Broadsheet
What's so bad about "sweetie," anyway?
Likely Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama this week found himself under one of those unflattering spotlights -- the kind that shines on small utterances, making them appear brighter and bigger than they might otherwise have been -- when he called female reporter Peggy Agar "sweetie," after the reporter at Detroit's ABC-TV affiliate approached him during his visit to the Chrysler LLC plant in Michigan and asked him, "Senator, how are you going to help the American autoworkers?" Obama responded by waving Agar off, saying, "Hold on a second, sweetie."
The clip gained immediate YouTube traction, and within hours of its airing, Obama left a message for Agar in which he apologized for failing to answer her question, as well as for referring to her as "sweetie." He called his use of the word "a bad habit of mine." "I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front," Obama told Agar.
Obama's apology was timely, gracious and sincere. But he's right that he does have a little "sweetie" problem, one he should try hard to get over before November.
In early April, it was reported that the Illinois senator addressed a female factory worker in Allentown, Pa., as "sweetie." ABC quickly dug up footage of Obama telling a female supporter, "Sweetie, if I start with a picture I will never get out of here," and another one, "Sweetie, if I start doing autographs, I won't be able to get [out]..."
Not everyone is offended.
On "The View," Whoopi Goldberg said, "What he meant to say, I believe, was with no disrespect, because I call everyone 'sweetie' if I don't know their name." And on "Good Morning America," a practically purring Diane Sawyer said, "Don't you think it's going too far to care about that stuff?"
Well, actually, no. It's not going too far to care about that stuff. To care about it does not mean that anyone should or would change their votes or their larger feelings about Obama or his candidacy. But calling attention to language, "caring about that stuff," is the only way to examine and understand how language can convey diminishment, whether that diminishment is based on gender, race, age or, in this case ... power.
But to start at the beginning: What is so bad about calling someone "sweetie," anyway?
Often, nothing at all. "Sweetie" -- a word redolent of sugar and spice and all the rest of that stuff little girls are made of -- is an endearment, an affectionate address, a nickname most often, but not always, applied to women. It's a warm word. I've been called it by my boyfriend, my mother, my female friends. Surely many women have enjoyed being called sweetie by someone they care about, just as many women have enjoyed being called "honey" or "babe."
But that does not mean that those same women would enjoy being called any of those things by a presidential candidate, especially one they'd not met before, especially in response to a question about the economic future of the autoworkers, and especially when the word is a fundamental part of a larger professional brushoff.
Yes, there are places in the country where "sweetie" is used to address strangers of both sexes; a waitress, for instance, might call both male and female customers "sweetie," as a conversational address, rather than an indication of personal familiarity. But that's pretty clearly not what was happening at the Chrysler plant, in part because the waitress doesn't often have a power dynamic with her customers that resembles the relationship between a male presidential candidate and a female reporter.
Is it the be all end all? No. Is it the most sexist thing a man could say to a woman? Certainly not.
But one of the odd qualities about the questions applied to this story has been the focus on whether Obama's intentions were premeditated, or stranger still, malevolent. Surely they were neither. As Goldberg said, the senator likely "meant ... no disrespect." Obama is an excellent candidate on women's issues, and has won the often controversial support of feminists who might otherwise have fallen in behind Hillary Clinton. But having good intentions, and good policies, does not mean that anyone is incapable of offense, disrespect or condescension.
So it is troubling that ABC's report was headlined "Obama's Sweetie: Spontaneous or Sexist?" and "Good Morning America's" "workplace contributor" Tory Johnson averred that anyone offended by someone's use of "sweetie" should speak up but "not assume that their intentions are bad." Johnson went on to warm of the dangers of "policing spontaneity ... we should let people be themselves."
These kinds of arguments suggest that words cannot be both spontaneous and sexist, as they often are. After having received some flak for his use of "sweetie" in Allentown, one should certainly hope that Obama's Detroit gaffe was spontaneous. Had he given it thought, he would surely never have used the word. Also troubling is the perception that "sexist" must equal "ill-willed" if it is to be deemed offensive. Someone could call a professional woman "sweetie" and mean it in an avuncular, affectionate, non-harming way -- the way Barack Obama no doubt meant to deploy it. But just because a word is not meant as an offense, does not mean that it isn't diminishing, paternalistic and disrespectful.
