Last week, the US Senate passed the Wall Street Reform Bill, embedded wherein lay provisions for the tracing and monitoring of conflict minerals. This provision was prompted by recent media attention and global outcry relating to the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo – the deadliest war since WWII. Waged since 1998, the war in the DRC has seen nearly six million people killed and hundreds of thousands of women raped.

The war is entirely caused and supported by the illegal trade in ridiculously valuable minerals. Minerals needed for the production of consumer goods, electronics, mobile phones, and, of course, military technology and weapons.

Since the enactment of the Bill, some have expressed concern for the future of Congo’s fragile economy if murdering rebels can’t illegally sell these precious minerals to major Western corporations. In the lead-up to the legislation, Motorola spent $880,000 to lobby the government in relation to the regulation of conflict minerals.

I think fragile economy is a misnomer. Non-existent is probably a more accurate portrayal. Congo’s current debt sits at $10.9 billion. Just last month, at Canada’s request, The World Bank postponed a meeting that was set to forgive nearly $8 billion of that debt.

Yet, according to the naysayers of the bill, hundreds of Congolese civilians may be left vulnerable with the closure of these illegal mining operations should the bill be effective in limiting the purchase of illegal conflict minerals. This is a plainly false argument.

Firstly, Western corporations and governments are so desperately dependent on these minerals that no law will affect that demand. More likely, innovative new solutions will arise to hide the true source of the minerals, or, preferably, the law will have its intended effect of ending short-term purchase from illegal mining sources and encourage more legal, above-the-board development, perhaps putting an end to the brutal war in DRC.

Secondly, those working in the illegal, rebel-controlled mines of eastern DRC are not just poor, hard-working peasants. Often, they are slave-labourers, kidnapped from neighbouring communities and forced to work without reward by the armed group in control of that mine.

Given the extent and pervasiveness of the networks of power with interest in the conflict minerals of the DRC, there is heavy vested interest in the maintenance of the conflict for cheap and steady access to resources that have otherwise been promised to China in a multi-billion dollar bilateral deal between the governments of both countries. Addressing the demand for illegal minerals may be the only available mechanism for actually ending this long and bloody war.

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This morning, Australian news was abuzz with excitement over a caucus meeting of the Australian Labor Party that was set to vote on ousting current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in favour of his Deputy PM, Julia Gillard. And in a piece of Australian political history, Rudd did indeed step down, leaving Gillard Australia’s first female prime minister.

Everyone seems pretty excited about it – the morning ‘news’ broadcasts aired into overtime in order to cover the meeting and change of leadership. However, without missing a beat, wouldn’t you know, Sunrise anchor Melissa Doyle announces that tomorrow we’ll discuss whether or not Australia “is ready for a female prime minister”?

I’m going to set my outrage aside for a moment. I accept that these sorts of sensationalist morning programs require “provocation,” if you want to call it that, to engage viewers in their thirty-second discussions of salient news issues. But it’s cheap media. It’s a cheap trick, and a tired one. Worst of all, though, it’s insidious for two reasons. Firstly, by questioning whether or not Australia is ready for a female prime minister, Sunrise implies that the country is not, that a female leader is something to be feared or approached cautiously, or as anything but what it really is, which is LONG OVERDUE. The question legitimizes chauvenism by opening the door to arguments that women shouldn’t be Prime Minister. Secondly, the question represents exactly the barriers faced by women in politics. Were it a male challenger, no one would be asking if Australia were ready for him. The media is notoriously bad for getting stuck in the gender angle when reporting on female politicians, so all we ever hear about is their childbearing/rearing capabilities, their fashion sense, or their bitchiness (which is very interesting to contrast with the forms of confrontation expressed by their male counterparts).

I suppose, Mel, you’ll be asking your “expert” guests to comment on whether Gillard’s ascension to Prime Minister means the end of the feminist struggle, or somehow proves that Australia isn’t a sexist country. You’ll be wrong.

