Women's Issues

There were no lactation rooms or dedicated spaces for breastfeeding mothers when Tara Ruby was on active duty in the Air Force from 1997 to 2001. After her first son was born, Ruby remembers ducking into empty offices and bathrooms — anywhere she could find privacy for 20 to 30 minutes at a time to pump.

That's why she was thrilled to learn about a new nursing room in the headquarters of Fort Bliss, the Army post in El Paso, Texas. It has comfortable chairs, a refrigerator for storing milk and a sink — small things that make a big difference when you need to expel breast milk every few hours. All that was missing was a touch of decor on the bare walls. To make the room more inviting, Ruby, now an El Paso photographer, offered her services to donate pictures for the room.

Her vision: Portraits of uniformed soldiers breastfeeding their children. "I thought it was be nice to offer some photographs as an additional show of support," she said. "Seeing a picture like that helps mothers understand they can be an active soldier and provide support to their children." The shoot went off without a hitch, resulting in a photo that's drawing praise for normalizing breastfeeding within the hypermasculine context of the military.

Fort Bliss Public Affairs and Garrison Command approved the shoot, an Army spokesman said. Through the Fort Bliss support group for mothers (full name, Pregnancy and Postpartum Physical Training Program; P 3 T for short) Ruby sought active duty soldiers to model in the photos. She thought she might get two or three volunteers; 10 women showed up for Thursday's shoot with their children, proudly wearing their boots and camo. "I think it's great the Army is supporting active duty mothers," Ruby said. "Sometimes, you hit a point in your military career where you have to choose between being a soldier and a mother, and a photo like this helps mothers so they don't have to choose. "

Ruby posted the photo Thursday night on her Facebook business page. By Friday morning, for reasons unknown to her, it had been removed from her page and from other pages that had shared it. (Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) She reposted it Friday morning, thanking everyone involved for supporting her vision to #normalizebreastfeeding.

"Through the guidance of my military friends, the Fort Bliss P 3 T Program and Breastfeeding in Combat Boots, our Garrison command and our Public Affairs, we were able to show that even our mommies in uniform can provide for their babies," she said. "Breastfeeding their babies doesn't make them less of a soldier, I believe it makes them a better one. Juggling the tasks and expectations of a soldier, plus providing for their own in the best way they possibly can, makes (these) ladies even stronger for it."

Within 24 hours the photo had been shared more than 4,000 times, generating hundreds of positive comments. As one person said, "Thank you Tara, Fort Bliss, everyone involved to make this possible and an extra big thank you to theses ladies and babies who participated to capture this photo. This is a beautiful way to show how much women give of themselves to country and family."

A few commenters questioned the "professionalism" of the women for breastfeeding in uniform. But Ruby and an Army spokesman said there is no policy that prevents women from breastfeeding in uniform as long as they "maintain professional standards." Such critiques miss the point, Ruby said. The Army stands by the women in the picture and the idea it promotes. The creation of a nursing room shows the Army is taking steps to implement policies demonstrating that support, she said. "Practically speaking, it's a matter of retention," she said: "Mothers need support so they don't have to choose between family and service."

One who can give evidence based on personal and immediate knowledge of a fact, event, or experience. The Christian concept of witness adds to the popular notion the idea of a religious experience to which a believer testifies by his life, words, anc actions, and thus gives inspiration and example to others by his testimony. Implicit in Christian witness is also the element of courage in giving testimony, either because others are not favorably disposed or because they are openly hostile to the message of faith being proposed.

At the end of last night's GOP debate, moderator Jake Tapper asked the candidates which woman they would choose to put on the $10 bill. Several of the 11 candidates on stage named their daughters or wives. Mike Huckabee awkwardly poked fun at his wife's spending habits in nominating her. "That way," he said, "she could spend her own money with her face!"

But Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump went for gravitas. All three picked Rosa Parks, the civil rights leader whose refusal to give up her seat sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, to be the first woman pictured on US paper currency. "An everyday American that changed the course of history," said Rubio. "She was a principled pioneer that helped change this country," noted Cruz, clarifying that he would put her on the $20 bill, in order to keep Founding Father Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill.