It is fair to say that this mini-press cycle should be a dust storm and not a tempest. It's fine to say that it shouldn't mean too much, that it doesn't offer any sharp new insight into Obama or his campaign.
But it's not fine to simply laugh it off. It's tempting, especially as a woman, especially as a strong woman, like Diane Sawyer, to establish that caring too much about a small thing like "sweetie" is lily-livered, feminine, weak. We've all, like Peggy Agar, been called far worse; to fret too much over the small stuff can be akin to crying wolf; it might only make the big stuff appear less serious. But as tempting as it is to project the cool-girl post-feminist attitude of not caring at all, it's also important to note that just because a small exchange doesn't mean everything, we don't have to pretend that it doesn't mean anything.
The idea that a professional woman might be taken aback by being called an infantalizing or feminizing diminutive is not a news flash. There is a scene from "Tootsie," a movie made more than 25 years ago, in which Dustin Hoffman's cross-dressing character, a man, assesses the differences in how men and women are spoken to in professional situations. As Hoffman, dressed as his female alter ego Dorothy Michaels, tells a chauvinist boss, "I have a name. It's Dorothy. It's not Tootsie or Toots or Sweetie or Honey or Doll ... Alan's always Alan, Tom's always Tom, and John's always John. I have a name too."
The point is not that Obama should have, or could have, known Agar's name. It's that had her name been Alan, Tom or John, he would not have called her "sweetie." That is true. It may not be evil or intentional or even that big of a deal. But it is fundamental and true. And what it tells us, in a small way, is that even in the year in which Obama's most serious competition has come from a woman running for what has historically been a man's job, gender still matters.
Make it stop: Professional baby planners
From the Department of You've Got to Be Kidding Me comes this ABC News story about women hiring baby planners -- like wedding planners, only more disturbing.
Baby planners will help expectant couples set up a baby registry, decorate a nursery, find "doulas, lactation specialists, personal trainers, nutritionists and personal maternity shoppers" -- personal maternity shoppers! -- and, most important, find a reliable nanny. They'll also find "mother's assistants" who will take care of sending out baby announcements and "returning the amount of presents" (seriously). All for a mere $100 an hour.
Now, I suppose I can see the appeal of using a baby planner, if one were tremendously busy and ludicrously wealthy. As baby planner client Jennifer Rein says, "It's extremely overwhelming ... I just had no idea what to expect, there are so many different marketing messages out there about all of these products that you need, and the way to do things. And, at this point, you don't know what to believe."
I totally hear that, but it just makes me sad that more people don't have (or don't choose to use) free resources to help them sort through all this. I mean, didn't "personal maternity shoppers" and "mother's assistants" used to be called sisters, aunties, girlfriends and Grandma? Once upon a time, couldn't you get the kid's dad to at least go return the extra breast pumps you were given? And waaaaay back when, didn't people write their own friggin' baby announcements and thank you notes? (Oh wait, the article didn't actually say anything about thank you notes, just about returning gifts. Sigh.)
Besides which, understandably overwhelmed women aren't even necessarily the target market for baby planners. Carla Roney, editor in chief of TheNestBaby.com, "says that as professional urban women start to have babies later in life, they have more disposable income and are going all-out to make the arrival of the baby an over-the-top, special event."
I'm sorry, but isn't the arrival of a new baby pretty much the definition of an "over-the-top, special event," all by itself? Or is that kind of thinking passé, too?
High-tech street harassment
In this week's clip for Current TV, I talk a bit more about that fascinating New York Times article on young Saudi women's experience of love.
Quote of the Day
As the Democratic standoff grinds to a close, the Washington Post takes a bracing look at one of the lessons of Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency. An excerpt from the piece, written by Marie Cocco:
"There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for 'change.' But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture."
Reading your way to a Y chromosome
When I was younger, I looked to literature to show me how to become all kinds of things I wasn't: the beats for how to be cool, Waugh and Wodehouse for how to be British, Capote for how to be fabulous. And now, thanks to the Art of Manliness blog, I am provided with a reading list that will instruct me in "How to Be a Man"!
As it turns out, reading my way to manhood is a lot like my 11th-grade curriculum ("Moby-Dick," "A Farewell to Arms," "Self-Reliance," "The Federalist Papers"), and apparently, also crucial to one's masculine development are Theodore Roosevelt, political philosophy from hundreds or even thousands of years ago (Plato's "Republic," "Leviathan," "The Prince") and World War II.