That Gillard was ever made deputy was probably the biggest step for women in Australian politics. Honestly, there was no alternative for leadership if the party had decided Rudd couldn’t win them another election. And before we applaud ourselves too much, by my count, Australia is now the 54th country in the world to elect a female leader. Surely, Mel, we deserve our spot among the ranks of:

• Trinidad and Tobago
• Lithuania
• Moldova
• South Korea
• Liberia
• Ukraine
• Sao Tome and Principe
• Senegal
• Latvia
• Mongolia
• Guyana

Surely we won’t suggest that there’s something particularly progressive about the 53 other countries in the world who have had female leaders that Australia may yet be lacking. In terms of Australia’s representation of women, just 13 per cent of the current ministry are female, putting us in the company of countries such as Oman, Qatar. Bahrain, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo – all of whom have less than 20 per cent women in ministerial positions. Only Australia, Israel and the US among the developed democracies have such small numbers of women political leaders.

I think the media plays an important role in maintaining negative perceptions of female politicians. Voters have shown themselves to be willing to vote for a female representative, with women comprising 25-35% of seats in parliaments across the country. It is not from the public that the majority of criticisms of female politicians come – it is from the media. Journalists trivialise women publicly, focusing narrowly on their hair and clothes, assessing her worth by her maternal and domestic prowess. Gillard has been criticised in the media not only for lacking children, but for having a kitchen that is “too clean.”

What more would it take for Australia to be “ready” for Gillard? She already wears the standard uniform of dark suits, and has appropriated the required mimicking of men to speak in ‘polliespeak’. She demurs from confrontation lest she be called a ‘bitch.’ She knows not to show any originality and difference, because the media will make her pay if she does otherwise.

No, it’s rather unhelpful to question the ‘readiness’ of Australia for a female prime minister. As twitterer benpobjie so accurately responded to the question: “if not, a pro-Gillard vote may well tear the space-time continuum.”

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Well, that’s what the headline should say. Instead, we’re choosing to call this man’s paying $100,000 for a 13 year old girl “marriage”. Did I mention he’s 49?

Ahmad Sani Yerima, former governor of the state of Zamfara, is responsible for the introduction of Sharia law into the state. Though he denies that the girl is 13, he also refuses to disclose her actual age, claiming:

“I consider all those complaining about this issue as detractors, because since 1999… many people have been waging different kind of wars against me,” he told the BBC’s Hausa Service by telephone from Egypt.

The senator said he had followed “standard rules for marriage in Islam”.

“I don’t care about the issue of age since I have not violated any rule as far as Islam is concerned,” he said.

“History tells us that Prophet Muhammad did marry a young girl as well. Therefore I have not contravened any law. Even if she is 13, as it is being falsely peddled around.

“If I state the age, they will still use it to smear Islam,” he said.

Luckily, some women’s groups in Nigeria are protesting the marriage and demanding to see Sani taken to court to face a jail sentence for contravening the 2003 Child Right’s Act.

But apparently this politician does not believe in the laws of men and his peers, preferring the self-selected “laws” of his fanatical version of spiritual beliefs that somehow justify buying and raping children. In his own defense, Sani claims:

“As a Muslim, as I always say, I consider God’s law and that of his prophet above any other law,” Mr Sani said.

“I will not respect any law that contradicts that and whoever wants to sanction me for that is free to do that.”

Apparently this one was not his first child “bride.”

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A friend recently asked me to watch the ridiculously long “Telephone” video by Lady Gaga and Beyoncé as she wanted my feminist opinion on it. She described it thusly: lady gaga is thrown in prison, has explicit lesbian relations, gets telephone call for the sole purpose of showing a virgin mobile shot, gets out of prison, goes to a restaurant and poisons Beyoncé’s boyfriend and everyone else, dresses in an American flag and dances around in the dead bodies before driving off Thelma & Louise style in a vehicle labeled “pussy wagon.”

