December 2010
33 posts
7 tags
Ireland is still in denial over abortion →
Every year thousands of Irish women travel abroad for abortions. Irish women’s health organisations report increasing numbers are purchasing abortion-inducing products online and using them in their homes. However, the Irish government steadfastly refuses to confront the issue.
Abortion is generally illegal in Ireland, but the sticking point is that it is not always illegal. Since a...
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The death of universities →
Are the humanities about to disappear from our universities? The question is absurd. It would be like asking whether alcohol is about to disappear from pubs, or egoism from Hollywood. Just as there cannot be a pub without alcohol, so there cannot be a university without the humanities. If history, philosophy and so on vanish from academic life, what they leave in their wake may be a...
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Forgive me, tumblr, but work is too busy right now to update with anything (even reblogs). And I have no work/ life balance at all and that is, frankly, more important than you. (Plus, you’re really annoying me with your constant grey screens.)
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A Woman. A Prostitute. A Slave. →
likefallingasleep:
Those who think that commercial sex in this country is invariably voluntary — and especially men who pay for sex — should listen to her story. The men buying her services all mistakenly assumed that she was working of her own volition, she says.
Yumi Li (a nickname) grew up in a Korean area of northeastern China. After university, she became an accountant, but,...
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A Southern-Fried Hot Mess: In Defense of Angry... →
dr-grumbles:
agoosedrankwine:
I am a feminist, and yes I am angry.
One in four of my female peers on campus is the victim of rape or attempted-rape. Why wouldn’t I be angry?
The stories of those women who are raped are routinely questioned and doubted, and the women are often blamed for what happened to them. Why wouldn’t I be angry?
Conservative politicians are campaigning to take away...
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Call your Senators TODAY on War Crimes in Sri... →
something-to-say:
A Congressional sign-on letter is circulating in the Senate now, sponsored by Senators Sherrod Brown and Richard Burr. The letter asks Secretary Clinton to publicly call for an independent international investigation into war crimes and other abuses committed during the war in Sri Lanka. Amnesty International has been campaigning for such an international investigation for...
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Girl kills pimp and is sentenced to prison for... →
fuckyeahgenderstudies:
dancingferaldreamer:
Sixteen-year-old human trafficking victim Sara Kruzan was sentenced to life in prison without parole when, in a desperate act to escape captivity, she shot her pimp. When Sara met G.G., the 31-year-old man who would become her pimp, she was only 11. G.G. groomed Sara two years before he raped her. By then, his control was complete and he forced ...
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Deconstructing Rape Myths: On Short Skirts →
softserved:
A couple weeks ago on the Sexist, we discussed why wearing a short skirt is not an invitation to be raped. Still, doubts lingered. The two main arguments for why women must still protect themselves from rape by ditching the short skirt:
a) Rape is just one big misunderstanding. The proponents of this argument believe that women who wear short skirts are signaling that...
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The GOP's New Abortion Agenda →
rosietint:
If you thought the abortion battle during the health care debate was fierce, just wait until Republicans take over the House in January. Strengthened by congressional victories in the midterm elections, Republican abortion foes plan to push hard in the new year. Their top goals: enshrine tough restrictions on abortion funding into federal law and defund Planned Parenthood. And...
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The challenge of confrontation: dismantling rape... →
leoboudo:
I’ve often made the case that the true measure of a man’s commitment to gender justice doesn’t just lie in how he treats women, but how he interacts with other men when there are no women around.
[…]
Feminists often talk about “rape culture.” Rape culture doesn’t just mean a culture in which rape happens — it means a culture in which sexual assault is condoned, or excused, or...
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"Asking for it" →
padaviya:
There’s nothing like science for giving that objective, white-coat flavoured legitimacy to your prejudices, so it must have been a great day for Telegraph readers when they came across the headline “Women who dress provocatively more likely to be raped, claim scientists”. Ah, scientists. “Women who drink alcohol, wear short skirts and are outgoing are more likely to be raped, claim...
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Nacro views: Rehabilitation? Not on my doorstep →
The new coalition government has made promises to devolve control to local communities and give people the power to close local services and take control of their neighbourhoods as part of the ‘Big Society’.
It has also promised a ‘rehabilitation revolution’ to break the cycle of crime. But will these policies work together or will the most vulnerable people for whom the Big Society was...
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The Body Shop Petitions U.K. for Child Trafficking... →
Since when does a producer of beauty products run a campaign asking a government to improve their policies on care for child trafficking victims? Since The Body Shop decided it was going to be much more than just another corporate donor to a worthy cause. The company’s growing role in the anti-trafficking movement is taking on a new dimension: political activism on behalf of...
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Idaho Says It's "Okay" to Rape Unmarried Women →
A recent court ruling gave rapists something to be thankful for: the state of Idaho is on their side, so long as they are not married to their victim.
Last summer, a woman in southwestern Idaho became the victim of her boyfriend’s deceit, who tricked her into having sex with a stranger. After reporting this crime to the police, both men were arrested and subsequently indicted by a...
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Surprise! The Bush Administration Tried to Thwart... →
What you might have missed, though, amid all the hubbub over tawdry gossip and the drone of respectable American journalists decrying the fact their government wasn’t better able to keep information from them, was that the thousands of leaked State Department cables provide clear evidence of official wrongdoing – wrongdoing that the political establishment would much rather soon...
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Illinois Considers Laws to Revoke Medical Licenses... →
Here are the facts: no one has the right to practice medicine. No one. And while regulations about who can and cannot access a privilege not generally guaranteed to the public frequently are oppressive, regulations preventing known sexual abusers from having access to the bodies of individuals in private and highly vulnerable situations are not among them.