What isn't manly? Well, women, naturally. Books by female authors occupy three slots on the list of 100 titles -- the same number as biographies of Teddy Roosevelt. Of these, we have Mary Shelley and Harper Lee, both famous for two things -- producing a single work of fiction and having the provenance of that work consistently (if unfairly) questioned -- and Ayn Rand, who is to traditionally female attributes like empathy and interpersonal relationships what Grover Norquist is to functioning government. Jews don't make the cut either -- despite his status as our greatest living author and his landmark contributions to the field of masturbation, Philip Roth didn't make it onto the list. (Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller squeaked by, but only in their WWII incarnations.) And certainly not blacks -- not a single African-American author appears on the list. James Baldwin? Not manly. Kurt Vonnegut? Very, very manly. In fact, if his prominence here is any indication, cracking open "Slaughterhouse-Five" is the literary equivalent of a double oophorectomy, or years of testosterone therapy.
Thank God for Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" -- "a guide for how to live a life of pure decadence" -- or I'd think being a man was all about sober responsibility, reluctantly killing people and sleeping outside on a rock. Which prompts the question: If that's what men need to know, what about women? What would you put on a women's reading list? Would we have Jane Austen after Jane Austen, or is it possible that maybe, just maybe, "The Great Gatsby" has something to say to women, too?
The future is now: Solar-paneled bras
Everyone already knows that breasts have mysterious powers: After all, they can feed babies, hypnotize sexual partners and develop life-threatening diseases, and the sweat that forms in that crease beneath smells different from the sweat in any other part of the body. (Yes, I've spent time thinking about this.) And now, thanks to Trinity International Japan, maybe breasts can solve the energy crisis!
The Japanese lingerie maker has invented the "photovoltaic-powered bra," which features a solar panel that can generate enough electricity to charge a small electrical device. The upside? There's no excuse for your phone running out of battery power again! The downside? Since the device is solar powered, you have to wear your bra on the outside of your clothes.
But surely this is a small price to pay when the bra also features a reusable, refillable drink container in each cup, designed to cut down on disposable cans and bottles. It's like a beer helmet, but in your underwear. (See also: the wine rack.)
As for me, I say if wearing my bra on the outside of my shirt while I sip Diet Coke from each boob is going to save us all from death by glacial melt, then I will do so gladly. And if it's actually comfortable and comes in a variety of cup sizes, so much the better.
Those babies are so "jolie"!
Anyone looking for a break from depressing news about honor killings? Here's a piece of fluff for you, straight from the BBC (as everyone knows, fluffy news sounds less fluffy when read in a British accent): Angelina Jolie might give birth in France.
I know, I know. You've been staying up nights thinking to yourself, "What country -- nay, what continent -- will Jolie bless with the arrival of her twins?" Will it be Africa? No, no, Shiloh -- her other biological child -- called dibs on Namibia. (Fun trivia fact: Shiloh is the only infant to have been re-created in wax by Madame Tussauds!) Will it be Cambodia? Or Ethiopia? Or Vietnam? No, no and no. She's already adopted kids from all those places. According to Jolie, who was caught by the BBC at Cannes -- where she was promoting her new oeuvre, "Kung Fu Panda," she is not yet sure where she will give birth, but is "certainly thinking" about France. Sacre bleu!
Every once in a while I get so inured to our crazy obsession with the mundane details of celebrity lives that I find myself thinking that it's almost normal, for example, to have US Weekly "exclusives" about how John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston reportedly ate dinner together or how Mayer -- I hope you're sitting down -- "[Took] Jennifer Aniston's Pooch Norman For a Walk." (OK, OK, here's the link.) I start worrying that if we're already at the point where dog walking is headline news, 15 years from now there's going to be no new trash to read. (Justin Timberlake cleaned Jessica Simpson's cat's litter box? That is so 2008.) But I should have more trust in the tabloids. Apparently after being asked whether she'd consider popping her twins out in France, a Swedish reporter stepped in to ask if she'd maybe consider Sweden as well. "Not at this time," said Jolie. "But, you never know, there's more babies. Who knows?"