The candidates are right that Parks was a "principled pioneer," but her advocacy went beyond racial justice. Later in life, Parks was an avid supporter of Planned Parenthood, and she even served on its board.

That's an inconvenient fact for the GOP candidates who have been eager to demonize Planned Parenthood. Throughout the debate, all of them repeatedly touted their pro-life records and vowed to defund Planned Parenthood. Cruz is currently leading the charge against Planned Parenthood in the Senate, threatening to shut down the government over a spending bill that includes federal funding for the women's health organization.

By a 241-187 vote, the House of Representatives has approved a bill that would cut off federal money for Planned Parenthood. The bill isn't expected to pass in the Senate — and President Obama has said he would veto any bill that defunds the group.

-Lists several influential publications that praised the movie-

Anna: Despite all that, there hasn't been anyone who came up to me with an offer. I believe if I were a man it wouldn't be like that, because a woman in a work dominated by men is seen as dangerous.

G1:Did you inspire yourself in any story when writing the movie?

Anna:I started to write the script twenty years ago soon after having my first son. I, someone who always put a lot of importance in my profession. Realized the work of a mother was not only the most important work in life, but also a sacred one. However, it was also one that was heavily disvalorized in my social group and that a lot of women prefered to let their children being taken care of by a babysitter. Babysitters who often sacrificed time with their own children for the sake of that work. I realized that the figure of a babysitter included important social and cultural paradoxs of brazillian society, that involved a whole question about education. I was inspired by Edna, the babysitter of my youngest child several years ago.

G1: Why put Regina Case as Val [The main character]?

Anna: Because I always considered her an excellent actress, her closeness with the main theme. And because she combines in one figure the white, indigen, and black races. The three main brazillian races.

G1: Do you think the Brazillian cinema still suffers when trying to represent women?

Anna: I think the World cinema has a tedency of representing women in a very masculine vision. Always slim, beautiful, fragile, charming, etc. And that vision does not includes most women.

G1:You promoted an exhibition of the movie to domestic maids. How was the experience?

Anna: It was very interesting. The session happened on a Sunday on Bela Artes, in the downtown of the city. And less than 70 people went. However the people who were there were very touched and brought up important questions. Later I discovered that a particular group left that place and started discussing stuff that, according to what someone told me, were stuck for a long time. Lots of things came up after that because the movie works as a mirror.

G1 - The domestic workers act was regularized recently in July and your movie criticizes the way employers treat their maids. Is there a change in behaviour?

Anna Muylaert - I don't have any doubts. The numbers prove it. 10 years ago 20% of the maids slept in the service (as in living in the service). Today only 2% of them do. I believe there is no turning back. What was on the top of slavery, is becoming a profession. Everyone wants to work and go back home. Everyone would rather to live their own lives than living someone else's life.

G1 - Your movie was very optimistic since not all domestic workers manage to reach the liberation Val did. Was the ending indented since the begging or there were a lot of changes?

Anna Muylaert - yes, I stated writing this movie in 1996. The script went through several changes along those 19 years. The version played was written in July 2013, months before the filming. I tried to give an ending with hope for the maid's daughter, but not a soap opera ending where she'd get rich as a singer or by marrying the employer. I had to think a lot to find the ending as it is.

G1 - You posted on facebook the message of a movie fan who was moved to remember the memories of his nanny. How has been the public reaction?

Anna Muylaert - It has been an hallucination! I receive messages practically every 10 minutes on facebook or other social networks, all very moving. Many thanked me for the movie and some told me personal stories. I read and answer them all. This contact is being very thrilling for me as well the crew I share everything with.

G1 - Have you heard any negative reaction over your movie?

Anna Muylaert - There were a few written critics. Political criticism, from people who didn't like the move, I was waiting to happen but I haven't heard any yet. But I heard reports of reactions disapproving Jessica's attitudes, during the movie session as well after, towards the actresses. I also heard about two women who left the theater during the scene where [[Spoiler: Val enters the swimming pool]]. Leaving the theater when the character is liberating herself is a sign they didn't approve the character's evolution.

