Tag Archives: sex and gender

Alabama DA Drops Effort to Send Man Who Raped 14-Year-Old to Prison

by LeannaStaley Posted on March 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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Facing an uphill battle in the state supreme court, an Alabama district attorney has dropped his effort to put a man convicted of raping a 14-year-old behind bars. The News Courier reports that Limestone County District Attorney Brian Jones has decided not to challenge the state appeals court ruling that allowed Austin Smith Clem to avoid prison time for his three rape convictions. “After consultation with the victim and her family, we have decided not to pursue a petition for writ of mandamus to the Alabama Supreme Court,” Jones told the News Courier. “Courtney Andrews has shown immense courage and tenacity during this ordeal. My hope is that, through her example, other victims of sexual offenses will find the courage to speak out and to come forward with these crimes.”

Read our earlier coverage of the Clem case here and here.

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Alabama DA Drops Effort to Send Man Who Raped 14-Year-Old to Prison

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Le1f’s Latest Is a Panty Dropper, No Matter Your Gender

by Guadalupe Scharff Posted on March 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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“I’m being really ratchet right now,” the up-and-coming rapper Le1f tells me over the phone. He’s on a train, and I’ve asked him what his wildest music video fantasy would look like. He laughs, but he doesn’t demur. “I don’t think I’m being like Marina Abramovic, but that’s totally where I want to take it: pulling strands of pearls through wounds in my body while rapping. That sounds really crackin’ to be honest.”

If you don’t know Le1f, aka Khalif Diouf, you will. He’s been making waves in the New York rap scene among queer and straight listeners alike. And for all his subversive ideas, he’s got the potential for broad appeal. (Referring to him as a “gay rapper,” while accurate, is a misdirection, he points out; “female rap” isn’t a genre either.)

Hey, Le1f’s new EP dropping tomorrow, includes the single “Boom.” (“How many batty boys can you fit in a jeep?”) It’s his first project since signing with Terrible Records, a move that establishes his position in the indie scene with labelmates like Grizzly Bear and Dev Hynes. The deal is part of a joint venture with XL recordings, which carries blockbuster names such as Thom Yorke and Vampire Weekend. “I don’t necessarily need it to be a fucking Lady Gaga, Janet Jackson production,” he says. “But I definitely have ideas that require screens and projection and hired dancers.”

At Wesleyan University, where he majored in dance, Le1f, 24, wrote beats for Das Racist, including the track “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell,” which made them internet famous. But Le1f was destined to make his own mark on the widening hip-hop landscape. He has released three mixtapes, most recently Tree House, whose track “Damn Son” Pitchfork called an “unqualified banger.”

When I ask Le1f for a tour of his musical influences, he narrates his version of Genesis in a matter-of-fact tone. “Music history starts in 1994 with Aaliyah. And then you put on Missy Elliott and Timbaland and that’s the second day, and on the third day there was Lil’ Kim and Junior Mafia. After that it’s like Bjork and weird shit.”

Perhaps the most unique thing about Le1f’s music is it’s deep sensuality in a genre that tends toward phallus comparisons, the objectification of women, and the trivialization of sex. He is at times theatrical or ironic, but the defining characteristic of his music is potency. His lush, clubby beats and agile lyrical delivery thrust him toward a trajectory of pop-rap radio play.

That’s not to say his lyrics lack depth or timely social commentary. “It’s my place to talk about issues within the gay community as well as gay rights,” he says. “Taxi,” one of the songs on his forthcoming full-length album, is about “racist gay dudes in the club” who ignore him precisely the way taxi cab drivers ignore him on the street.

“The Gaystream doesn’t care about diversity,” Le1f says. “I’m not going to shy away from what it feels like to be unaccepted as a gay person.”

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Le1f’s Latest Is a Panty Dropper, No Matter Your Gender

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The Abortion Rate Hits a 30-Year Low

by Sheeritwern Posted on February 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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The abortion rate fell by 13 percent between 2008 to 2011, according to a new study.

The study, released by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights think tank, concluded that nearly 1.1 million abortions took place in the United States in 2011, some 700,000 fewer than in 2008. That’s the equivalent of 16.9 abortions per 1,000 women between 15 and 44. During the same time, the number of abortion providers fell by 4 percent and the number of abortion clinics fell by 1 percent.

