Postpartum Progress

As part of our work with Postpartum Health Alliance, I'd like to highlight a blog called Postpartum Progress.

Written by Katherine Stone, Postpartum Progress is the most widely-read blog in the United States on the subject of postpartum illnesses. Through this blog, Stone offers an amazing variety of resources including books, articles in the media, event notifications, and personal stories of support. Apart from the obvious utility of the resources Postpartum Progress provides, I think perhaps what makes Postpartum Progress so engaging is Stone's ability to be honest when relating painful and private moments of her past including thoughtful discussions about anti-depressants and hospitalization. She has probably saved countless lives just by showing women that they are not alone and that they can get through this difficult time.

If you have ever wanted to become more informed about this important and pervasive issue, Postpartum Progress is definitely the place to start. As a small sampling of Stone's work, I'll leave you with some entries from the Reader's Favorites section of Postpartum Progress.

5 Things Every New Mother Should Know About PPD
Postpartum Depression and the Glint of Judgment
Straight Talk About Hospitalization and Postpartum Depression

Rape is the rapist's fault

A national poll in Ireland shows that a large percentage of people believe that rape survivors bear some or all of the blame for their attack.

More than 30% think a victim is some way responsible if she flirts with a man or fails to say no clearly.

10% of people think the victim is entirely at fault if she has had a number of sexual partners.

37% think a woman who flirts extensively is at least complicit, if not completely in the wrong, if she is the victim of a sex crime.

One in three think a woman is either partly or fully to blame if she wears revealing clothes.

38% believe a woman must share some of the blame if she walks through a deserted area.

Cliona Saidlear, policy officer at Rape Crisis Network Ireland told the press that the results of this study account for the fact that Ireland has the lowest rape conviction rate in Europe.

“We as a society need to have this discussion. It is not just about what other people can do, these are attitudes we can change ourselves because this is not acceptable. If people are thinking somehow because you are drunk or wear certain clothes you are inviting rape then it makes it even harder for a woman to report what happened. You can see this in the massive levels of under-reporting by the victims of rape.”

This statement could just as well have been directed at an American audience. In a nation where this passes for journalism, and this passes for a harmless prank, we can't deny a serious problem of victim blaming with regard to violence against women. Fortunately, the study did show some hope in the fact that younger people were much more likely to place the blame solely on the perpetrator.

Via Feministing

Why you shouldn't mess with artists

They will remember what you look like.

No way to know

According to a New York Times article, the general consensus is that there is no way to know how many innocent people are currently serving time or on death row. While that is not really a new revelation, the fact that at least one member of the US Supreme Court seems to see no need for reform within our justice system is disturbing news to me.

A couple of years ago, Justice Antonin Scalia, concurring in a Supreme Court death penalty decision, took stock of the American criminal justice system and pronounced himself satisfied. The rate at which innocent people are convicted of felonies is, he said, less than three-hundredths of 1 percent — .027 percent, to be exact.
That rate, he said, is acceptable. “One cannot have a system of criminal punishment without accepting the possibility that someone will be punished mistakenly,” he wrote. “That is a truism, not a revelation.”

Now call me an idealist, but I consider even one innocent person having years of their life taken away, or being put to death for a crime they didn't commit to be a serious problem that shouldn't be light-heartedly dismissed in an effort to seem tough and intellectual. But my philosophical disagreements aside, Scalia's math is decidedly fuzzy. As Mr. Liptak and the Innocence Blog both point out, Judge Scalia is getting this .027 statistic by using the discredited methodology of dividing an estimate of the number of exonerated prisoners, almost all of them in murder and rape cases, by the total of all felony convictions.

As [University of Michigan law professor Samuel]Gross points in a recent law review article: “By this logic, we could estimate the proportion of baseball players who’ve used steroids by dividing the number of major league players who’ve been caught by the total of all baseball players at all levels: major league, minor league, semipro, college and Little League — and maybe throwing in football and basketball players as well.”

Applying more logical methods, Gross estimates the rate of wrongful conviction of death row cases to be more along the lines of 2.3% to 5%. A recent study of randomly selected cases in Virginia showed a possible rate of 9%. The Innocence Project states the rate could be even higher due to the fact that many crimes are not always dependent on biological evidence and therefore it is harder to prove someone's innocence.

The Innocence Project has always said that DNA exonerations are just the tip of the iceberg, since only 5-10% of all criminal cases involve biological evidence that can be subjected to DNA testing (and even in those cases, the evidence is often lost, destroyed or too degraded to yield results in DNA testing). But the 215 wrongful convictions overturned to date by DNA testing illustrate the broader causes of wrongful conviction and show the need for reforms that can prevent injustice.