G1 - You promoted a movie session to domestic workers. How was the experience?

Anna Muylaert - It was very interesting. The session happened in a Sunday, at Belas Artes, on the city center, which is outside their region, and there weren't more than 70 people. However, who was there were very moved and they raised important questions. After that I found out a group left the place and went to discuss some questions, then they wrote me about how they were restricted for a long time. Many things were brought up after the session because the movie works as a mirror. The movie deconstruct a game we've been all playing, regardless of which role we are.

G1 - Abroad, the title of the movie is 'The second mother'. Why this title change? How did the foreigners understood the domestic workers issues in Brazil?

Anna Muylaert - Our sales agent didn't like the literal translation of the 'Que horas ela volta?' to English. I gave a few suggestions, 'The kitchen door', 'The second mother' and 'Almost family', he chose 'the second mother'. When the movie ends, the foreigners as me: does this exists or is really fiction? Then I answer it exists, but it is changing and then they keep making a thousand questions about Brazil and the recent changes in the country. But soon after they broaden the debate to power relations in general, and how this exists in all societies, not just in Xingu.

G1- After Berlin and Sundance, what would be the importance of your movie being chosen to represent Brazil in the 2016's Oscar?

Anna Muylaert - Every year Brazil sends a movie to be sent to the Oscar commission. I hope this is our year. I would certainly bring more publicity to the movie and would attract the public towards the cinema here in Brazil.

G1- If your movie is chosen, you'll be the first female director since Suzana Amaral, in 1986, to represent your country abroad. Why are the female directors in Brazil so unrecognized?

Anna Muylaert - Oh my! I didn't have this information. I'd need to study this movie list of Brazilian movies trying to get to be sent to the Oscar and know the competition from that year to know if the female directors weren't recognized or if the movies chosen were the most appropriated. About the nonrecognition of female directors, I believe our whole society is sexist. And that direction is a very masculine role because it is a command role. The sexist society feels more comfortable giving command to a boy without experience than to a woman with proven experience. It is sad but it is real.

If a cable TV channel is going to make a new series, it will call female assistants, female production directors, female assembling cast, etc. But it will hardly chose a woman to make the general direction. Bigger the budget harder it is for them to chose a woman. To give an example, I've been on the work market for a long time, on cinema as well on television. This year I was awarded with several prizes abroad, however no television channel made any work offer. Despite all this, it seems no one has a job offer to me...If I were a man, I think it'd be different because a woman who is successful in a male dominated area is seen as a figure who might be dangerous.

G1 - From "Durval Discos" to today do you see your maturing?

Anna Muylaert - It is almost 15 years, right? I think I evolved a lot as a person, as a mother and as a director from all the accumulated experience with other movies and work. But also the arrival of the digital filming process - 'The second mother' is my first movie recorded in digital format - which allowed a massive amplification of my contact and my experience with the actors.

G1 - Your movie has a woman as the protagonist and specifically your protagonism as a successful director caused a numbing debate with Claudio Assis and Lirio Ferreira. How to make men to know how to be sidekicks of the story?

Anna Muylaert - This is a great debate we're starting, right? The sexism is there for millenniums. It isn't a monster, it is an amalgamation of rules enforced in society both for men and women. Until the 60's, women were at home washing clothes and taking care of the children. It hasn't been a hundred years we've been starting to take our place in the work market. I think we still have an excess of humility and even shyness, while men have an excess of vanity and like to engage in self-promotion. Concluding, they feel fine as protagonists and we're taking baby steps towards learning to leave just being sidekicks.

But currently, with women proving their competence and achieving results in several professional areas, both we women have to learn how to occupy the success place while men have to learn how to leave the center stage and let women shine, without feeling threatened or diminished. I think it is a mutual learning. But certainly if we open this debate and if men realize how much they humiliate us in little daily attitudes and we women stop accepting those humiliations, this can get better. In general I think women need to learn how to be more aggressive and men need to learn how to be more contained.