It’s a pretty accurate description:

And here’s Fox News’ conservative reaction to the clip:

But the objections of feminists, while similarly concerned for the representation of women and the sexualization of violence in this clip, are inherently different than those expressed at Fox News. Sean Macaulay at the Daily Beast sums it up when he says the video is all about “lezploitation”:

The women-in-prison genus has been in steady use since the 1920s, and its rules and clichés are among the most strictly observed of exploitation fare. “Telephone” is no exception, and reverently starts with a New Fish (Lady Gaga) arriving at a jail to Run the Gauntlet of Leering Inmates before being Sexually Assaulted by pair of strapping Lesbian Guards.

Sadly, the video epic doesn’t have time to include other staples of the category, such as the Sadistic Warden; the Queen Bee; the Inmate on the Edge, usually carrying a pet mouse; the Wise Old Lifer, who generally works in the library; and the aforementioned Shower Scene. This last one is a glaring omission, rather like reviving Oklahoma! without “The Surrey With the Fringe on Top.”

But “Telephone”—directed by Jonas Åkerlund—makes up for these omissions with a vicious catfight, a mass murder, and a deadpan Beyoncé doing a Kill Bill homage as the “butch top” in this criminal partnership. “You’ve been a very bad girl,” she tells her wayward lover. “A very, very, bad, bad, girl, Gaga.”

I found this last quote interesting as it’s followed up with both women putting a very phallic object in their mouths. You see, unfortunately Sean Macaulay isn’t critical of lezploitation as a genre that sexualizes violence and constructs a fantasy ideal of women as secretly loving abuse and as always ravenous for sex (from men, btw).

But besides the obvious gender issues of the clip, what I find much more subversive and dangerous is the advertising in a way that I can only really compare to the 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats:

Upon a little further investigation, I realized that Virgin Mobile was getting so many shots because they’re sponsoring Gaga’s world tour and she has multiple deals with them in the works. But then, I came across this really interesting list in The Moderate Voice, from which I learned that a lot of the labels were unpaid spots:

* Wonder Bread: Unpaid. Used in a sequence showing Gaga poisoning diner customers, because Gaga wanted to contrast the poisoning with an all-American brand.

* Miracle Whip: Paid. Used in the same scene-and for the same reason-as Wonder Bread; seems to be part of the spread’s new, edgier campaign.

* Diet Coke: Unpaid. It was Gaga’s idea to curl her hair with Diet Coke cans in the video as an homage to her mother.

* Virgin Mobile: The cell phone in the video is a nod to the company, a mobile sponsor of Gaga’s Monster Ball tour.

* Polaroid: Camera and photo booth featured acknowledge Gaga’s role as Polaroid’s creative director.

* Heartbeats headphones and Beats laptop : Unpaid. An extension of her partnerships with Interscope Music and Hewlett Packard.

* PlentyofFish.com: Unclear. Possibly the weirdest deal of the bunch; result of the dating site’s partnership with Interscope.

And of course, the sponsors of the video knew what they were getting into – this video wasn’t meant for regular airplay. It’s allegedly been banned from MTV. This video was made to be viral, so people like me and my friends would discuss it and then look for it online, post it on our blogs, and discuss more. All to benefit Virgin-fucking-mobile and Miracle Whip (though I really love the latter…). As Feministe points out:

It was not designed to be shown on television, ever! It is ten minutes long, and it has more dialogue than music, and it has the “fuck” word and naked breasts and vaginas and girl-on-girl action and basically everybody gets murdered. At no point did anyone making this video think, “I’m still pretty sure we could get this on television, though.” No. It was made to be on the Internet. And you can tell because this affects the form itself, like the actual decisions of how to shoot and edit the damn thing. You can tell this video was meant to be turned into nine million animated GIFs, for example, because there are several parts of it that are shot to look like animated GIFs: you know that thing where there’s like two seconds of movement that loops back around on itself in a weird, jerky, headache-inducing way? That’s what this video looks like, a lot of the time. Gaga has now apparently incorporated not just an analysis of gender and sexuality into her work, she has apparently decided to take on the issue of new media.

Advertisers are getting smarter. We’re all becoming more susceptible. Damn them.

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What a buffoon! According to a Sydney-based researcher, the Australian Prime Minister, at an event in January, told her that her PhD was an excuse commonly used by young women “to avoid starting a family”.

