A feminist recipe(food,not politics), soccer, Eid Al Banat & the usual.

Ingredients and equipment:

? 1 pkg (apprx 24 oz) turkey tenderloins (usually 2 per pkg) serving 4 to 6
? About 6 TBSPs olive or avocado or canola oil —one or combined— or melted butter.
? 1 TBSP poultry seasoning + 1 TBSP Herbs d’Provence.
? 1 tsp garlic powder (or less if you prefer; personally I love this stuff, it seems to make the food taste sweet).
? 1 tsp dried celery leaf flakes or parsley.
? ½ tsp salt (iodized or kosher or whatever kind you prefer, maybe none?).
? ½ tsp ground black pepper.
? Optional: 1/8 tsp sweet paprika, 1/8 tsp ginger, extra rosemary or sage or marjoram.
◼ Medium-sized baking/roasting pan about 80 sq inches cooking surface (I used a small 8”x12” broiler pan — the bottom, not the grill — lined it with aluminum foil (messy cleanup is hard for me).◼ plastic food-service or similar gloves if bare-handed prep is not for you. ◼ a little bowl or custard cup to mix seasonings in. ◼ tongs ◼ oven timer ◼ cooking thermometer ◼ maybe basting brush ◼ something to cover the pan with after it’s done. ◼

Preheat oven to 325° F ✅ Line baking pan with foil if you like, spread some of the oil/butter around ✅ Put on gloves (optional), put the tenderloins in the pan and oil/butter them generously both sides ✅ Mix all the seasonings together in a little bowl and sprinkle half all over on the tops of the tenderloins and rub in, flip them and sprinkle all over and rub in. ✅ Put pan in oven and bake 30 mins by the timer ✅ Flip the tenderloins with tongs and bake another 30 mins for a glass baking dish, 20 mins if metal,  or until internal temp hits at least 165° in the thickest part of each tenderloin. ✅ Take the pan from the oven, spoon or brush pan juices over the tenderloins, cover with pan lid or foil and rest 15 or 20 mins.

TBH, it smelled so wonderful I didn’t let it rest but dove right in! Each time, there were 4 spare portions. I froze them each separately and enjoyed tremendously with a little heating up, sometimes in the oven, sometimes in a little covered skillet on the stove top. (I guess nuking works but sometimes it toughens poultry in a way not as nice.)

Add your own feminist recipes of the season —or for any time—  in comments?! 🙂

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

Research: in 2020, rates of maternal death

were more than 60% higher in states that banned or restricted abortion than in those that have preserved access to the procedure, according to a new report from researchers at the Commonwealth Fund and Boston University.

The study also found that perinatal deaths were 15% more likely to occur in states that restricted abortion than in those with freer access. Infant mortality was 41% higher for non-Hispanic Asian infants, 34% higher for non-Hispanic White infants, and 12% higher for non-Hispanic Black infants in restrictive states than in those with greater access to abortion…

___________________________________________________________________

For the most common cancer types — breast, prostate, lung cancer and [colorectal cancer] —

 the data show that AIAN individuals — American Indians and Alaska Natives — have mortality rates 8%-42% higher than [other Americans] despite a lower incidence for some of these cancers and the availability of early detection tests for all of them, the authors point out.

“Cancer disparities in this population parallel those for other chronic diseases caused by long-standing inequities in SES (socioeconomic status), education and access to care,” lead author Tyler Kratzer, MPH, from the American Cancer Society, Kennesaw, Georgia, and colleagues commented.

_______________________________________________________

From Guttmacher Institute email:

The US Supreme Court’s decision in June 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade has had disastrous effects on abortion rights across the country. Abortion is currently unavailable in 14 states, and courts have temporarily blocked enforcement of bans in eight others as of December 12, 2022. Even in states where abortion is available, the influx of patients from states with severe restrictions has created lengthy waiting times for the procedure. 

Many state prohibitions were pre-Roe laws or trigger bans that went into effect immediately or shortly after the Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. These near-total or early-gestational-age abortion bans particularly harm patients who already have difficulty accessing an abortion, including people with few financial resources, people of color, LGBTQ individuals and young people. States that limit access to abortion are more likely than states with broader access to have weak social safety nets that are unable to meet their residents’ basic health and child care needs, along with high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality.

Abortion providers and advocacy organizations have challenged many of the state bans. Because the US Constitution no longer protects abortion rights, these cases are being heard in state courts rather than federal courts. Some of these bans have become entangled in a legal back and forth—with abortion being legal one day and illegal the next—and this chaos has had a yo-yo effect that has confused both providers and patients….

Read the full analysis at Guttmacher.org for more analysis of important changes around abortion, maternal health, pregnancy and state ballot initiatives.

