Once trapped inside the military brothels, women were raped and beaten, and those who became pregnant were forced to have abortions. Even after Japan lost the war, and the Allied Forces liberated the camps, some of the “comfort stations” were maintained for the use of Western soldiers. Seventy-five percent of these women are believed to have died in the war, while many survivors were left infertile because of sexual trauma or venereal disease.

It is regarded widely as one of the worst offenses committed by Japan during the war, and Japan issued a formal apology to “comfort women” in 1993. But many still say the country hasn’t appropriately atoned for this atrocity and feel further compensation should be offered to the surviving women.

And it doesn’t help that Toru Hashimoto, the mayor of Osaka (one of Japan’s biggest cities) recently said that military brothels served a needed role in giving relaxation to distressed soldiers:

When soldiers are risking their lives by running through storms of bullets, and you want to give these emotionally charged soldiers a rest somewhere, it’s clear that you need a comfort women system.

He went on to say that it was “necessary at the time to maintain discipline in the army” and that the brothels served as a healthy outlet for soldiers in controlling sexual energy.

His remarks were swiftly denounced by human rights groups, including Amnesty International, which has long criticized Japan for not properly acknowledging the women affected. AI’s recently released human rights report states that the Japanese government continues to deny “justice for the survivors of Japan’s military sexual slavery system” and called out Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, for his past insistence that the “comfort women” were volunteers.

Hashimoto and Abe are harsh reminders that some refuse to see the “comfort woman” system for what it was: systematic, state-organized mass rape. In putting blinders on, they help downplay the continuance of sexual violence in wars today.

Photo of “Purity Lost Forever” by Kang Duk Kyung taken from the House of Sharing in Gwangju, South Korea, a museum and communal home for surviving women

“What mother would let her child wear such a short skirt?”

Think about it: How often do we police girls’ bodies? Recent talk of school dress codes reveals that it happens an awful lot, and for some confused reasons.

After a New Jersey middle school banned strapless dresses from a school dance, more schools have been making headlines with various clothing bans and restrictions. Some of these bans focus on attire for dances while others target daily wear such as yoga pants and low-cut tops. All, however, focus only on girls’ clothing, and most of these restrictions are put in place to avoid “distracting” other students (i.e. the boys).

The concern for overly exposed young bodies may be well-intentioned. With society fetishizing girls at younger and younger ages, girls are instructed to self-objectify and see themselves as sexual objects, something to be looked at. A laundry list of problems can come from obsessing over one’s appearance: eating disorders, depression, low self-worth. Who wouldn’t want to spare her daughter from these struggles?

But these dress codes fall short of being legitimately helpful. What we fail to consider when enforcing restrictions on skirt-length and the tightness of pants is the girls themselves—not just their clothes, but their thoughts, emotions, budding sexuality and self-image.

Instead, these restrictions are executed with distracted boys in mind, casting girls as inherent sexual threats needing to be tamed. Dress restrictions in schools contribute to the very problem they aim to solve: the objectification of young girls. When you tell a girl what to wear (or force her to cover up with an oversized T-shirt), you control her body. When you control a girl’s body—even if it is ostensibly for her “own good”—you take away her agency. You tell her that her body is not her own.

When you deem a girl’s dress “inappropriate,” you’re also telling her, “Because your body may distract boys, your body is inappropriate. Cover it up.” You recontextualize her body; she now exists through the male gaze.

Says Soraya Chemaly in The Huffington Post,

What is a girl supposed to think in the morning when she wakes up and tries to decide what to wear to school? They aren’t idiots. The logical conclusion of the “distracting” issue is, “Will I turn someone on if I wear this?” Now who is doing the sexualizing? My daughters would never have thought these things without the help of their school.

Suddenly, offensive hypersexuality isn’t just something a girl sees in music videos or magazines: It’s embodied in her, and her dress-coded school reminds her of that every day.