Deputy PM Julia Gillard better get on the clean up trail after that one. Apparently Mr. Rudd doesn’t recall making such a comment. I’m sure he did – he’s such a useless goon. I’m also sure he’s not a total misogynist like his rival, Tony Abbott. He’s just an indoctrinated, socialized, mostly-misogynist like most other men. He may not really believe she’s avoiding having babies, but his comment does imply a belief that education is somehow lost on women.

And I don’t fully believe that Rudd wants to see women get a fair go. Otherwise his government would not have just denied any possibility of a quota system for women’s employment. According to a newly released KPMG report, only 54 per cent of employed women are full-time, compared to 84 per cent of men. The findings didn’t seem to phase Minister for the Status of Women, Tanya Plibersek, who sluffed off the suggestion that the government should address this disparity with an appeal to the fact that the report included no formal recommendations to government.

Riiiight, so governments are incapable of analysing data and finding their own solutions, but must rely on recommendations from the private or NFP sector for action?

Bullshit, Ruddy, you just think women have stolen enough rights and should be happy with where they’ve gotten to, right?

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When I read the headline today, I was immediately reminded of early-century eugenics programs that were so popular across the Western world that they largely informed the Nazi holocaust. Apparently a US organisation is giving monetary incentives to encourage drug addicts to get sterilized.

The organisation calls itself Project Prevention and is headed by Barbara Harris, who intends to pay $300 to drug addicts on the provision they get long-term contraception or seek sterilization. The organisation was founded in 1997 and is funded through private donations and is not-for-profit. So far, it claims to have given funds to over 3200 drug-addicted “clients,” of whom more than 1200 are women who have been permanently sterilized.

Apparently Harris is driven by her own experience, having adopted the four children of a crack-addicted woman in Los Angeles. She says of the second of the four, Taylor:

“He couldn’t keep food down and his eyes looked like they were going to bulge out of his head,” she says. “Noise bothered him, light bothered him, he just couldn’t sleep.

“My husband and I had to take shifts with him. He would sleep 10 minutes, wake up screaming. I was just angry at his mom, I thought how could somebody do this to a baby?”

I admire that this woman has concern for disadvantaged children born into pretty terrible circumstances. However, sterilization is clearly not the solution. It’s not the solution for the simple reason that drug addiction is not a permanent state. And offering money as an incentive to get sterilised is preying upon the vulnerabilities of addicts, whom I hear will take rather drastic measures to get funding for their next hit. Harris understands this of drug addicts and uses their disease against them. Surely this is based on a prejudicial idea about the social capacity of people with addictions – that they can never recover and become productive members of society or good parents. It’s a campaign of social engineering – a way of preventing people with a problem from ever reproducing. Surely these funds could be better used in drug education, awareness, prevention campaigns, or safe-needle houses, or prenatal care facilities for vulnerable and/or disadvantaged people.

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Four years into its mandate, the International Criminal Court has yet to secure a conviction for those accused of committing horrific war crimes since 2002. Yet again, the court has decided to drop charges against an accused war criminal due to lack of evidence. The latest war criminal to escape justice is Abu Garda of Darfur, who was accused of killing 12 African Union peacekeepers in 2007, and voluntarily turned himself in to authorities last year. However, ICC judges have ruled that there is not enough evidence against Abu Garda to support a trial.

According to the press release, the pre-trial Chamber:

“was not satisfied that there was sufficient evidence to establish substantial grounds to believe that Bahar Idriss Abu Garda could be held criminally responsible either as a direct or as an indirect co-perpetrator for the commission of the crimes”

This is on the heels of the dropped charges against the Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, the first case to go to trial at the ICC, for the same reason – lack of evidence. I had such high hopes for this institution, created as a permanent international court with the power to punish the most serious violations of human rights. The purpose of the court was to take away the ‘ad hoc’ nature of prosecutions of war crimes, which until the establishment of the ICC relied upon the political will of the international community to agree to the establishment of an international criminal tribunal, like the ones for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda.