It's true. There are more babies. And if Jolie and Pitt continue their current rate of reproduction and adoption, Sweden's dream may well be realized. But I have another suggestion: If and when Jolie becomes pregnant again, she should hold a global auction over which country gets to be blessed with the birth of her child. Obsessed fans worldwide could donate money to Jolie's favorite humanitarian organizations, and as a prize, she'd give her kid their passport. Pretty babies, support for humanitarian causes, dual citizenship for the kid, more tabloid fodder ... everyone's a winner.
Another day, another honor killing
When I saw this article in the Observer about another honor killing in Iraq, my first instinct was to skip past it. I mean, what new is there to say about the horrific practice of killing women in the name of "honor"? But then it occurred to me that this is a topic where it doesn't really matter if there's nothing new to say -- it's important to recognize that this shit is happening in hopes that, by keeping this issue in people's consciousness, eventually we can stop it.
Here's the deal: A 17-year-old Iraqi named Rand Abdel-Qader became infatuated with a British soldier in Basra. When her father found out that she had a crush on the guy -- and that she had been seen speaking (yes, speaking) with him in public -- he was so angry that, as the Observer puts it, he "stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death." When Rand's horrified mother asked her two sons to try to rescue their sister, they instead helped Abdel-Qader kill her. And when the father was arrested, not only was he released after two hours, but -- according to Abdel-Qader -- the police congratulated him on what he had done. When Rand's shrouded corpse was thrown into a makeshift grave, her uncles spat on it in disgust.
So. There's that. But the Observer piece takes things a step further by going back to Rand's father to ask if he feels any remorse over what he has done. Any guesses on his response? Think maybe he harbors a little bit of regret over brutally murdering his only daughter? Here are some choice quotes:
-- "Death was the least she deserved ... I don't regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honors his religion."
-- "I don't have a daughter now and I prefer to say that I never had one. That girl humiliated me in front of my family and friends. Speaking with a foreign soldier, she lost what is the most precious thing for any woman."
-- "I have only two boys from now on. That girl was a mistake in my life. I know God is blessing me for what I did ... My sons are by my side, and they were men enough to help me finish the life of someone who just brought shame to ours."
-- "Everyone knows that honor killings are sometimes impossible not to commit."
-- "If I had realized what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her."
(All the above quotes are egregious, but this one sticks out to me. What she would become? Seems to me that by developing a crush, all Rand was becoming was a woman. One could argue that when you give birth to a baby girl, that transition shouldn't come as too much of a shocker -- but perhaps I'm just showing my biased opinion that having ovaries should not preclude you from being treated like a human being.)
When Abdel-Qader's wife (Rand's mother) told him she was divorcing and leaving him for murdering their daughter, he beat her so severely that he broke her arm. Now Abdel-Qader has supposedly been temporarily asked to leave his job at -- I'm not kidding -- the health department. But rumor has it that not only is he continuing to receive a paycheck, but he has been given money by a local politician to "disappear" to Jordan for a few weeks till this whole thing blows over. According to the Observer, this is a "usual practice in the 30-plus cases of 'honor' killings that have been registered since January alone."
If you're horrified by this and want to learn about possible ways to help, two places to start are the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organization and Stop-Stoning.org. Readers, if any of you knows of other good organizations working to prevent honor killings (and help survivors, like Rand's mother), let us know.
The ladies love street harassment!
"Stop harassing women. I don't like it. Nobody likes it." That's how I was taught to respond to catcalls at a feminist workshop in college. But according to CNN, some women actually enjoy a little street harassment. In an article called "Catcalling: Creepy or a Compliment?" Anna Jane Grossman reports that some ladies are disappointed when their appearance doesn't merit a "Nice ass" or even a "Hey, baby." Jessica, a health educator from Los Angeles who wouldn't disclose her last name, is quoted as saying, "Yeah, it's objectifying and all, but you know, if I walked down the street and didn't have men looking me up and down and catcalling, I'd think, 'Boy I must really be getting old and dumpy.'"
I will admit that a whispered "You look nice today" can be enough to make me smile when I've had a shitty day. But Grossman doesn't differentiate between the harmless, unsolicited compliment and more pernicious forms of street harassment. As Kimberley Fairchild, an assistant professor of psychology at Manhattan College, points out, "When a man catcalls you, you don't know if it will end at that point, or if it could escalate to assault."