So what about those distracted young boys? Where do they come in? By barring particular outfits from school, dress codes help boys identify and objectify “inappropriate” girls and women. Girls who violate dress codes are violating rules, and girls who violate rules are bad. Bad girls can be desirable and sexy, but they don’t necessarily deserve respect (even from other girls).

And where respect is absent, objectification is easy. In her guide to self-objectification, Caroline Heldman explains how sexually objectified women are dehumanized and viewed as “less competent and worthy of empathy by both men and women.” Those who are dehumanized may be mistreated and made to feel inadequate. And if poor self-image is linked with objectification, it isn’t hard to see that this cycle feeds itself: Those who are objectified by others are treated as less than human, and in understanding themselves as less than human may self-objectify.

Asking girls to cover up is a Band-Aid solution to far more socially ingrained problems such as general misogyny and rape culture. As long as a girl or woman is always sexualized, it won’t matter how much she covers up—she’ll still be faulted for her inappropriate behavior.

It’s unfair to expect a young girl to understand the full implications of her body—implications put in place by an all-too-often misogynistic society—and punish her for not knowing better. A girl needs empowerment, not more complications in her relationship with her body. Jada Pinkett Smith had the right idea when asked why she would “let” her daughter Willow shave her head:

This is a world where women, girls are constantly reminded that they don’t belong to themselves; that their bodies are not their own, nor their power, or self determination. I made a promise to endow my little girl with the power to always know that her body, spirit, and her mind are her domain. Willow cut her hair because her beauty, her value, her worth is not measured by the length of her hair … even little girls have the right to own themselves.

Photograph credited to Lindsay Kamikawa via SanClemente Patch

A report just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows teen birth rates dropped 25 percent in five years to a record-breaking low in 2011. The CDC has also reported that teens are waiting longer to have sex for the first time and are using contraception more often when they do become sexually active.

All states except two—North Dakota and West Virginia—had a 15 percent or more decrease in teen births between 2007 and 2011.  Are we surprised that North Dakota has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country?

Birth rates for U.S. teenagers 15–19 in 1991, 2007 and 2011.

Percent change in birth rates for U.S. teenagers 15–19, by state, from 2007 to 2011.

Two groups, African-American and Hispanic-American teens, saw the greatest decrease in teen birth rates. These groups historically have had higher teen birth rates, so the lowered rates are encouraging. At a national average, African-American teens had a 24 percent decrease and Hispanic teens had a 34 percent decrease over the five years.

Since 1991 there has been a 50 percent drop in teen birth rates among white, Hispanic and Native Americans, and a 60 percent drop for African-American and Asian or Pacific Islander girls. The CDC estimates that if these decreased rates had not occurred, 3.6 million children would have been born to teenagers in those two decades.

While sex-ed and birth control certainly make a big impact on teen birth rates, studies have also shown that birth rates sometimes go down during tough economic times. Either way, comprehensive sex education in schools is the best way for teens to understand how properly to protect against STIs and pregnancy. Despite the rates declining, the U.S. still has one of the highest teen birth rates among Western nations, and still too many sexually active young people don’t understand how their own bodies work.

Charts created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new policy states,

No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone … [but BSA] will maintain the current membership policy for all adult leaders.

While some parents will undoubtedly pull their boys out of the Scouts because of personal objections to homosexuality, the new ruling will certainly bring in gay boys who have been patiently wanting to join, as well as the sons of parents who have kept their children out of the Boy Scouts because they did not support the discriminatory BSA ban.

Some conservative churches that sponsor troops have made it clear that they did not want the ban on openly gay youths lifted, and have threatened to pull their support. Other sponsors have warned they would pull financial support if the ban was lifted, which could lead to BSA losing a significant amount of their funding. But again, new sources of funding may step forward because of the inclusion of gay Scouts.

There are currently more than 100,000 scouting units in the United States and about 70 percent of them are organized under religious institutions. Some more liberal religious institutions have shown their support for the lifting of the ban.