The situation of Darfur was unique for the ICC as it was the first situation to be referred by the Security Council of the United Nations. Other cases have been referred to the Special Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, by the countries themselves affected. So given the lack of cooperation by the government in Sudan, I can understand the limitations with gathering evidence. However, this is a problem that appears to be plaguing the court.

Understandably, witnesses and evidence is a difficult thing to collect in a guerilla conflict. But is it the case that Mr. Ocampo is just not trying hard enough to gather the necessary evidence to secure a conviction? Or is it that Western legal standards are just unsuitable to trialling international war crimes? We clearly will never get a Law and Order: War Crimes and Atrocities Unit, in which teams of highly specialized forensic technologists scour desert and jungle floors for evidence that this particular armed rebel commited this particular atrocity. I would like to be able to say it should be enough that there is overwhelming evidence proving that you are a person of a particular rank within a particular armed group and that that armed group has been witnessed committing war crimes to convict that person of war crimes. Perhaps there is too much individual agency attributed to violators of international law. But clearly this would be problematic.

I don’t know what solution to offer the ICC and I’m sure their much more qualified legal experts are working hard to address their lack of success. I do hope for a win for the ICC sometime soon, as the institution is quickly losing credibility in the eyes of the international community.

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I wanted to blog on this last week when I first heard the story that ‘baby brain,’ or ‘mumnesia,’ as it is sometimes called, has been found to have no scientific basis, and since the story broke news services around the world have taken a bizarre amount of delight in declaring the myth debunked.

The findings come from researchers at Australian National University Researchers, who say they have evidence pregnant women perform just as well in cognitive testing as they did before becoming pregnant. The ANU researchers had recruited 2404 women from the electoral roll, assessing 1241 in 1999, 1126 in 2003 and 1058 in 2007 in four areas of cognition: speed, working memory and immediate and delayed recall. What women identify as being reduced cognitive ability, the article of the findings suggests, is adaptive, shifting attention to the baby.

Now, I’ve never had a baby nor been pregnant, but I’ve asked several pregnant friends about this phenomenon, as I was sceptical myself of its existence. Without fail, every one of my pregnant friends attested to its veracity. Perhaps this is why women have come out vehemently against these findings.

Victoria Trenouth, a 28-year-old English teacher who became a mother for the first time last month when she gave birth to George Bell, said she suffered from baby brain while pregnant.

”I had a terrible, terrible memory … I couldn’t spell, I couldn’t get my words out, I couldn’t remember what I was saying. I spent 20 minutes trying to have a hot shower and screaming at my husband because I thought there was no hot water and it was on cold and he said try turning the hot tap on.”

The Sydney Morning Herald has an interesting opinion piece describing one woman’s experience with pregnancy:

Whether or not baby brain is measurable by tests, there is no doubt that pregnancy and breastfeeding are exhausting and in some case debilitating experiences. And that’s just for the dads. It must be really bad for the mums.

Cathy Warwick of Britain’s Royal College of Midwives told the BBC: “The physical and emotional stresses on a woman’s body from pregnancy can make women feel more tired than usual.

“As we all know, tiredness – for men as well as women – can make us lose concentration and cause us to function less effectively.

“This is why midwives encourage pregnant women to take appropriate rest breaks, at home and at work. Many pregnant women will need this rest, and all of them deserve it.”

I can’t help but think that this study is akin to the numerous scientists who claim to prove the female orgasm doesn’t exist. Apparently a team of researchers at King’s College in London have found “fairly conclusively” that there is no such thing as a g-spot.

Apparently their findings are based on a massive twin study in which, because they could not document that twins both felt the same g-spot sensations in the same place, no G-spot could, in fact, exist.

Some 4600 twinned women were enrolled in the UK research. Of these, 1875 women responded to the sex questions, and of that number, the study excluded women who hadn’t had intercourse and those who identified as lesbian or bisexual (keep those in mind — we’ll get back to them in a bit). They were left with 1800 women aged 23-85 (mean age 55) whose responses were considered in the preparation of their report on the G-spot.