Al-Monitor As Yazidis struggle to survive in displacement camps in Iraq, one community leader continues to help women survivors of the Islamic State genocide to resettle in Europe.

[There are few] prospects for these children at the Sharya camp for Yazidis, the ethnic Kurdish minority whose men were butchered and women and girls raped and enslaved by the Islamic State (IS) when it swept across their ancestral homeland of Sinjar in 2014.

Hazi, 13, says she has lived here with her six brothers and five sisters for eight years. “Life is very difficult … Our tents keep getting damaged. In summer it is like hell and in winter the tents are wet and cold.”

“We are afraid Daesh will return,” chimed in Hayo, 12, using the Arabic language acronym for IS. She wants to be a dentist, she said….

_______________________________________________________________

NPR Harvey Weinstein found guilty on 3 of 7 charges in Los Angeles: “Casting couch culture” and “sex as commodity” as defense

Also an ABCNews report.

The four-women-eight-man jury found for three of the seven charges, acquitted on one, and was hung on three others after deliberating for nine days, after weeks of 44 witnesses for the prosecution —including 8 who said the film producer had assaulted them— giving graphic, excruciating testimony of his luring women to hotel rooms for private meetings that quickly turned violent.

…once one of the most powerful men in Hollywood whose many sex crimes helped ignite the #metoo movement, [Weinstein] was convicted on 3 of 7 charges in his second sex crimes trial, this time in Los Angeles. … Weinstein was charged with seven counts of raping and sexually assaulting four women from 2004 to 2013 [with four other charges dismissed when prosecutors were] “unable to proceed” on the allegations made by a woman identified as Jane Doe 5.

…More than 100 women [originally] came forward with harrowing accounts … The 70-year-old is already serving a 23-year prison sentence for rape and sexual assault in New York. … In London, he faces criminal charges of indecent assault of a woman in 1996. His attorneys are now appealing his New York verdict, so his Los Angeles conviction could mean he stays behind bars for the rest of his life….

____________________________________________________________

An eye-opening piece from Mother Jones– Hate Leader Nick Fuentes Is Recruiting Incels. ^{The racist troll who dined with Trump is courting a new online following: raging misogynists.}

     The more misogyny helps expand his influence, the more he engages in it. Avowedly anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Black, and antisemitic,, describing himsefl as ”just like Hitler!” Fuentes recently livestreamed saying

women have created a ‘fucked up society’ ever since people stopped burning them as punishment for crimes. The solution, he said: ‘We need to go back to burning women alive more.’…

…About a month into streaming, Fuentes dangled bait for incel followers. ‘Women are irrational … ‘more rational than children, but they’re not as rational as men. And irrationality does not listen to rationality…’ [piling on with racism] ‘When a bitch going crazy sometimes you got to grab her … Sometimes you have to control yo’ bitch.  Listen, I would defer to Blacks on this. They’ve got it figured out.’…

…This spring, [when] a far-right YouTuber revealed that one of Fuentes’ friends was accused of rape by a woman [Fuentes responded,] ‘As a rule I believe no women … I think everything women say is a lie.’

A couple [of] months later, America First streamer Dalton Clodfelter echoed Fuentes’… He said he would like to see a woman burned alive at the stake for wearing a ‘blasphemous’ bikini….”

____________________________________________________________

Healthcare? 2 women —among possible hundreds— sue Colorado hospital over alleged sexual assault by the same male nurse while unconscious.

Two women who police say were sexually assaulted by a nurse and filmed while unconscious in the intensive care unit are suing the Colorado hospital where the alleged incidents took place…

Christopher Lambros, who was fired from his position immediately following his arrest, sexually assaulted the two women while under his care at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Grand Junction, according to the lawsuit filed Dec. 20 in Mesa County District Court. The hospital is part of the [for profit] SCL Health network, [and] is now a unit of Salt Lake City-based [not-for-profit*] Intermountain Healthcare.

The lawsuit also alleges there could be hundreds of victims. Law enforcement officials have recovered 4 terabytes of sexually explicit data from Lambros’ devices dating to 2016…

* “not for profit” does not mean non-profit.

____________________________________________________________

TheConversation  Female Iranian activists useing powerful images to protest oppressive government are drawing on women’s long history of activism there.

Images of unveiled Iranian women and adolescent girls standing atop police cars or flipping off the ayatollah’s picture have become signature demonstrations of dissent in the past few months of protest in Iran….

…As a scholar studying the use of images in political movements, I find Iranian protest photos powerful and engaging because they play on several elements of defiance. They draw on a longer history of Iranian women taking and sharing photos and videos of actions considered illegal, such as singing and dancing to protest gender oppression….