While Grossman does a good job of spotlighting smart responses to street harassment, like Maggie Hadleigh-West's confrontational 1998 documentary "War Zone" and the frequently hilarious blog Holla Back New York City, it's rather pathetic to cloak this sort of coverage in the sensational revelation that catcalling of women may not be so bad after all. Even more depressing is the article's conclusion, which claims we can't really blame men for street harassment because they just don't know any better. Are guys really dumb enough to believe that "I wanna squeeze those titties" is an acceptable public utterance? In the alternate universe where women are begging for that kind of feedback, I guess it's possible.
Skirt-chasing as sport
Are you an unmotivated runner? Do you enter races only to apathetically walk your way across the finish line? Maybe that's because you aren't being chased by a horde of screaming men! At least, that's the thinking behind the SkirtChaser Race Series. In these events -- sponsored by SkirtSports, creator of "the original fitness skirt" -- women are outfitted in skirts, given a head start on the 5K race and then men, or rather "SkirtChasers," are sent after them; the first man or woman to cross the finish line wins $500. SkirtSports guarantees it's the "most fun you've ever had while working out" -- unless, of course, you've taken a Mardi Gras jog through the French Quarter clad only in beads!
I know what you're thinking: "That sounds great, but I don't want to leave my children out of this wacky 'n' wild time." Good news: There's also a "Mini Chase" for little girls and boys SkirtChasers-in-training.
Oh, I'm just being a humorless feminist, right? As the SkirtChaser Web site puts it, it's simply an "edgy" and "innovative" way to exercise. But this is entirely routine -- "edgy" and "innovative" would be putting men in skirts and having women chase after them.
Don't get me wrong, the event is relatively harmless -- I just happen to find it tasteless and immature. Take the SkirtChaser Web site; it features an animated graphic of a woman's silhouette -- hands behind her head, hip popped to the side -- followed by text reading "Catch Me If You Can," and a man running full-force ahead. They even call the women's phase of the race the "Catch Me" wave. (Nya-nya, you want me, but you can't have me!) It all suggests a sort of pseudo-feminist pleasure in wielding one's lady-powers over drooling men while, ostensibly, expecting to be taken as a serious athlete and competitor.
Quote of the Day: Barack Obama
"Hold on, one second, sweetie..."
-- Sen. Barack Obama in Michigan refusing to answer a TV reporter's question, when she asked: "Senator, how are you going to help the American auto worker?" Obama later called the reporter to apologize. YouTube has the clip:
Tarted-up toddlers in 4-inch heels
As a kid, I loved to play dress-up. I was a 4-year-old who never met a sparkly object I didn't like. If it had been up to me, I would have dressed myself entirely in fish lures. So why do I find these ads for Beyoncé's House of Deréon so depressing? Eh, maybe it's the fuck-me pumps. Maybe it's that these (tight, trashy) clothes aren't silly dress-up costumes; they're actual everyday outfits. But wait, no -- what I actually find unsettling is the blank look on that girl's face, standing on the right. Something about her look just unnerves me. It's not like she's getting gussied up for fun; she's working it.
So far, the reaction to the Deréon campaign has been largely negative. In a breathless column in today's New York Post, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin decried the ads as "sick and wrong" -- a bit of a reach, but a stout 88 percent of readers polled on Perez Hilton's site also found the ads inappropriate. (And these are readers, presumably, who actually find Perez Hilton appropriate.)
As I stared at the ad in the Salon office, trying to articulate what bothered me about it, one staffer voiced the opinion that it may not be so far off from other children's ads in, say, Cookie Magazine. And come to think of it, that depresses me, too.
The madwoman in the attic
The image is as startling as it is absurd -- a pair of wide, crazed eyes peering through a wall of weathered wooden slats, calling to mind every haunted madwoman shut up in the attic or doomed to wander the lonely moors clad in a tattered nightshirt, arousing the disgust and fear of all who encounter her. But that's the point -- it's a still from the video of Liz Spikol, a 39-year-old writer with bipolar disorder who is part of the burgeoning "Mad Pride" movement, a nascent group of activists seeking to rebrand and destigmatize the notion of "madness," much as gay-rights activists reclaimed the word "queer" a generation ago.
This is a fascinating phenomenon, and as someone with a significant history of mental illness in her family (and having seen the attendant shame and havoc its stigmatization can cause for the sufferers and their families), I applaud any effort to bring these issues "out of the closet" and steer the national discourse on mental health away from tabloid dispatches of "Britney's Private Hell" and toward some semblance of reality. Obviously, the New York Times does, too, which is precisely why it put a feature on a subject of this kind of universal import … at the top of the Sunday Styles section?