Many have argued that this was a missed opportunity by the BSA to fully update its policy and remove all anti-gay discrimination. Richard Ferraro, vice president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination, told The New York Times,

What this resolution appears to be doing is reinforcing the outrageous idea that gay people somehow pose a threat to kids, which experts like the American Psychological Association have dismissed for more than a decade.

While we’re happy that openly gay boys can now be Scouts, until the Boy Scouts of America lifts its ban on all openly gay individuals, Ms. is holding its applause.

Support full non-discrimination in Boy Scouts for America by taking action through Scouts for Equality.

Photo of Boy Scouts of America stamp (illustrated by Norman Rockwell) under Wikimedia Commons.

The law, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer in April 2012, caused Arizona to be one of the most restrictive states in the country on reproductive rights during the time that the ban was in effect. Said Talcott Camp, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, one of the organizations that challenged the ban in court last year,

The ban would have forced a physician caring for a woman with a high-risk pregnancy to wait until her condition poses an immediate threat of death or major medical damage before offering her the care she needs.

Defenders of the ban stated that it constituted a medical regulation rather than a law, thereby still allowing doctors to carry out abortions in medical emergencies. However, Judge Marsha Berzon, one of the three-judge panel for the court, rejected this defense, considering the ban to be a law prohibiting abortion before viability.

All pre-viability abortion bans would seem to violate U.S. Supreme Court rulings, particularly Roe v. Wade, which sets viability at 24 weeks.

Image of U.S. Supreme Court Ninth Circuit by Wikimedia Commons under license from Creative Commons 3.0

Conservative religious lawmakers argue that the law encourages “disobedience,” and says the law goes against Islamic principles (the familiar blame-God-for-the-freedoms-we-take-from-you argument). Mandavi Abdul Rahmani, one of the conservative lawmakers who opposes the law, said the Koran makes it clear that a man can beat his wife if she does not obey him, as long as she isn’t permanently harmed. (Hey, bruises go away! Even broken bones heal!) He added, “Adultery itself is a crime in Islam, whether it is by force or not.”

Just days after lawmakers rejected the law, Human Rights Watch released a report revealing that in the last 18 months, the number of women and girls in Afghanistan who have been jailed for “moral crimes” has risen 50 percent—with almost 20 percent of the females incarcerated being under age 18. What counts as a “moral crime” in Afghanistan? Women in Afghanistan can be jailed under Shariah Islamic law for: running away from home, the “intent” to commit adultery, and being raped by a man who is not her husband (under the guise of “sex outside marriage” or “adultery”).

The Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women actually has been in effect since 2009, but only under presidential decree—which means it is potentially only in effect until Hamid Karzai’s term is over in 2014. And what will happen to Afghanistan women’s rights with the expected withdrawal of international troops from the country next year? Heather Barr, Human Rights Watch’s Afghanistan researcher told the Associated Press,

I think it’s possible that as everyone anticipates the departure of foreigners, there is a feeling that in a sense things can go back to normal, and… people will be free to ignore [women's rights] in the future.

Afghanistan wasn’t always so opposed to women’s rights. In an attempt to modernize the country, King Amanullah, who ruled Afghanistan from 1919 to 1929, promoted freedom for women in a number of ways, such as allowing girls to go to school and encouraging women to unveil themselves and adopt what they called a more “Western” style of clothing. In 1921 he created a law that criminalized forced marriage, child marriage and paying for a bride.

Things began to slip backward, however, when Afghanistan entered its post-communist era under the Taliban. Taliban leaders declared that women were no longer allowed to leave their homes without a man accompanying them and that they must wear the traditional head-to-toe-covering burqa. Women during this time were also denied education, health care and the right to go to work. Tim McGirk of TIME writes,

The Taliban often argued that the brutal restrictions they placed on women were actually a way of revering and protecting the opposite sex. The behavior of the Taliban during the six years they expanded their rule in Afghanistan made a mockery of that claim.

