Marianne Møllmann's blog

On January 25, the mayor of Los Angeles signed regulation that requires the use of condoms by all performers in adult movies filmed within the city’s borders. Public health advocates have unsurprisingly celebrated the regulation, but there are some reasons why the ordinance may not be as effective as one might hope.

One key reason for the success of state legislatures in restricting women's right to choose might be that the fight over abortion in the United States historically has been framed as an issue of privacy. And the right to privacy offers poor protection for what is also an issue of life, health, and—above all—discrimination.

Race, class, ethnicity, and sex still determine, to a great degree, how justice is dispensed and whether people are treated justly by the United States legal system.  Recent news stories and hard data show just how far we remain from Martin Luther King's "promised land."

FGM is often justified with direct reference to fixed gender roles, how women "should" be and the possibilities for financial security FGM supposedly affords. Breast augmentation surgery is carried out for similar reasons with similar risks and results. Both interventions have no discernible health benefits and have potentially negative impact on women’s sexual health, as well as a number of other potential serious health effects. How can we stop them?

Since household income has been declining over time (and proportionally fewer individuals earn more than twice the poverty level), the silver lining of the 2008 economic crisis might be that more Americans start seeing poverty for what it is: not something anyone “deserves.” 

As a society, the way we think about most social phenomena—including sexual assault—is influenced by both facts and morals. But in the United States, the way we think about rape has, for decades, been operating with an outdated version of both.

This week, Senators Leahy and Crapo introduced a bill to reauthorize and amend the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The bad news is that the proposed bill substantively slashes funding by almost 20 percent.

Coercive sterilizations and castration are at the extreme end of a spectrum that also includes criminal sanctions for drug use during pregnancy and barring LBGT individuals from in-vitro fertilization services and adoption, as well as a host of other policies geared at making pregnancy and parenting difficult for those deemed unworthy.

Sexual harassment in middle and high schools today is motivated by either misogyny or homophobia. Neither has to do with sex. And neither would be helped by treating sexual harassment between children as a result of overactive hormones to be dismissed.

Perhaps the most interesting question in the juxtaposition of women’s rights (or gay rights, or ethnic minority rights) and democracy is not whether some people’s rights are sacrificed for popular rule (they are), but rather whether they should be as a matter of principle.