A new survey of college students, one of the largest ever focusing on sexual assault and sexual misconduct, has reignited the debate over just how big a problem sexual assault on campus really is. Among female college students, 23% said they experienced some form of unwanted sexual contact — ranging from kissing to touching to rape, carried out by force or threat of force, or while they were incapacitated because of alcohol and drugs, according to the new survey by the Association of American Universities (AAU). Nearly 11% said the unwanted contact included penetration or oral sex. "I think one takeaway is that this problem is a broad problem within society as well as on campus, so I think it's something all of us have to be concerned about," said AAU President Hunter Rawlings in an interview.

While the survey's findings are fairly consistent with those of other recent studies, the significance of this latest effort is its size: More than 150,000 students participated from 27 universities, including some of the most prominent schools across the country. All the members of the Ivy League took part with the exception of Princeton, along with schools such as Iowa State University, the University of Florida and the California Institute of Technology.

For college women seniors, the number reporting nonconsensual sexual contact of any kind carried out by force or while incapacitated was even higher than the 23% for all female college students: 26% of female seniors said they had experienced it at some point during their four years in college. At some of the country's most elite schools, that number climbed even higher: 34% for University of Michigan female seniors, 32% at Yale and 29% at Harvard. "The results warrant the attention and concern of everybody in our community," Drew Faust, president of Harvard, said in a statement. "Sexual assault is intolerable, and we owe it to one another to confront it openly, purposefully and effectively. This is our problem."

Faust said Harvard has doubled its staff for its Office of Sexual Assault and Prevention, expanded orientation and training on sexual assault and created an office charged with investigating reports of misconduct. She has also requested a task force to come up with recommendations by January 2016. "We must commit ourselves to being a better community than the one the survey portrays," she said.

For many years, the "one in five" statistic — that one in five women are sexually assaulted on college campuses — has been widely cited by advocates and policymakers. The number stems from a 2007 Department of Justice study, which faced some criticism for being limited in scope since the survey involved only two colleges.

The 2007 study, along with the newer survey by AAU, incorporated a broad definition of sexual assault to include activities such as unwanted kissing and fondling, along with rape and attempted rape. That is a problem, said John Foubert, national president of One in Four, an organization that is dedicated to the prevention of rape through education and research.

"Many of the statistics that are widely cited in the public about sexual violence are of 'rape or attempted rape' — I believe rightfully so," wrote Foubert, who is also professor of higher education and student affairs at Oklahoma State University, on the One in Four Facebook page. "Those are the most serious types of sexual violence, and also, based on my experience, those most likely to result in PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder]. When we throw 'unwanted sexual contact' into the mix, we risk equating a forced kiss (which is a bad thing obviously) with rape (which is a fundamentally different act)."

The survey, developed by a group of researchers, program administrators and methodologists, was emailed to nearly 780,000 students. More than 150,000 completed the online questionnaire, which is a response rate of just over 19%, lower than several other surveys on sexual assault and misconduct, which Foubert said was another issue with the survey.

It is possible that the results could be slightly biased since students who didn't participate may have been less likely to report they experienced any unwanted sexual contact. Foubert also said the sample — 27 universities — was not as broad as it could have been with most of the participants coming from elite institutions.

"Those participating are most of our nation's most selective, large institutions. It did not include any Christian universities, small colleges, community colleges ... or other institutions of great importance," wrote Foubert, author of seven books that deal with the prevention of sexual assault. Rawlings, while not commenting directly on Foubert's criticism, said the survey was the "first very large scale survey of students" and included more specificity than other surveys in terms of what students were asked to gain a better sense of what is really happening on campuses across the country.

The questions "are much more specific about the type of incidents that the students were asked to respond to. Did it involve violence? Did it involve force? ... And then what was the type of incident? Was it harassment? Was it penetration? All of those details, I think, are very important because definitions turn out to be very significant in understanding what the students are experiencing." Sofie Karasek, director of education and co-founder of the advocacy group End Rape on Campus, said the significance of the survey is that it provides evidence for many of the things she and other advocates thought were happening on campus, including how many students are reluctant to come forward after they are a victim of sexual assault.