“The national abortion rate appears to have resumed its long-term decline,” conclude researchers Rachel K. Jones and Jenna Jerman. The rate of abortions in the United State has decreased almost every year since 1981, when, according to Guttmacher spokeswoman Rebecca Wind, there were 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women. The decline halted from 2005 to 2008. As of 2011, the abortion rate not only began to drop again, it also hit its lowest point since 1973.

The authors did not investigate the reasons for the decline. However, since rates of abortion fell consistently across almost all states, and the time period covered by the study predates the surge of state-level antiabortion laws, the overall decline is likely not the product of new restrictions, the study notes. A few states, however, may have experienced declines related to new restrictions. Missouri’s abortion rate dropped 17 percent between 2008 and 2010, the authors note, perhaps reflecting the impact of a 2009 state law requiring women to seek in-person counseling before getting an abortion. Still, Jones and Jerman write, “It is crucial to note that abortion rates decreased by larger-than-average amounts in several states that did not implement any new restrictions between 2008 and 2010, such as Illinois (18%) and Oregon (15%).”

The increased use of contraceptives is thought to have played a role by reducing the number of unintended pregnancies—in particular among women living in poor economic circumstances who may have used birth control more consistently during the recession and the sluggish recovery period that followed.

Declines in abortions were steepest in Midwest and Western states, and all but six states—Alaska, Maryland, Montana, New Hampshire, West Virginia, and Wyoming, some of which had lower-than-average abortion rates to begin with—experienced decreased rates of abortion.

The loss of providers and facilities which performed abortions may have also had something to do with the drop in abortions. Jones and Jerman also surveyed the accessibility of abortion providers, finding that 38 percent of reproductive-aged women lived in a county without an abortion clinic—some 90 percent of all counties. Abortions induced by medication accounted for nearly 25 percent of all non-hospital abortions in 2011, up from 17 percent in 2008.

Jones and Jerman note that while the drop in abortion providers and facilities—4 percent and 1 percent, respectively—may seem negligible, the caseloads of different facilities can vary widely. Abortion clinics, for example, account for only 19 percent of the facilities that offer abortions, but provide 63 percent of abortions.

Nearly 50 abortion clinics closed from 2008 to 2011—and the drop in clinics was more pronounced than that for other types of facilities that offer abortions. Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Vermont each lost one clinic. “While these states lost only one clinic each, they had few to begin with, so the loss of even one may have affected access to services,” the authors write. “The closure of a clinic may have contributed to the larger-than-average declines in abortion incidence in Kansas and Oklahoma.”

As of 2011, North Dakota, Mississippi, and South Dakota had only one abortion clinic.

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The Abortion Rate Hits a 30-Year Low

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Your Rape Joke Is Bad and You Should Feel Bad

by 2lgax8lh Posted on February 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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Pornhub, a hub for pornography on the information superhighway, is a little well known for being snarky and amusing on social media. Chasing that reputation may have just got it into trouble.

Sunday night the Seattle Seahawks defeated the Denver Broncos in a football game. This inspired Pornhub to make the following joke:

So, stop it.

Pornhub, stop it.

Whoever you are, if you’re telling a rape joke, stop it.

It’s 2014. We really shouldn’t have to say this. Just, dear god almighty, stop.

They aren’t funny. You aren’t funny. Stop.

UPDATE: Pornhub has apologized in the comments to this post. Their social person seems like good people:

Alright Ben, you’re right, I feel bad and I’ll stop. The tweet wasn’t intended to offend anyone, you have to realize my target demographic on twitter isn’t the same as say, Mother Jones.

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Your Rape Joke Is Bad and You Should Feel Bad

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Riot Grrrl Kathleen Hanna, All Grown Up

by SuzanneBl Posted on January 13, 2014

Mother Jones

As a college kid in early ’90s Olympia, Washington, Kathleen Hanna was fed up with the punk-rock boys’ club—so she made a punk rock girls’ club. With screechy vocals, dirty guitar, and fast and catchy melodies, her band Bikini Kill railed against sexism and violence against women. But the music wasn’t all: Hanna and her friends made zines and held meetings for girls who were sick of being told to act like ladies. When Bikini Kill’s second album, Pussy Whipped, gained national attention in 1993, the new movement, known as riot grrrl, took off.