Those women responded to a very interestingly-worded question about the G-spot: They were asked whether they believed they had “a so-called G-spot.” And because too few women said they believed they did, the researchers concluded that the G-spot is a “perception” caused by “non-physical factors” that “heighten sexual sensation.” That is, women may have mental G-spots, but not actual physical ones.

So what do the lead scientists of the study have to say about their findings? Something really ridiculous:

Dr. Spector also has some choice words for women who believe they have G-spots: “This is by far the biggest study ever carried out and shows fairly conclusively that the idea of a G-spot is subjective. Women may argue that having a G-spot is due to diet or exercise, but in fact it is virtually impossible to find real traits.”

Listen to the methodology of this sex study:

The scientists in this study asked women if they believed they had a G-spot, and if they didn’t, the researchers accepted that none was present. They did not ask searching questions that would help them evaluate whether the women’s belief might be backed with experience… in fact, they excluded from their sample those women who were most likely to have had G-spot experience, the lesbian and bisexual women who, the researchers decided, would skew the results by being more likely than the heterosexual women to have used their fingers. Instead they seemed to be grasping for evidence that the G-spot existed in heterosexual women who were less likely (they guessed) than their lesbian counterparts to have sex in a way that’s most associated with G-spot stimulation and pleasure.

Okay, well, this is something that’s been happening to women for centuries – because some men and scientific methods can’t prove something women claim they experience, these men and their science deny the possibility of its existence.

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I know it’s really en vogue to criticize the UN as a useless institution, but news today of the new special envoy appointed by Ban Ki-Moon to address sexual violence in conflict is a tremendous step in the right direction for international politics. In his words:

“I have informed the UNSC of my intention to appoint Margot Wallstrom, vice-president of the European Commission, as my special representative to intensify efforts to end sexual violence against women and children in conflict situations,” he said.

“We will continue efforts to end the conflicts in the east (of the Democratic Republic of Congo), restore state authority, facilitate the return of refugees, and protect civilians against all forms of violence including sexual violence,” Ban said.

“I’m horrified and outraged by the use of rape as a weapon of war,” he said.

I know very little about Margot Wallstrom, but in response to her appointment, she specifically addressed what she saw as the problem of people often explaining sexual violence in conflict as a “cultural” phenomenon:

“I say this is not cultural, it is criminal. It is a crime under international law and it is also a war crime,” she told Swedish public radio.

Rape has been a constant feature of war throughout history, used as a tool of communication between groups of men either for the purposes of asserting masculine dominance, of humiliating one’s opponent, or as a reward for good soldiering. Though quantitative data is not available, there seems to be a growing trend in contemporary conflicts to use extreme sexual violence as one of the primary tactics of warfare, and not simply as a by-product of conflict. Hundreds of thousands of women and young girls have been violently and brutally raped in eastern DRC, with most attacks averaging more than 4 perpetrators per victim. Women are being deliberately targeted and destructively abused in what can only be described as sexual genocide.

Though he doesn’t link the processes explicitly in his speech, Ban Ki-Moon speaks also of the economic and criminal activities dominating politics in the same regions witnessing most of the contemporary cases of extreme war rape:

The resurgence of unconstitutional changes of government in Africa is a matter of serious concern. These actions run counter to fundamental UN values, international law, and the AU’s own Constitutional Act. We must also guard against the manipulation of established processes to retain power.

Drug trafficking is also a rising threat to international peace and security in Africa. Criminal networks are very skilled at taking advantage of institutional weaknesses on the ground.

As we address all of these challenges, we must show our determination in the fight against impunity not only in Africa but around the world.

Well, allow me to make it explicit. Though I can’t speak authoritatively for every country, I can say from my research on the DRC and what I’ve read about Sudan that the sexual violence is being perpetrated as a systematic campaign to maintain the chaos necessary to control valuable resources, with the complicity of Western corporations, whose economic concerns clearly outweigh any moral compass they may purport to carry. I can’t help but wonder what obstacles Ban Ki-Moon will face in attempting to implement any recommendations to be found with this new envoy, since the West has already shown reluctance to do anything to address the influence of their corporations on encouraging and exacerbating conflicts in Africa.