____________________________________________________________

Bustle Rule Breakers Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff Is Changing What It Means To Be A “Wife Guy” —allyship post-Roe.

You don’t often hear that there need to be more men in the picture. But when it comes to the company Doug Emhoff keeps, it’s actually the case. The second gentleman recently traveled to Thailand, where the former lawyer met with other spouses of world leaders as part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation partner program. Unsurprisingly, he was the only guy in the group….“Typically when I’m in situations like that, I am the only man, and I don’t want to be the only man going forward. We need more men in that picture.”

Emhoff has long spoken about the importance of being an ally, but especially since he stepped away from his nearly 30-year law career in 2022 to support Harris full time (a choice he calls a “no-brainer”). He’s been labeled a “wife guy” and compared to stalwarts of spousal support like Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s husband, Marty. But to Emhoff, his allyship is about more than cheeky titles or flattering parallels. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June, Emhoff believes the need for male activism is more vital than ever….

___________________________________________________________

Afghanistan bans women from education beyond the 6th grade — male students protest, at potentially great cost.

___________________________________________________________

‘Women Talking’ is more than a #MeToo movie: ‘This is a timeless conversation’:  

The riveting drama (in select theaters Friday, nationwide Jan. 20) follows a group of Mennonite women as they reckon with the trauma of sexual assault and debate whether to stay in their isolated colony….

….Set in 2010 and inspired by real events, “Women Talking” is adapted from Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel. Like the book, the movie takes place almost entirely in a hayloft over 48 hours, as women of different generations try to decide whether to stay and fight or leave the men in their community who have drugged and raped them. The film features an A-list ensemble including Foy, Rooney Mara, Frances McDormand and Jessie Buckley, and grapples with complex themes of faith, justice and forgiveness….

….Although the drama takes place in the recent past, Buckley points to how topics of sexual violence and women’s bodily autonomy have been relevant for thousands of years. “This is a timeless conversation,” Buckley says. “It doesn’t have a stop date or a beginning date – this conversation needs to be forever.”

_____________________________________________________________

For queer women, the holidays will always be ‘Carol Season’:

The [2015] film earned six Academy Award nominations and the enduring adoration of queer women the world over, who have dubbed Dec. 21 “Carol Day,” and the holiday season “Carol Season….”

…Patricia Highsmith based the [1952] novel [— originally entitled The Price of Salt, under pseudonym “Claire Morgan,” possibly the first ever lesbian novel with a happy ending, upon] her time working as a seasonal employee at Bloomingdale’s during the 1948 holiday season. In an ironic twist, the author got the job [in order] to pay for psychoanalysis, something she started as a way to process how distraught she was over her sexuality….

….“‘Carol’ is stylish, tender, and bold. From [a] story perspective, I think the screenplay and the dialogues are intricate and brilliant … there is the perfect amount of love, drama and character payoff,” [Shivangi Mittal, the administrator behind the popular Instagram account Lesbian Cinema, said in an email to NBC News]. “Before ‘Carol,’ I used to watch ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (1946) because of course, it’s a classic that makes you believe in magic, angels, life, and humans, without falling into overtly cheesy sentimentality. ‘Carol’ is that magic for the sapphic community….”

_______________________________________________________________

From CalMatters email:

If you were reading the text of the California Constitution on Wednesday — as one does — you would have noticed a new line:“The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives.”

That addition is the result of voters in November overwhelmingly approving Proposition 1, which Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers placed on the ballot following the leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion that previewed the court’s ultimate decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1978 ruling that established federal abortion protections.

_______________________________________________________________

WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE:

?TheConvo Ireland’s ‘great reshuffle’ could benefit women and older workers in an employment market of record job vacancies.

…Almost half (45%) of all Irish workers returning to employment post-pandemic changed jobs [as competition for both top talent and low-skilled workers continues], with 69% of those also changing economic sector [indicating] a post-pandemic reassessment of why, how and where people work…. instead of the “great resignation” [in] other countries, Ireland has … a “great reshuffle”.

While some … are leaving good jobs for great ones, others are leaving bad jobs for slightly better work or exiting the labour market completely. … This churn [reveals] a growing duality in the Irish labour market. Despite high remuneration packages for multinational and tech sector workers, recent OECD data shows that the problem of “low pay” (earnings below two-thirds of the country’s median income) is much more acute in Ireland than in many developed countries. At 18%, Ireland has the highest rate of low pay among western EU states [most acutely] for migrant workers (almost one-fifth of Ihe workforce), women, younger and older workers…

…While previous definitions [of “decent work” or a good job in Ireland] typically included fair wages and employment benefits such as a pension and healthcare cover, recent research suggests workers [want] more flexible and better-quality jobs in which [they] are appreciated … and properly supervised…..