Fans around the country made their own zines and girl-fronted music. When Bikini Kill broke up in 1997, Hanna went on to form her one-woman lo-fi band Julie Ruin in 1999, the dance-punk trio Le Tigre in 2003, and The Julie Ruin, a quintet that released its debut album, Run Fast, this past September. I caught up with Hanna to talk about kids these days, riot grrrl’s legacy, and why she’s glad Miley Cyrus proclaimed herself a feminist.

MJ: How would you say Run Fast differs from your past work?

KH: I really just let the record be what it was gonna be, and I didn’t control it. Like, the song that answers the person’s letter who writes me and says, “I’m gay and I came out to my family and they kicked me out of my house and I feel totally suicidal.” And then I write a song for that person. I couldn’t do that with this record. I really needed to write something just for me.

MJ: A lot of your older stuff spoke directly to young women. Who’s your audience now?

KH: I’m not really thinking about whom I’m writing for. It got to the point where it started to feel like everything in my work was audience-based. In Le Tigre and in Bikini Kill, people said, “You’re preaching to the converted.” In Bikini Kill, it was ridiculous because most of our audience was way more than halfway male. But in Le Tigre, we had already developed this feminist queer community who supported our band, and I would say, “Yeah, and that’s great, because the converted don’t have enough music or arts made for them.” I was really into that. But now, I don’t want to have an audience in mind. I don’t consider myself a divining rod whom God is speaking through or any kind of crap like that. I’m specific about the work I’m making, but just letting there be a little more play and freedom.

MJ: Do you see the riot grrrl movement persisting in today’s culture?

KH: Yeah, I mean, look at Pussy Riot. There’s an old picture of me with “Pussy” and “Riot” written on my arms in Sharpie. I also see girls’ rock camps all around the country and in the UK. There are so many women my age who got involved with that early on, and so many bands that were considered riot grrrl bands who’ve been teaching at the camps. I’m not taking credit for it. I remember the first time I walked in and I was like, “Oh, I didn’t have to do this! These other amazing women did this, and I can just enjoy it.”

MJ: Has it gotten easier for young women to be in bands?

KH: I think it must be, because there are so many more all-female bands and they play instruments—they’re not just, you know, a vocal group someone puts together. But I meet women who are dealing with the kind of crap that we dealt with—you know, guys yelling at them when they’re on stage, or these horrible comments on the internet that say, “Oh, you’re only getting attention because you’re girls” or “You’re fat and you’re ugly” or “You’re beautiful and that’s why people like you.” And when I hear that, I get really sad because I’m like, “Wow, we haven’t come very far.”

MJ: I’ve gotta ask: What did you think about Miley Cyrus at the VMAs?

KH: You know, I didn’t see it. I could’ve watched it on the internet, but I just didn’t want to, because I don’t really care. I just feel like the healthcare situation, the recent government shutdown, all of the events around the world are just so much more important. I do think it’s really cool that Miley Cyrus said she’s the biggest feminist ever. I was like, “That’s the sound of 200,000 eight-year-olds Googling the word ‘feminist!'” I was pleased.

MJ: Have your interests become less about personal politics over the years, and more about global politics?

KH: Yeah, definitely. I think a lot about how so many women can’t contribute their voices to the feminist movement because they’re just trying to put food on the table. Or they have an illness that they can’t get treated because they don’t have health insurance. I think a lot about people who die unnecessarily because they don’t get to see the good doctors. Those kinds of things move me in a similar way that violence against women moved me in the beginning of Bikini Kill. And of course, that still totally upsets me, but poverty is really utmost in my mind right now.

MJ: When I was a teenager just discovering Bikini Kill, this music was kind of how my friends and I formed our identities. Is it still possible for young people to have that kind of a relationship with music?

KH: I don’t know because I’m not a young person anymore. But it’s…there’s just so much! I’m amazed that younger people can absorb anything. I gotta be honest about the way that I listen to music, and this is really letting it all hang out: I watch videos on YouTube of bands that I’ve heard of that I want to check out. And sometimes I don’t even finish the video. And that’s really sad, because maybe I’d like that song. I think that we don’t give stuff a chance to really sink in.

