Getting off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity - Robert Jensen Book

Does porn make the man?

Pornography is big business, a thriving multi-billion dollar industry so powerful it drives the direction of much media technology. It also makes for complicated politics. Anti-pornography arguments are frequently dismissed as patently “anti-sex”—and ultimately "anti-feminist"—silencing at the gate a critical discussion of pornography's relationship to violence against women and even what it means to be a "real man."

In his most personal and difficult book to date, Robert Jensen launches a powerful critique of mainstream pornography that promises to reignite one of the fiercest debates in contemporary feminism. At once alarming and thought-provoking, Getting Off asks tough but crucial questions about pornography, manhood, and paths toward genuine social justice. 

Contraception for Woman: Scientists say vaginal gel cuts HIV-infections by half!!!!!!!

A vaginal gel has significantly cut the rate of women contracting HIV from infected partners in an experiment in South Africa, researchers said.

They said the gel, containing Aids drug tenofovir, cut infection rates among 889 women by 50% after one year of use, and by 39% after two and a half years.

If the results are confirmed it would be the first time that a microbicidal gel has been shown to be effective.
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Time to Value Women's Unpaid Work (:United Nations)

By Daniela EstradaSANTIAGO, Jul 9, 2010 (IPS) - The time has come for Latin American countries to put an economic value on the work that women do as they take care of households, children and the elderly, says ECLAC, the United Nations regional economic agency.

That recommendation, to be presented at the 11th Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, Jul. 13-16 in Brasilia, is stated clearly in the report "What Kind of State? What Kind of Equality?" prepared for the intergovernmental meet by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to the document, in order to achieve parity between men and women it is essential for women to have economic, physical and political autonomy. "Labour equality," which is the focus of the ECLAC proposal, is needed to attain that goal.

The participation of the urban female population in general economic activity is 52 percent across the region -- far below the male population's 78 percent.

Mother Jones Magazine-- STOP BLAMING THE POOR

This Earth Day, Tell Mother Jones (and everyone else) to End the Population Panic

I want Earth Day to be a time for people to think and take action about the absurd global inequalities that force the poorest nations and the poorest people in all nations to carry the heaviest burden of pollution, food and water insecurity, and climate change-related disasters. I want people to think about what governments, industries, institutions, and systems are responsible for this mess.
Mother Jones, which I thought I could count on to support me in this view, decided to go a different route.  Their newest issue instead focuses on the "population crisis" and the dangerous myth that poor, brown people and their babies are the biggest threat to our planet.

I was in a bit of disbelief at first and was somewhat relieved to see quotes like "Mention population, and discussion goes straight to the teeming Third World masses--never mind that an American's carbon footprint is 23 times that of an Indian" in the Editors' Note.  You'd think that with a beginning like that the feature story might be about the disproportionate consumption levels of developed countries, right?


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