…..Given the record levels of job vacancies in Ireland – even with recent foreign tech company job cuts – two untapped labour sources are right under our noses:

1. Women workers: … the exodus of women from the labour market during the pandemic was striking. In the first half of 2020 alone, more than 70,000 women left the Irish job market. This trend has since been partially reversed with a 59% female labour force participation rate in 2022. But women still face barriers to decent work including unpaid caring duties, interrupted work histories and being more likely to be underemployed or stuck in precarious or low-paid employment.

2. Older workers: People in the developed world are living longer, more active lives. As a result, governments in many OECD countries are encouraging continued participation in paid work. But this is challenging for employers and employees. Result’s from Ireland’s first Longitudinal Study on Ageing shows workers approaching pension age tend to work fewer hours or part-time. Workplace ageism also remains a barrier to work for this section of the population – while many firms employ older workers, few recruit them.

The world is reeling from recent tech job losses and the global recession. But Ireland is well positioned to respond to these challenges if it can address its labour market inequality.

___________________________________________________________

?U.S. House sends Equal Pay for Team USA Act to Pres. Biden in latest women’s sports win.

The House has passed a bill that ensures equal compensation for U.S. women competing in international events, a piece of legislation that came out of the U.S. women’s soccer team’s long battle to be paid as much as the men.

…passed late Wednesday [and earlier by the Senate, ready now for the President to sign, the act] will require all athletes representing the United States in global competition to receive equal pay and benefits in their sport, regardless of gender. It covers America’s 50-plus national sports and requires the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to handle oversight….

…Over the past decade, most Olympic sports in the U.S. have met USOPC standards regarding equal compensation. But there remained inequities between the men’s and women’s soccer teams — whose roles in international events, such as the World Cup, resulted in unequal pay structures and different oversight — that led legislators to seek to enshrine those standards into law….

The gender wage gap

…has been a longstanding issue, and athletics is no exception. In 2022, the U.S. Soccer Federation made history when it announced a plan for equal pay between its men’s and women’s teams, [two months after losing the 2019 federal lawsuit filed by 28 of the women players] but many other sports continue to lag behind.

Russia’s detention of Brittney Griner has brought these questions to the forefront, with many questioning why the WNBA superstar had to seek extra work overseas during the off-season at all. 2021-2022 season data from Basketball Reference shows the average NBA player earning $5.3 million a year, while the average WNBA player earns $130,000….

_______________________________________________________________

^{ReligionNewsService:} Witches and wise men and ‘old magic’: A look at the spookier origins of Christmas lore

…the story of the Italian witch Befana … remains popular not only in Italy, but also around the world.

According to legend, Befana regretted turning down an invitation from the wise men to join them on their journey to see the baby Jesus [because she hadn’t finished her work that day]… The Christmas witch now [rides a broom through the skies to drop] toys down chimneys across Italy and beyond on the eve of Epiphany, still in search of the baby.

From what I’ve read of LaBefana over the years, her story may actually predate that of the bewhiskered fellow with the sleigh. I’ve also read that prior to common 12-month calendar (December was originally the 10th month), and calculating by the weather and astronomical events in the story of the magi (as in “magic” ), the birth of Jesus was actually in October. Where LaBefana apparently got left behind, made over into an evil old woman, instead of the poor, kind, hardworking, generous one of legend. Just coincidence? You decide.

_______________________________________________________________

Tonight is the seventh night of Chanuka

…In Yemen and North Africa, [this] night of Hanukkah marks Chag Ha’Banot (“Eid Al Banat” in Judeo-Arabic), or The Festival of Daughters, which celebrates one of the best things Judaism has given to the world: Jewish women. [This is a festival of] singing, dancing and lighting the hanukkiah in honor of Jewish women like Judith, the young widow-turned-heroine of the Hanukkah story  — the Book of Judith is on par with the Book of Maccabees itself). Judith falsely told the brutal Syrian Greek General Holofernes she’d help him and his army take the city of Bethulia, offering him salty cheese and wine and then, once he was drunk enough, beheading him. The sight of their headless general terrified enemy soldiers into fleeing and revived the morale of Maccabee fighters.

In countries like Libya and Tunisia, women traditionally went to synagogue on Chag Ha’Banot to touch the Torah and pray for their daughters’ health; young women and old women would dance together; girls who had turned their backs against one another would reconcile; and, in many communities, there was a feast in honor of Judith,,,

___________________________________________________________

This Week In The War On Women meets Saturday evenings & reblogs across the week. Everyone interested is welcome to comment, bring news links & stories, and consider joining to reblog here or write for the group. For automatic delivery to yr Activity Stream of our posts & reblogs, click the FOLLOW button HERE.