Campaigners say the case demonstrates a culture in Ghana that shields sex attackers.
Ghana investigation after child rape ‘pardon’ – BBC News
Aghhhhhhhh
Category: Chick Stuff,
Total Abortion Ban Debuts in Congress
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) introduced copycat legislation that failed last year in Ohio. King’s anti-choice bill would amount to a total ban on abortion care nationwide.
Total Abortion Ban Debuts in Congress – Rewire
sigh…
The Heartbeat Protection Act – The 6 Week (Before Most Women Know they Are Pregnant) Abortion Ban Bill
House Republicans announced that in a week’s time on Nov. 1, they’ll hold the first hearing a bill that would ban abortions after six weeks at the federal level, with no exceptions for rape or incest. [emphasis: mine]
If it becomes law, physicians who perform abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected — generally around six weeks into a pregnancy — would be eligible for a five-year prison term.
What Is The Heartbeat Protection Act? Republicans’ 6-Week Abortion Ban Bill Has A Hearing Date
Trump Officials Dispute the Benefits of Birth Control to Justify Rules
When the Trump administration elected to stop requiring many employers to offer birth-control coverage in their health plans, it devoted nine of its new rule’s 163 pages to questioning the links between contraception and preventing unplanned pregnancies.
…Multiple studies have found that access or use of contraception reduced unintended pregnancies.
…“We know that safe contraception -and contraception is incredibly safe- leads to a reduction in pregnancies,” said Michele Bratcher Goodwin, director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law. “This has been data that we’ve had for decades.”
…The government also said imposing a coverage mandate could “affect risky sexual behavior in a negative way” though it didn’t point to any particular studies to support its point. A 2014 study by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found providing no-cost contraception did not lead to riskier sexual behavior.
Trump Officials Dispute the Benefits of Birth Control to Justify Rules – Bloomberg
I don’t know whether to post a Handmaiden’s Tale meme or Liar, Liar Pants of Fire one….
Harvey Weinstein: ‘Big Bang Theory’ star Mayim Bialik accused of ‘victim blaming’ in New York Times op-ed
The Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik has attracted fierce criticism for an op-ed she penned about the multiple allegations of sexual assault and harassment made against Harvey Weinstein.
…She went on to claim the choices she makes today that she deems to be “self-protecting and wise.”
“I have decided that my sexual self is best reserved for private situations with those I am most intimate with,” she said. “I dress modestly. I don’t act flirtatiously with men as a policy.”
For the love of God, Blossom….
Don’t be a sanctimonious mean-girl about sexual harassment. Just don’t.
…And don’t be judgey about what other women wear either. It doesn’t make you modest, it makes you a bitch.
Man Shuts Down Anti-Abortion Argument By Asking One Question
In the decade he’s been asking it, he claims he’s never gotten a straight, or honest, answer.
Man Shuts Down Anti-Abortion Argument By Asking One Question
hmmm
Kevin Smith Is Donating Every Cent He Makes Off The Weinstein Company To Women
“My entire career is tied up with the man. It’s been a weird fucking week,” Smith said on his podcast. “I just wanted to make some fucking movies, that’s it. That’s why I came, that’s why I made Clerks. And no fucking movie is worth all this. Like, my entire career, fuck it, take it. It’s wrapped up in something really fucking horrible.”
Kevin Smith Is Donating Every Cent He Makes Off The Weinstein Company To Women
hmmmm
LEGO launches Women of NASA set
Trailblazing women who have been instrumental in NASA’s space program are being honored in a very fun way: as LEGO toys.
LEGO launches Women of NASA set | Inhabitat – Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building
hmmm
Federal judge bars government from blocking abortion for Jane Doe, undocumented teen immigrant
Lawyers for the government argued that the teenager, who crossed the border illegally, did not have the right to have an abortion.
what is this the fucking handmaiden’s tale????!
Screenwriter close to Weinstein calls out Hollywood: ‘Everybody f**king knew’
It is always frighteningly easy to deify the powerful men who know how to cultivate an entire industry’s good will to the point where they are above consequences for their actions. Easier than believing the victims, the stories, the whispers.
It is much harder to admit to yourself that you were taken in by the fancy parties, and that the cost of this mistake was more victims
What would you have had us do?
Who were we to tell?
The authorities?
What authorities?
The press?
Harvey owned the press.
The Internet?
There was no Internet or reasonable facsimile thereof.
Should we have called the police?
And said what?
Should we have reached out to some fantasy Attorney General Of Movieland?
That didn’t exist.Not to mention, most of the victims chose not to speak out.
Aside from sharing the grimy details with a close girlfriend or confidante.
And if they discussed it with their representatives?
Agents and managers, who themselves feared The Wrath Of The Big Man?
The agents and managers would tell them to keep it to themselves.
Because who knew the repercussions?
That old saw “You’ll Never Work In This Town Again” came crawling back to putrid life like a re-animated cadaver in a late-night zombie flick.