I want to stay positive. Maybe with enough attention shone on the international political economy of war rape, something will actually be done to address the crime.

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New circulating Australia today is about comments made by Opposition Leader Tony Abbot to Australian Women’s Weekly, in which he advises women to “stick to the rules” when considering sex before marriage, and to consider their virginity “a gift.” According to Abbot, contraceptives have actually burdened women as men have become more sexually liberated as a result and are taking advantage of unmarried women.

When his comments leaked, they understandably caused a ripple through Australian media. In a subsequent interview with 3AW in Melbourne, Mr Abbott said he was “subjected to a one-hour grilling” by the magazine in which he did his best to give honest answers.

“I think all of us should act in ways that value ourselves, and I’m trying not to be prescriptive here, I’m trying not to be a preacher and all of that,” he said.

“Because in the end these are all very personal things. But if someone asked my advice, I would say, don’t do anything that you will live to regret if you can possibly help it, and try to act in ways in which a self-respecting person would act.”

Deputy PM Julia Gillard has responded, saying Abbott’s comments were likely to confirm women’s “worst fears” about Mr. Abbott. She also said that “Australian women want to make their own choices and they don’t want to be lectured to by Mr Abbott.”

While some conservative idiot at the Australian has defended Abbott’s comments as applying “equally to men as well as women,” and coming from a “compassionate, fatherly concern for his three daughters,” but this is clearly not the case.

What is the case? Conservative valuing of women in terms of their sexual purity. His comments resonate with pre-liberation opinions of women, who would be shamed for having a human sexual appetite and engaging in human sexual behaviour. These regressive political views are a targeted backlash against women’s liberation, with a political agenda aimed at rolling back women’s rights. Abbott’s goals here are mired in old-school gender roles, and its primary tool is young women’s sexuality. His obsession with women’s sexuality stems from the same sexist mentality as the “Girls Gone Wild” enterprise, as both sides of this continuum value women solely in terms of their sexuality. It’s a fetish, this obsession with virginity.

As Jessica Valenti so articulately claims in her book The Purity Myth:

There is a moral panic in America over young women’s sexuality — and it’s entirely misplaced. Girls “going wild” aren’t damaging a generation of women, the myth of sexual purity is. The lie of virginity — the idea that such a thing even exists — is ensuring that young women’s perception of themselves is inextricable from their bodies, and that their ability to be moral actors is absolutely dependent on their sexuality. It’s time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people depends on their being good people, not on whether or not they’re sexually active.

A combination of forces — our media- and society-driven virginity fetish, an increase in abstinence-only education, and the strategic political rollback of women’s rights among the primary culprits — has created a juggernaut of unrealistic sexual expectations for young women. Unable to live up to the ideal of purity that’s forced upon them in one aspect of their lives, many young women are choosing the hypersexualized alternative that’s offered to them everywhere else as the easier — and more attractive — option.

More than 1,400 purity balls, where young girls pledge their virginity to their fathers at a promlike event, were held in 2006 (the balls are federally funded). Facebook is peppered with purity groups that exist to support girls trying to “save it.” Schools hold abstinence rallies and assemblies featuring hip-hop dancers and comedians alongside religious leaders. Virginity and chastity are reemerging as a trend in pop culture, in our schools, in the media, and even in legislation. So while young women are subject to overt sexual messages every day, they’re simultaneously being taught — by the people who are supposed to care for their personal and moral development, no less — that their only real worth is their virginity and ability to remain “pure.”

So what are young women left with? Abstinence-only education during the day and Girls Gone Wild commercials at night! Whether it’s delivered through a virginity pledge or by a barely dressed tween pop singer writhing across the television screen, the message is the same: A woman’s worth lies in her ability — or her refusal — to be sexual. And we’re teaching American girls that, one way or another, their bodies and their sexuality are what make them valuable. The sexual double standard is alive and well, and it’s irrevocably damaging young women.

Clearly, I couldn’t have said it better myself. You’re better off buying the book if you want a concise and articulate argument against Abbott’s ridiculous fetishizing of his daughters’ and all Australians’ virginity.

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