More than 50% of the women who reported some of the most serious incidents, including forced penetration, didn't report it because they didn't think it was "serious enough," according to the survey. Others said they didn't come forward because they were embarrassed, ashamed or thought it would be too emotionally difficult or that they didn't think anything would be done about it. "I think that evidence is really important to have in terms of specific policies that we would use to combat this type of victim blaming mentality," said Karasek.

Topping that list would be widespread education, she said, as early as middle school, in the areas of affirmative consent, healthy relationships, respect, what constitutes sexual assault and how and where to go to report it. "It was clear before but now it's even clearer that campus sexual assault is widespread and we need to be tackling it from a variety of standpoints."

Women concerned about Republican efforts to take funding away from Planned Parenthood have taken to social media with a hashtag encouraging others to "shout your abortion." It will surprise no one that it's turned into a bit of a fight, with abortion-rights and anti-abortion partisans duking it out and a not-insignificant cadre of those who think the whole idea is a little too much throwing rocks, as well. The movement started Saturday with a Facebook post by a woman named Amelia Bonow, who recounted the story of her abortion and the "inexpressible level of gratitude" she felt afterwords.

"I am telling you this today because the narrative of those working to defund Planned Parenthood relies on the assumption that abortion is still something to be whispered about," Bonow wrote. "Plenty of people still believe that on some level — if you are a good woman — abortion is a choice which should accompanied by some level of sadness, shame, or regret. But you know what? I have a good heart and having an abortion made me happy in a totally unqualified way. Why wouldn't I be happy that I was not forced to become a mother?"

Seattle writer Lindy West took a screenshot of the post and added the #Shout Your Abortion hashtag. "It's about destigmatization, normalization, and putting an end to shame," West wrote in another tweet Monday. Women streamed to the hashtag on Twitter and to a Facebook page to tell their stories, many of them affirming accounts of abortions that they said were necessary, even positive, moments in their lives.

"My wife and I had an abortion when she was in college," Twitter user jkCallawayYAY wrote Monday. "15 years later we're still together w/ 2 beautiful sons #No Regret #Shout Your Abortion" Char Miller wrote on the Shout Your Abortion Facebook page that she was 42 when she opted for an abortion. "My daughter was in college. My choice was not made lightly. I've never regretted it," she said.

There were, of course, plenty of messages from those opposed. "Abortion does not make you unpregnant. It makes you the parent of a dead child," Twitter user Amy Mek wrote. "Instead of using the hashtag#Shout Your Abortion why not drop the PC language and say #I Killed My Baby And Im Proud Of It?" Twitter user Alyssa Lafage wrote. Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin was among the public figures who weighed in, urging followers to "Shout this LOUDER: #PP Sells Baby Parts."

The effort to remove federal funding from Planned Parenthood comes amid allegations from conservatives that the women's health organization tries to profit from the sale of fetal tissue from abortions. The controversy was sparked by a series of secretly recorded videos showing Planned Parenthood executives discussing the transfer of fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood says it follows federal law, which does not allow the sale of human tissue but allows reimbursement for "reasonable" costs.

Republicans in Congress have made taking funding away from the organization a priority. It was also a significant topic at last week's GOP presidential debate. And many just felt the discussion was too public, too in-your-face. "Regardless of your stance on abortion, why can't we all agree it's not something to brag about? Why is #Shout Your Abortion a thing? Ugh," wrote Twitter user comcatholicgirl.

But West says that getting the discussion out in public is the whole point of the effort. "You never have to feel ashamed of your personal medical decisions," she tweeted. "You can speak about them at full volume."

"Regardless of your stance on abortion, why can't we all agree it's not something to brag about? Why is #Shout Your Abortion a thing? Ugh,"

I am still slightly confused about the whole "Sells babby parts" thing, is to just stem-cells? Or is there more to it?

Regardless of your stance on abortion, why can't we all agree it's not something to brag about? Why is #Shout Your Abortion a thing?