felt and proved to be very alone.

“I came up against a lot of road blocks,” he said, “many of which have been rectified by the activism and education of TTF.”

Although Chico is a smaller town, there is a strong and very present trans community here, and many of them are students, he said. TTF brings awareness to those who are not trans and hopes to be an ally, support system and advocate for those who are.

“As trans people we have to go through a lot to tell our truth and step out from behind the shadows of our former selves,” he said.

Most students aren’t even aware that there are trans students sitting in classrooms with them, he said. Students aren’t aware that TTF exists and for those who are, they don’t see or understand how it may be relevant to them, Kennedy said.

After noticing the number of students who were coming to counseling because they were dealing with being transgender or in some other way feeling that they didn’t “fit” into society’s binary gender system, Lana McKnight, Counseling and Wellness Center Counselor and founder of TTF, decided to start meetings in order to change and act on these feelings, she said. 

            TTF had a number of challenges to face, such as trying to deal with the school system and the larger community of Chico. Although there was PRIDE/Safe Zone on campus, and other LBGT groups in the community, there seemed to be nothing aimed specifically at the gender non-normative population at the time, she said. 
           “Sexual orientation and gender identification are two different things, so their needs were sometimes not as readily addressed in general LGBT organizations,” McKnight said, “all students benefit from awareness of diversity personally and professionally, I believe.”

            However, finding people who are passionate about the topic, willing to be advocates and comfortable educating people about an often-marginalized group is difficult, she said. 

“My hope is that through TTF, people can find a place within themselves to see and understand that the rigid notions of the gender binary negatively impact all of us, not just trans or gender non-conforming people,” Kennedy said.

LGBTQ school bullying: when will it stop?

  By Lindsey Pevar

Bullying in the LGBTQ community has always been a problem but no one decides to do anything about it. The bullying problem has been arising in high schools and many of the students have committed suicide because they do not want to live with the pain of going to school. They get to a point where they can no longer take the torture and judgment from their classmates. Sometimes even then no one does anything to stop the violence that is silencing so many innocent children and teens. There are children as young as 11 who are self-silencing because they can no longer live with the daily harassment and torture of the continuous verbal and sometimes physical abuse.

Jamey Rodemyer, 1997-2011

That was the case for Jamey Rodemeyer. He had asked for help repeatedly but no one would listen to him. On September 9^th Jamey wrote, "I always say how bullied I am, but no one listens, what do I have to do so people will listen to me?"  What is most astonishing is Jamey was bullied on school grounds; didn’t teachers and faculty realize what was happening? Or were they too concerned with what would happen to the school if they challenged his bullies? Jamey Rodemeyer is just one of many students who have committed suicide because of verbal and physical abuse through bullying. There are still people in the world who do not accept anyone in the LGBTQ community. When are people going to realize that there is nothing wrong with those who define themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer?

 The worst part is there are so many others like Jamey Rodemeyer who are committing suicide at such a young age, and they have so much life ahead of them. It is so horrible to think that these children can go to such a dark place where they no longer want to live.  The time for change is now and people need to realize the lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and queers are no different from you and me. Due to the increasing amount of suicides and extreme LGBTQ based bullying schools have been forced to create an anti-gay bullying law.  Fortunately schools now have to come up with a way to protect their students from anti-gay bullying. Finally something is being done to help prevent the violence going on in our schools, and to protect the LGBTQ community.

        If you or your loved ones are experiencing bullying there is help out there.

24/7 LGBTQ Youth Helpine: 866.488.7386

GLBT National Youth Talkline: 800.371.4373 OR http://www.youthtalkline.org/

It Gets Better Project: http://www.itgetsbetter.org/

Butte County 24 hour Youth Crisis Services Line: 800.371.4373; Adult Crisis Line: 800.334.6622



Are We Moving Forward? Part 1

By Nikki Allair



Every time I see a new article about women and/or girls, I have to weigh the pros and cons of the said article. I ask myself certain questions: do these people have agency*? What is my situatedness* with this article? What layers of intersectionality* are affecting these people? Is there too much control from – government, patriarchy, family life, etc. fill in the blank? I cannot look over these articles without investigating it with my feminist magnifying glass. This process is both enlightening and exhausting, but well worth every moment.

Nicholas D. Kristof

A few articles written by Nicholas D. Kristof caught my attention for it’s negative and positive aspects. The article was about a rape treatment center in Sierra Leon, Africa, where he met a three-year-old girl. This young child was raped and infected with gonorrhea. Solutions for rape are extremely difficult to come up with and/or implement within a community and especially one that is so intimate. “Ultimately, the only way to end the epidemic of sexual violence is to end the silence and impunity and send people to prison. But that almost never happens,” said Kristof. In places that do not have the resources to help them, ending violence against women is almost impossible, but there are women out there that are trying to change that. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/opinion/sunday/kristof-In-This-Rape-Center-the-Patient-Was-3.html)

Kristof came across one young fifteen-year-old girl in particular. Her name is Fulamatu and she wanted to fight against the destructive patriarchal society that had tried to claim her body. A local pastor in her village took advantage of her and other young girls in their community. Fulamatu’s bravery is commendable and shocking within such close-knit village. She filed a police report, got the pastor to come back to the village through some maneuvering, but ultimately he was let go. Fulamatu’s family even forgave him and then tried to kick her out of her village. Even though this is a terrible aspect of this case, without Fulamatu’s statement, other young women from the village would not have come forward. “As more girls show Fulamatu’s courage, we can some day break taboos about sexual violence and inch toward a global recognition that it is more shameful to rape than to be raped.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/opinion/one-girls-courage.html)

A group of Sierra Leone girls

It is easy for us as Americans to look at other countries and think that situations like the three-year-old child could never happen here. We are sadly mistaken. Women and girls in our nation are constantly having their rights slashed and their lives put in danger. Next week, I will discuss how legislation and the work force reflects our devaluation of women still.