Below, the Julie Ruin. And click here for Hanna’s rundown of what she’s been listening to lately.

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Riot Grrrl Kathleen Hanna, All Grown Up

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Sochi’s "Pizzly Bear": Meet Halfpipe Freeskiing Star Maddie Bowman

by DSIColeman Posted on December 27, 2013

Mother Jones

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In the lead up to the 2014 Winter Olympics, ski jumping has taken center stage—it’s the first year women will be allowed to compete, a milestone the New York Times Magazine recently explored at length. But let’s not forget another extreme sport premiering in Sochi this year. That would be women’s (and men’s) free skiing, which encompasses halfpipe (hair-raising tricks done off the edge of an icy, steep-walled half cylinder), slopestyle (jumping off rails and obstacles), and ski cross (in which four skiers barrel simultaneously through a downhill obstacle course).

Maddie Bowman, 19, is a rising star in this new Olympic realm, one that seems to scream skate park more than professional arena. A favorite in the halfpipe, Bowman cut her teeth on the steep terrain of North Lake Tahoe. Even though thousands of viewers will be watching the sport for the first time in February, Bowman doesn’t really care if they see her kind as a bunch of park rats: “I think we want people to see that side of us—just being kids goofing off. That’s what we do. That’s why we love what we do. That’s how we’ve gotten so far in skiing.”

Okay, but what does it take to rule the halfpipe? Here’s Bowman in her own words.

On her sport’s spirit animal: It’s like a polar bear-grizzly bear mix—a pizzly! As the ice is melting, the polar bears are migrating south into grizzly territory and they’re mating, and they have this baby that’s a hybrid. So two hybrid pizzlies could make a baby pizzly. It’s a new species, and it’s super badass.

On whether freeskiing is male-dominated: I don’t think we think about it that way. We love skiing with the guys; they’re our friends. I grew up always skiing with boys. We’re out there trying to do the same things and push ourselves. We’re definitely all in this together.

On breaking with traditions: I was a racer before, but it felt a little too serious—a little too strict. I just kind of fell in love with the whole idea of skiing around with your friends and having fun, trying new things, and being creative. It allowed for a lot more freedom.

On mastering a trick: The first time I ever did a “left nine,”—it’s two and a half spins, and I’m spinning down the wall, rotating to the left—I was so excited I completely forgot the rest of my run; I just sort of made it up.

On anxious parents: My parents are both ski race people, so when I first started switching over, they were a little resistant, but then they came and skied with us and realized we think about things before we jump off of stuff. They definitely get nervous. You can’t have my mom video a run at all because it’s so shaky—she always misses it!

On falling smart: Most skiers can think pretty quickly on our feet—or off our feet if we’re falling, and hopefully fall the right way. We like to push the limits and that’s what makes our sport fun—pushing those limits and getting that adrenaline going. Sometimes the limits push back. It’s always a rude awakening when that happens.

On those rude awakenings: Concussions are something everyone worries about. If I hit my head, I always make sure to get a new helmet and stuff like that. But you can’t be out there worrying about getting hurt, or else you’re more likely to get hurt.

Alternative paths: If I got hurt, knock on wood, I don’t know what I would do. Maybe I’d actually be a real college student.

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Sochi’s "Pizzly Bear": Meet Halfpipe Freeskiing Star Maddie Bowman

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Hooked on Speed: How Jazmine Fenlator Feeds Her "Bobsled Habit"

by EdwardJ21zffz Posted on December 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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A “controlled car crash.” That’s how US bobsled pilot Jazmine Fenlator, 29, remembers her first run. “I was sliding down a mile of ice with my head buried in the bottom of the bobsled,” she says. “I’m getting jostled around and I’m not understanding why I’m moving so much.” She ended the run drooling and shaking, but she was hooked.

Bobsledders, many of whom, like Fenlator, hail from track-and-field sports, have to be some level of crazy to send their bodies careening down steep ice passages at speeds up to 100 miles per hour. But it’s not just the risk of bodily harm that makes the experience intense. “It’s a grueling blue-collar sport,” Fenlator says. “We carry our sleds. There’s no caddy, there’s no pit crew.” And, like many Olympians in less-prominent sports, the athletes often have to dip into their own coffers to pay for their training. At one point, Fenlator and her teammate had to scrounge up $20,000 for a new sled—which meant a slew of side jobs.