Once the Taliban fell in 2001, women finally had the chance to pick up the pieces of their basic human rights. Nearly 3 million Afghan girls are currently in school and more than a quarter of the seats in parliament are occupied by women. After all the progress they’ve made in the last 12 years, women’s rights activists aren’t ready to hand over their freedoms. They are battling against conservative lawmakers who believe legislation for women’s freedoms will lead to social chaos.

One of those women activists, Wazhma Frogh, recently debated the topic on live television in Afghanistan, and says,

What happened [in the Parliament] is a good reminder to the whole world that after 12 years of struggle and sacrifice we are handing over the fate of Afghan women into the hands of these guys who are ready to take away every right from women.

Human Rights Watch is urging international donors to pressure Afghanistan’s government to improve women’s rights in the country. The critical date for activists is April 2014, when Afghanistan elects a new president who will have the power to eliminate the Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women. Fawzia Koofi, the head of Parliament’s women’s commission, says,

2014 is coming, change is coming, and the future of women in this country is uncertain.

Photo of Afghan people in 1927 under Wikimedia Commons.

Pentagon officials last week announced that an Army sergeant in Fort Hood, Texas, who worked as a a sexual assault prevention and response coordinator is under investigation for allegations of “pandering, abusive sexual contact, assault and maltreatment of subordinates.” The allegation of “pandering,” according to a source who spoke to The New York Times and asked to remain anonymous, is that the soldier was helping manage a prostitution operation—one that may have involved a subordinate.

Is this deja vu all over again? Just two weeks ago, Air Force Col. Jeff Krusinski, chief of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, was  charged with sexual battery in Arlington, Va. How reassuring these weekly allegations must be to women in the military!

In further evidence of the ineffective response to military sexual assault, it was also discovered recently that there was a brochure distributed at Shaw Air Force Base telling potential victims of sexual assault that if they are attacked, “it may be advisable to submit than to resist.” Submit? You mean like the off-duty U.S. navy sailor who beat her attacker into submission when he tried to rape her at knifepoint? We realize not everyone can do to their attacker what the off-duty sailor did to hers, but the message that it’s the survivor’s responsibility to “submit” is just another form of victim-blaming. Why aren’t we distributing brochures called “Stop Raping“?

Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY) announced last Wednesday that a formal review of all materials to service members is going to be conducted. In a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Slaughter says:

We cannot perpetuate the myths of sexual assault and expect to see real change in the prevalence of such events at the same time.

The ongoing problem of military sexual assault may be coming to a tipping point, after all these stunning revelations and especially because women will soon be officially allowed in direct combat roles. After last Tuesday’s allegation, Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), who co-chairs the Military Sexual Assault Prevention Caucus told Roll Call:

They still seem to be incredibly clueless … When we talk to the leadership, I think they honestly don’t understand that they have a culture problem, which they should see in the statistics.

With the documentary The Invisible War, front-page news on the issue and the first Senate hearing about military sexual assault in more than a decade, maybe the underreported nature of these assaults will finally start to change. From the 2010 to the 2012 fiscal year, the number of reported sexual assaults went up by 5.7 percent. It’s not a drastic increase, but maybe it’s the beginning of a trend. With all this in mind, will the military finally realize they aren’t doing enough to stop this culture of sexual assault?

For more on women in direct combat roles and how it affects the conversation about military sexual assault, see author Molly M. Ginty’s article titled “The Tipping Point” in the new Spring 2013 issue of Ms. 

Photo of U.S. soldiers used under Wikimedia Commons.

Ride inspired countless girls across the United States to break barriers to scientific achievement, and captured the nation’s imagination when she boarded the Challenger spacecraft in the summer of 1983 and blasted off into space and history books. After she left NASA in 1987, she co-founded Sally Ride Science, which motivates young people, especially girls, to pursue their passions in STEM fields. For her lifetime of accomplishments, she has been inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame, the California Hall of Fame and the Astronaut Hall of Fame. The legend died at the age of 61 last year from pancreatic cancer.