Of course we wish to reform...
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Gawker: "Boss Makes Female Employees Wear Red... →
I’m a bit lost for words. I would NOT expect this from a country as enlightened as Norway (it is, of course, disgraceful anywhere).
thefeministhub:
A new study of Norwegian business productivity practices has found that, well, some Norwegian bosses are nuts. Like the guy who made his female employees wear red bracelets during their periods “to justify more frequent trips” to the...
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Creepy Christian Patriarchy Movement Shackles...
I have always found the notion of purity balls deeply disturbing. The article below describes how this idea is taken further by fathers disallowing their daughters to go to college and to make their own decisions about their lives. I cannot even imagine growing up in such an oppressive and, frankly, misogynistic environment.
cognitivedissonance:
Creepy Christian Patriarchy Movement Shackles...
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Death Penalty May Be Ruled Unconstitutional in... →
At a hearing scheduled for Monday, December 6, a district court in Texas will decide whether the death penalty is unconstitutional in the state based on the disproportionately high risk of wrongful convictions in Texas. This is the first time in the state’s history that a court will examine the problem of innocent people being executed in a Texas capital trial.
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Is Women's Empowerment Really The Problem? →
Women’s empowerment has become a problem. Again. According to Katrin Bennhold of The New York Times and its global edition, the International Herald Tribune, women’s empowerment may be killing romance.
Bennhold writes:
Sexual attraction in the 21st century, it seems, still feeds on 20th-century stereotypes. Now, as more women match or overtake men in education and the labor market, they are...
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Female passenger subjected to patdown after her... →
padaviya:
There’s no doubt the TSA pat-downs are controversial. Detractors claim the touching is a violation of privacy and can, in some cases, border on sexual assault, while proponents say the pat downs are necessary to keep travelers safe(r).
While I am all for the searches - and/or the body scans - this story out of Europe is a bit much. A female passenger is accusing the TSA agents of ...
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New sex offence laws now in force in Scotland →
thefeministhub:
New laws on sexual offences, which include for the first time a legal definition of consent, have come into force in Scotland.
The Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act defines consent and allows one party to withdraw it at any stage, whether they initially gave consent or not.
The act also gives a legal recognition of male rape.
Rape Crisis Scotland welcomed the changes and said more...
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Should violence against women in the UK be seen as... →
Recognition of violence against women as a widespread and serious issue is attributable to four decades of feminist activism, research and scholarship. Feminist campaigns have put violence against women on the political agenda; activists have set up services for victims and brought about important changes in how the criminal justice system deals with violence against women. One of the most...
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Trans-America: Selling Boys for Sex in the U.S.... →
Every day in the capitol of the U.S., boys identifying as gay or transgender are bought and sold for sex by adult men. In Washington D.C., suburban “Johns” with gold wedding bands drive nice cars into the city to regularly solicit these youths for sex. LGBTQ sex trafficking, and especially transgender sex trafficking, is a grossly misunderstood issue. Fortunately, Courtney’s House in...
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How the Chilean Miners are Promoting a Homophobic... →
Darn those good intentions, always paving the road to hell. Case in point, a campaign from the Chilean government to address violence against women. On its surface, it sounds pretty noble. After all, it’s in everyone’s best interests to condemn, address and eliminate gender-based violence.
But Chile’s campaign sadly takes a turn for the homophobic. And it all has to do...
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The Dallas Morning News Says No Gay Couples in... →
Remember earlier this month when Dallas couple Mark Reed-Walkup and Dante Walkup got married over the Internet, in what many consider the first same-sex wedding over Skype? It was a beautiful new media moment, as the couple exchanged vows in front of family and friends in Dallas, with the help of an officiant in Washington, D.C. (where same-sex marriage is legal).
Now, Mark and Dante want...
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5 Ways to Fight Sex Trafficking and HIV on World... →
Sign the UNICEF petition to stop the the global pediatric AIDS epidemic and pledge to stand for programs that provide care and education for millions of HIV–positive children, as well as those who are orphaned by the disease. These children are at high risk for human trafficking.
Support a National AIDS Strategy for the U.K., where recent reports have found that as many as 1 in 10 women in...
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So I'm writing a paper on abortion and I'm finding... →
luftylicious:
I chose to argue that abortion is immoral, but as I read more I become more and more on the fence.
I still believe that it is immoral because I believe that a fetus is a human life and that it has the right to experience life. I believe that if a woman chose to have sex then she has to accept the consequences that can come from it. Pregnancy is one of those consequences....
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Apple Says Goodbye to "Gays Are Immoral" App →
Praise the Gods!
In a quiet move under the radar over the busy Thanksgiving holiday weekend, it appears that Apple has taken down an app that called gay people “sexually immoral” and said that same-sex couples “erode the institution of marriage.” The app was created by the founders of the Manhattan Declaration, a 4,700 word religious text started by Watergate felon...
4 tags
Is Hooters just a hoot or no laughing matter?
sarahgraham7:
Is Hooters just a hoot or no laughing matter?
This year, 2010, is the 40th anniversary of Page Three girls and of protests by feminist groups against the Miss World competition.
It also marks the opening of the first Welsh branch of Hooters, the American restaurant chain staffed by waitresses in barely-there uniforms.
But when feminist groups campaigned against a branch in...
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“Abortions are only permitted in Thailand in cases of rape, incest or where the...”
– Thailand foetus find breaks abortion taboo
by Rachel Harvey
(via fourthwaved)