Their dedication paid off in early December, when Fenlator joined five teammates on the podium for a World Cup sweep—the first ever for US women’s bobsledding, and a hopeful indicator of what may lie ahead for Team USA in Sochi.

Mother Jones: What kind of reactions do you get when you tell people what you do?

Jazmine Fenlator: A lot of people think I’m on the Jamaican bobsled team. It’s a question every black bobsledder gets, even if you’re wearing a USA shirt. Or a lot of times people don’t know what bobsled is, so they’ll reference luge or skeleton. It’s a hard sport because not many people can relate to it, and it’s a hard sport to spectate. You only see it every four years on TV, and it doesn’t have a lot of popularity, which we’re trying to change. So, you get a lot of naïve questions. But I welcome those. The more people I can teach and tell about bobsled, the more cheers we’ll have in Sochi.

MJ: How does one become a bobsledder?

JF: I was a senior in college in 2006-2007 at Roger University as a track and field athlete. I started to realize that I was a little bit behind the pace I needed to qualify for Beijing. I was really going to focus on revamping my training when my coach mentioned bobsled. I didn’t really take him too seriously, but he submitted my athletic resume and the team invited me to a tryout camp. I jumped on the opportunity. It’s not everyday a national team invites you, especially if you’ve never done the sport before.

MJ: Had you ever even imagined bobsledding?

JF: No. I’d seen Cool Runnings and watching the 2002 and 2006 winter games, but I did not actually know much about it.

MJ: What do you remember from the 2002 games, the inaugural year for women’s bobsled?

JF: For Team USA to bring home gold, as well as Vonetta Flowers winning the first medal in winter sports for an African-American, was huge. I remember watching her and Jill Bakken push that sled down the start ramp on the final run and the announcer saying, “This is where Olympians are made, this is where medalists can break or make it.” They kept their composure and they did just what they needed to do and came across the line screaming.

MJ: What was bobsledding like the first time you did it?

JF: I had no idea what is happening. I was a brakeman, so you don’t get to see where you are going. My helmet doesn’t even fit properly, I am getting jostled around in this sled. A lot can happen in your brain in a minute, I’ve learned.

One of the coaches stood at the bottom to make sure that the newbies weren’t getting motion sickness or about to run and call a taxi and head to the airport. I’m breathing heavy and have drool and snot probably everywhere. I can’t unbuckle my helmet. I’m shaking, and I feel like “Aaah, I don’t really know. How many times do we do this today?” He’s like, “Great, ’cause we have a couple more training trips to go! Head right on the truck and go back up.” It was a pretty incredible experience. Extremely humbling.

MJ: How do you shave seconds off your time?

JF: You’re searching for thousands of seconds that add up to equal hundredths. I’ve gotten third in a race by six-hundredths. You can’t even blink that fast. And you can be like, where did I lose that time? Was it a piece of tape flapping on the side that I forgot to take off when cleaning my sled? Was it this little mistake here or there? You can’t just be a great athlete. You can’t just be a great pilot. You can’t just have great equipment. You’re looking for a combination, because it’s not just one thing. That’s why you’re in the weight room, and sprinting every day—to shave off hundredths in your 30-meter time, and lift 5 or 10 more pounds in the squat. Because all of that adds up.

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Hooked on Speed: How Jazmine Fenlator Feeds Her "Bobsled Habit"

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The Demi-Glace Ceiling: Why Do We Ignore Lady Chefs?

by p555nf Posted on November 12, 2013

Mother Jones

When Time Magazine couldn’t think of a single female chef to name to its now-infamous “13 Gods of Food” list, I shared the instant outrage that overtook the internet, but I wasn’t surprised at all.

That’s because the vexed gender politics of culinary prestige—the increasingly glaring fact that women are largely shut of the food world’s top honors—hit me like a sizzling chunk of foie gras to the face in mid-September.