Despite the possibility that, even if the low number of 2.3% is applied, over the last three decades 185,000 people have spent time in jail or been killed for crimes they did not commit, Justice Scalia remains optimistic, writing:“Reversal of an erroneous conviction demonstrates not the failure of the system but its success.” He seems happy to ignore the fact that without the tireless efforts of groups like the Innocence Project these erroneous convictions would probably never be discovered by the "system" he so praises.

Do you know this woman?

Over at Black and Missing but not Forgotten, Deidra has posted a new story about an unidentified woman whose remains were found in La Vergne, TN back in November 2007. An autopsy determined that the woman was shot in the head and stabbed repeatedly. Her arms and legs were also bound with a green cord similar to that of a yard trimmer. Unfortunately, La Vergne police are still unable to identify the victim which has made it impossible to track down her killer. They not giving up however, and they have released a reconstruction of her face in the hopes that someone will recognize her.

According to La Vergne police the woman was probably killed in April or May 2007. The autopsy revealed that she was an African-American female between the ages of 25 and 47 and approximately 5 feet 5 inches tall. Several pieces of jewelry were also found at the scene including an Avon bracelet with at least eight feline photos in it, a bracelet with ceramic beads bound with a dark cord, and a ring believed to be gold-plated with light blue and amber-colored stones.

If you have any information on the identity of this woman, please call the La Vergne Police Department at 615-793-7745. Even if you have no new information, reposting this story would be a big help, as someone has to recognize her. Also, visit the original story at Black and Missing to view other related links including video of the jewelry found at the scene.

Domestic Violence is never okay

Cross-Posted

This month, two players for the Pittsburgh Steelers were charged in separate domestic violence incidents within 11 days of one another. However, while wide receiver Cedrick Wilson was released from his contract, linebacker James Harrison is being allowed to remain with the team. Both men assaulted the mother of their children. Both men were charged with simple assault. There appear to be only two differences between these men. The first is Harrison's alleged motivation.

"What Jimmy Harrison was doing and how the incident occurred, what he was trying to do was really well worth it," [Dan] Rooney [team chairman] said of Harrison's initial intent with his son. "He was doing something that was good, wanted to take his son to get baptized where he lived and things like that. She said she didn't want to do it."

Harrison is charged with breaking down the door to his girlfriend's home, breaking her cell phone in half as she attempted to call 911, and slapping her in the face, knocking off her glasses. Apparently, this kind of conduct is perfectly acceptable in the NFL if it is done for religious reasons. As Feministing's Vanessa Valenti notes,

While the Steelers are getting quite the rep for violence against women as of late, the team managers have turned a blind eye to a player slapping his girlfriend because what he was trying to do "was really well worth it."

When the Steelers were accused of condoning domestic violence they released a statement to "clarify" that they do not approve of domestic violence for any reason, but that "Each incident must be considered on a case-by-case basis."
Melissa McEwan at Shakesville brought up another interesting difference between these two players' "cases" that is worth examining.

....[W]hat's also notable is that the man who was released from his contract assaulted his ex-girlfriend, while the man who was retained on the team assaulted his current girlfriend—and undoubtedly the still-pervasive attitude that domestic violence is "between a man and his woman" affected the decision. As long as she stays with him, as long as she's willing to suffer the abuse, that's "their" business.

The ex-girlfriend, by virtue of her "ex" status, no longer belonged to Wilson, so it's easy to see why his hitting her was wrong. But things are always muddier, somehow, when it's a current girlfriend or wife, which signifies our collective belief that men still have some ownership of women with whom they're in a relationship, and therefore have more right to do ugly things to them than men who don't have any claim over them.

Many women in domestic violence situations feel judged by the outside world because of the pervasive societal notion that if they are unhappy, they should "just leave." There are many reasons that women do not leave violent relationships. There are economic considerations, emotional attachment, the societal belief that a "broken home" is bad for children, and family pressures. A less expected but very prevalent reason that women stay in violent relationships is safety. Abusers often threaten to kill their victims, themselves, their victim's family, and/or their children if they ever try to escape or expose the abuse. Also, statistically a woman in a violent relationship is most likely to be killed after she leaves or while she is in the process of leaving.

Given this societal prejudice it would not be surprising if that was a real factor in the Steeler's "case-by-case" decision to keep Harrison on the team. Email the Steelers or call their administrative offices at (412) 432-7800 and tell them that there is no case in which condoning violence against women is appropriate.

New Partner Organization!

Post Partum Health Alliance has joined us a partner organization! PHA is a San Diego based organization who provides support groups, information, a "warmline", and other support services that remind moms who are going through post partum difficulties: "You are not alone."

Post Partum Health Alliance is an all-volunteer organization that does not receive any government funding. Their sole source of financial support is donations from private citizens.

If you're in the area, be sure to check out MamaFest2008, or
drop them a line to find out how you can help.