President Obama issued this statement:

We remember Sally Ride not just as a national hero, but as a role model to generations of young women. Sally inspired us to reach for the stars, and she advocated for a greater focus on the science, technology, engineering and math that would help us get there. Sally showed us that there are no limits to what we can achieve.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, will be awarded on Ride’s behalf in a White House ceremony later this year. In addition to the medal, NASA established a new internship program in her honor that will target underserved students. The Sally Ride Internship will help aspiring scientists pursue research interests at NASA and allow them to work alongside NASA physicists and engineers.

Photo courtesy U.S. National Archives of via Creative Commons 2.0.

The new law was officially added to the statute books of France after the country’s Constitutional Council rejected challenges from a conservative opposition party on Friday. In its ruling, the Council stated that it approved the law “in the name of the principle of equality, to allow homosexual couples to marry and benefit from the legal status linked to marriage” and to guarantee same-sex couples “the same protection in the event of divorce.” The latest addition to France’s civil code simply reads: Marriage is a contract between two people of different sex or the same sex.

President Hollande said after passing the law,

I want the law to apply throughout the land, in full, and I will not accept any disruption of these marriages.

France is the 14th country to legalize gay marriage. In the U.S., 12 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized same-sex marriage.

The new French law is being touted as the most notable social reform in the country since the 1981 banning of the death penalty. The first same-sex marriages in France are expected to take place by the end of May.

Photo courtesy of RoguePlanet via Creative Commons 2.0.

But what about FB pages, groups and images that condone or encourage rape or domestic violence, such as Fly Kicking Sluts in the Uterus, Kicking your Girlfriend in the Fanny because she won’t make you a Sandwich, Violently Raping Your Friend Just for Laughs or Raping your Girlfriend? The moderators let those fly.

Here’s how writer/activist Soraya Chemaly, Jaclyn Friedman of Women, Action, & the Media (WAM!) and Laura Bates of The Everyday Sexism Project describe the policy in “An Open Letter to Facebook,”

It appears that Facebook considers violence against women to be less offensive than non-violent images of women’s bodies, and that the only acceptable representation of women’s nudity are those in which women appear as sex objects or the victims of abuse.  Your common practice of allowing this content by appending a [humor] disclaimer to said content literally treats violence targeting women as a joke.

WAM!—backed by dozens of other groups (including Ms. magazine)—is fed up with this wink-wink treatment of violence against women. So it’s launched a campaign today to hold Facebook’s feet to the fire, so to speak:

Specifically, we call on you, Facebook, to take three actions:

1. Recognize speech that trivializes or glorifies violence against girls and women as hate speech and make a commitment that you will not tolerate this content.
2. Effectively train moderators to recognize and remove gender-based hate speech.
3. Effectively train moderators to understand how online harassment differently affects women and men, in part due to the real-world pandemic of violence against women.

To this end, we are calling on Facebook users to contact advertisers whose ads on Facebook appear next to content that targets women for violence, to ask these companies to withdraw from advertising on Facebook until you take the above actions to ban gender-based hate speech on your site.

WAM!’s Take Action to End Gender-Based Hate Speech on Facebook campaign includes trigger-warning’d examples of hellacious images posted on Facebook, a very useful FAQ and links to five prominent companies “whose Facebook ads have appeared alongside violent, hateful content.” Campaign supporters are urged to contact these companies—by tweet, email or FB message—and ask them to stop advertising on Facebook until it takes “real action to end gender-based hate speech on its site.”

Write Chemaly, Friedman and Bates:

In a world in which hundreds of thousands of women are assaulted daily and where intimate partner violence  remains one of the leading causes of death for women around the world, it is not possible to sit on the fence.  We call on Facebook to make the only responsible decision and take swift, clear action on this issue, to bring your policy on rape and domestic violence into line with your own moderation goals and guidelines.

One other way to join this campaign: tweet under the hashtag #FBRape. Let’s see how our voices together can make change!!

Photo is a screenshot from Facebook