That’s when I got the invitation to a prestigious food conference in Westchester County, New York, sponsored by a group called the Basque Culinary Institute. I have to admit my heart skipped a beat. The star-studded guest list—drawn up by the BCI, International Advisory Council, an influential (and all-male) group of chefs known as the G9—included Spanish legend Ferran Adrià, the surrealist godfather of the postmodern cooking style called molecular gastronomy; Michel Bras, whose eponymous restaurant in southern France has held the food world’s highest ranking, three Michelin stars, since 1999; and René Redzepi, an Adrià acolyte hailed by The New Yorker as “arguably the most famous Dane since Hamlet” for his radically woodsy “New Nordic” fare.

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The Demi-Glace Ceiling: Why Do We Ignore Lady Chefs?

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How Many Senate Republicans Will Vote for LGBT Discrimination?

by turystycznypbs700 Posted on November 4, 2013

Mother Jones

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By Tuesday morning, Congress will either make progress on a long overdue piece of anti-discrimination legislation or, as public opinion continues to swing away from the homophobia of yesteryear, a cadre of Republican senators will have stamped their distaste for LGBT rights into the history books.

The Senate is set to vote Monday evening on the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), which would offer employment protection for LGBT workers. All 55 Senate Democrats support the bill and four Republican senators have indicated that they’ll be voting for it. No one quite knows if ENDA has the necessary 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, but it seems likely that at least one more Republican will side with the Democrats (one of the unknown holdouts, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), endorsed same-sex marriage earlier this year after revealing that his son is gay). But the majority of Republicans still oppose the bill, with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) terming it “reverse discrimination.”

It’s been a relatively good year for LGBT rights in the US. In June, the Supreme Court overturned the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act, granting federal recognition to married same-sex couples. California, Maryland, Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island all began marrying same-sex couples in 2013, with Hawaii possibly joining that list by year’s end. But the fight for LGBT rights is still an ongoing battle in this country. Employers can fire their employees for their sexual orientation or identification in most states. National law bars employers from dismissing workers based on race, sex, or nationality, but transgender people aren’t protected in 33 states, while 29 states lack laws to prevent gay, lesbian, and bisexual people from being unjustly fired. These protections aren’t just symbolic; LGBT people still suffer high rates of employment discrimination, with 15 to 43 percent of gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers reporting that their sexual orientation had negative ramifications for their careers.

Barack Obama penned an op-ed for The Huffington Post over the weekend urging congress to pass the bill. “It’s offensive,” the president wrote of the current lack of legal protections. “It’s wrong. And it needs to stop, because in the United States of America, who you are and who you love should never be a fireable offense.”

ENDA last came up for a vote in 2007, when it passed the House by a wide margin, only to die in the Senate. Democrats again tried to pass the bill when they controlled both chambers in 2009 and 2010, but held up ENDA over disputes contesting the inclusion of protection for transgender people.

If a bipartisan Senate coalition passes ENDA this week, odds are slim that the bill, which still has to get past the House, will become a law. Meanwhile, House Republicans are considering legislation that would allow anyone to discriminate against married same-sex couples.

Update: On Monday morning, John Boehner’s office reaffirmed the House Speaker’s past opposition to ENDA, ruling out any possibility that the bill will become law as long as he continues to lead House Republicans. “The Speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs,” his spokesman said.

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How Many Senate Republicans Will Vote for LGBT Discrimination?

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MAP: 9 States Besides Texas That Are Making It Harder for Women to Vote

by mirorita02 Posted on October 29, 2013

Mother Jones

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Women have been allowed to vote in the United States since 1920, after the passage of the 19th Amendment. But fast-forward to 2013, and plenty of states’ laws have a provision that makes it harder for women who are married or divorced to cast a ballot.

When Americans all over the country head to the polls on November 5 to vote on mayoral candidates, ballot initiatives, gubernatorial races, and even members of Congress, they will be up against a new kind of voter ID law that has mostly cropped up in 2012 and 2013 and disproportionately affects women—as well as transgender voters and anyone else with a name change.

Controversial voter ID laws, which GOP proponents say are intended to prevent the (pretty much non-existent) crime of voting fraud, are nothing new, and they have been criticized for targeting low-income voters, young people, and minorities. But Texas’s newly enforced voter ID law has put a spotlight on another group of voters that will be disproportionately affected by these rules. Not only must Texas voters present government-issue photo IDs to vote, but now poll workers are required under the law to check these IDs against an official voting registry to determine if the two names “substantially” match. That means that a woman who updated her voter registration when she got married, but not her driver’s license or passport (and vice versa), could face additional hurdles in getting her ballot counted.