You don't need to hear to yet another smug boyfriend remind you for the 18th time that "the word hysteria comes from the Greek word for uterus" to know that our culture all too often equates "crazy" with "female." But the truth is there is nothing inherently feminine about mental illness; like all diseases, some forms (like bipolar disorder II) are more likely to affect women, and others, like schizophrenia, are more likely to affect men. The Times story would seem to back this up -- several of the advocates quoted here are male -- but it was disheartening to see the story's placement in the paper of record alongside wedding announcements and reports about shopping for beachwear in the Hamptons.
Or maybe I'm just crazy.
Stillbirth is not necessarily murder
National Advocates for Pregnant Women has declared a major legal victory in the recent overturning of the 2001 homicide conviction and resulting imprisonment of South Carolina woman Regina McKnight. The deceased: McKnight's stillborn child, delivered at approximately 34 weeks in 1999 and later pronounced the victim of child abuse because of McKnight's use of cocaine.
As the Charlotte Observer and the Myrtle Beach News report, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled unanimously that McKnight deserves a new trial because of mistakes made by her attorneys -- mainly their failure to reintroduce medical testimony from her first trial (which ended in mistrial) suggesting that many natural causes for the stillbirth could not be ruled out. The decision stated, in other words, that lawyers had not established a beyond-reasonable-doubt connection between the stillbirth and the cocaine.
NAPW and many allies, including the South Carolina Civil Liberties Union, had been working on behalf of McKnight for 10 years. Their overarching goal, it should be noted, is not to encourage women to greet the news of pregnancy with a weeklong coke-fest.
"This decision puts Solicitors [prosecutors] across the state on notice that they must actually prove that an illegal drug has risked or caused harm -- not simply rely on prejudice and medical misinformation," said Susan K. Dunn, South Carolina co-counsel for amicus.
"Families in South Carolina are not helped by treating stillbirths as crimes," added Brandi Parrish, coordinator of the South Carolina Coalition for Healthy Families. Potentially at-risk pregnancies are also not helped by arresting pregnant women, who are thus less able to access prenatal and other required care.
"Justice is a constant struggle, and low-income pregnant women of color who have drug problems are always going to be an easy political target," said [Broadsheet girl crush] Lynn Paltrow, NAPW's executive director. "We hope that this puts her case and other cases like it to rest so we can focus on recovery."
Rape kits for "Jane Doe"
Let's say -- God forbid -- you've been raped. Let's say you make it as far as the E.R., but once you get there, as is not uncommon, you're too traumatized/ashamed/worried about the fact that you were doing drugs, etc. to submit evidence for the "rape kit" used by police and prosecutors. So let's say you go home and shower the whole thing away. And let's say that only then do your friends persuade you to go to the police. Well, by then, your best evidence may have gone down the drain.
Such a scenario is reportedly one of the biggest obstacles to prosecuting rape cases: Many women do not come forward until, forensically speaking, it may be too late. For that reason, the FBI has -- at least since 1999 -- recommended the option of "Jane Doe rape kits," which identify their source only by a number, and which are opened by police only if charges are pressed. And now, according to wire reports, all states will next year be required to pay for the kits in order to continue receiving funding under the federal Violence Against Women Act, which helps support women's shelters and relevant law enforcement training.
According to the Associated Press, some clinics, colleges and hospitals -- along with the state of Massachusetts -- already offer the anonymous kits. Elsewhere, though, institutions have refused to cover the cost of a rape exam unless the victim goes to the cops.
"At Union Hospital in Elkton [Md.], forensic nurse Chris Lenz said Jane Doe testing is not offered unless a medical professional fears the victim will leave without the option," the AP reported. "'Of course we encourage reporting. That's what we would like. But when they're adamant they don't want to report -- if we think, She's going to walk out if she has to go through with this -- that's when we offer it,' Lenz said."
Perhaps not surprisingly, some grumbling, here and there, has begun; the false-report bugaboo hath arisen. Could these kits be an extra-handy tool for Jane "Don't Mess With Me or I'll Charge You With Rape"? Er, I guess. And an actual false report (when pursued, which would ultimately require dealing with the police) is, of course, serious business. But come on. When, according to the U.S. Justice Department, only 41 percent of rapes and other sexual assaults are reported to police, we've got to side with Jane Doe.