The Texas law may have drawn extra scrutiny because of the state’s reputation for being a battleground in the “war on women”—but it’s just one of many to adopt this type of provision. At least 9 other states’ voting laws, most enacted in 2012 or 2013, use similar language. That doesn’t count the 24 additional states with other kinds of voter ID laws, including some with looser photo ID rules that are still potentially problematic for women. In 2006, the Brennan Center found that 34 percent of voting-age women do not possess a proof-of-citizenship document that reflects their legal name, although updated statistics on photo IDs are hard to come by. And Slate points out that the law doesn’t just affect Democrats, as Republican women are more likely change their names.

“We need Americans to understand that even though this particular ‘war on women’ isn’t out in the light, women are quietly being disenfranchised in the dark—they just might not know it yet,” says Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization.

Voter ID laws can be sorted into three categories—ones that require non-photo ID, like a bank statement, ones that require a photo ID (usually government-issued); and ones that require photo ID and include language about how the name on that ID must match the name in the voter registration database (like Texas). Here’s a map showing all of these categories and whether or not the laws are in place for this upcoming election. For even more in-depth information on your state, head over to the National Conference of State Legislatures.)

In every single one of these states, minorities, low-income voters, and young people—who tend to vote Democratic and are least likely to have up-to-date identification—are targeted. But married or divorced women who have changed their names are also affected in the states above that require photo identification—since the name on their ID, which women often wait to update until it expires, has to match their voter registration. The Advancement Project’s legal team told Mother Jones that the states that require poll workers to check the voter registration list for a match make it the most difficult for women, since poll workers have more explicit legal instructions.

Regardless of what’s on the books, interpretation is largely left up to the poll workers, who have a lot of power over whether someone gets a ballot. In less strict states, for example, poll workers can choose to have someone sign a sworn affidavit rather than show ID. In Texas, if the voter registration list reads “Jane Smith” but the woman’s ID says “Jane Doe Smith”—then that qualifies as a “substantial match” and the voter only has to sign an affidavit swearing to his or her identity for her vote to be counted. But if Jane’s ID still has her maiden name, “Jane Doe,” and the poll worker isn’t sure, the ballot will only be counted if, within six days, Jane can dig up a $20 marriage or divorce certificate and find time to get a new ID that matches the name she registered with. (In Dallas, poll workers have been bending the rules so that voters can re-register under their married names.) Pennsylvania also gives six days to obtain a new ID, and Mississippi only gives five.

These scenarios aren’t merely hypothetical. In 2011, a 96-year-old Georgia woman was denied the right to vote because she didn’t have her marriage certificate. And in Pennsylvania, the state’s ID law is on hold until a pending lawsuit is resolved. One of the plaintiffs is a woman who couldn’t vote because her marriage certificate was in Hebrew, and she couldn’t get a new ID that reflected her changed name, thus, her name didn’t match the voter registration list. (Women who obtained common law marriages could have similar problems.) Another plaintiff is a transgender man who presented both a driver’s license and passport, but was rejected because of his photograph.

“Voter ID laws discriminate against trans communities and many marginalized communities who struggle to obtain access to consistent, accurate and updated identity documents,” says Sasha Buchert, staff attorney at the Transgender Law Center. “Often there are huge barriers for updating documents.” In Texas, for example, a transgender person needs to bring a court order to the DMV.

For those heading to the polls, Kelly Ceballos, a spokesperson for the League of Women Voters, says the most important thing is for voters to get educated—Texas, for example, is reducing or eliminating the cost of getting a birth certificate copy in some counties—and not get discouraged. “It is important to participate in the democratic process and the way to do that is to go to the polls and cast a ballot,” she says.

Judith Browne Dianis hopes that women voters will start realize that “you’re being disenfranchised because you weren’t paying attention. Maybe you thought this was something that was just affecting people of color, or low-income people, but it’s impacting your voice and your ability to participate on the issues that matter to you.”

For more data on voter ID laws and who they affect, click here.

Additional reporting by Nina Liss-Schultz.

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MAP: 9 States Besides Texas That Are Making It Harder for Women to Vote

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