But, yes, everyone knew someone who had been on the receiving end of lewd advances by him.
Or knew someone who knew someone.A few actress friends of mine told me stories: of a ghastly hotel meeting; of a repugnant bathrobe-shucking; of a loathsome massage request.
And although they were rattled, they sort of laughed at his arrogance; how he had the temerity to think that simply the sight of his naked, doughy, carbuncled flesh was going to get them in the mood.
So I just believed it to be a grotesque display of power; a dude misreading the room and making a lame-if-vile pass.It was much easier to believe that.
It was much easier for ALL of us to believe that.
Screenwriter close to Weinstein calls out Hollywood: ‘Everybody f**king knew’
sighhh
Tim Murphy’s Resignation Highlights Moral Bankruptcy Of Pro-Life Movement
This kind of blatant hypocrisy …runs much deeper than one man’s scandalous behavior.
Tim Murphy’s Resignation Highlights Moral Bankruptcy Of Pro-Life Movement | HuffPost
mmmhmmm
What I Don’t Tell My Students About ‘The Husband Stitch’
He cannot afford to understand it. This understanding would reveal to him too much about himself, and smash that mirror before which he has been frozen for so long.” Maybe this is why we don’t believe women. If their experience is true, we can’t stand to see our role in it.
What I Don’t Tell My Students About ‘The Husband Stitch’
hmmmm
‘Pack of hyenas’: how Harvey Weinstein’s power fueled a culture of enablers
Hollywood has a long tradition of casting couch abuses dating from the silent era and through the golden age, snagging the likes of Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe. Roman Polanksi and Woody Allen are still revered despite, respectively, a rape conviction and sex abuse allegations.
…In Weinstein’s case there was a panoply of people who wittingly or not facilitated his modus operandi of inviting a young woman – usually an actor or model – to a hotel room or private office on the pretext of discussing her career, then allegedly demanding a massage or sex.
The New Yorker quoted three women who accused him of rape, an accusation the producer has vehemently denied. The article also cited 16 former and current executives and assistants at Weinstein’s companies who said they had witnessed or had knowledge of unwanted sexual advances.
‘Pack of hyenas’: how Harvey Weinstein’s power fuelled a culture of enablers | Film | The Guardian
hmmmm
Harvey Weinstein: story developments
An Amazon Studio executive is put on leave of absence after being accused of ignoring [Rose McGowan’s] allegation.
Harvey Weinstein: US actress Rose McGowan makes rape allegation – BBC News
hmmmm
Boy Scouts Will Admit Girls, Allow Them to Earn Eagle Scout Rank
The scouting board of directors voted unanimously to make the historic change in an organization that has been primarily for boys since its founding.
Boy Scouts Will Admit Girls, Allow Them to Earn Eagle Scout Rank – NBC News
I’m not convinced that my generation has made much progress in what we tongue-in-cheekily categorize as, “Chick Stuff,” around here. Which is a shame.
In the larger sense, society can only benefit from fully allowing and encouraging participation from more than just a segment of its population.
In the more personal sense, I know some brilliant women whose personality and achievements are more fully appreciated when taken as a totality, as opposed to viewed from the limited frame of what women are and how they are “supposed” to be.
This was a nice headline to see though. It’s very heartening to think of all of the young people who will benefit from being judged on what they do, as opposed to what girls have traditionally done.
The Rock Test: A Hack for Men Who Don’t Want To Be Accused of Sexual Harassment
Are you a man confused on how to treat the women you work with? Do you feel like if you can’t say or do *anything* you don’t know what to say or do at all? Well stress no more! This life hack will have you treating women like people in no time.
The Rock Test: A Hack for Men Who Don’t Want To Be Accused of Sexual Harassment
this. Is. Awesome.
Rape victim’s attacker gets joint child custody
[Judge Gregory S.] Ross disclosed the rape victim’s address to [the rapist]and ordered [his] name to be added to the child’s birth certificate — all without the victim’s consent or a hearing, according to [Victim’s Attorney, Rebecca ] Kiessling.
“An assistant prosecutor on this, Eric Scott, told me she had granted her consent, which was a lie — she has never been asked to do this and certainly never signed anything,” Kiessling said.
…Kiessling said her client was notified she was “not allowed to move 100 miles from where she had been living when the case was filed, without court consent.”
Rape victim’s attacker gets joint child custody
Judge Ross needs to be removed from the bench.
Elizabeth Smart Is Standing Up for Rape Victims—And Tearing Down Purity Culture
In writing and talking about sexual violence, people must make a linguistic choice in describing someone who has endured an assault: victim or survivor. Elizabeth uses both terms seemingly interchangeably, as in “rape victim” or “survivor of sexual assault.” Though she uses both words, Elizabeth maintains that they’re not synonymous. “I don’t think they’re the same thing; I think they are different stages, actually,” she says. “A victim is someone who is still going through the abuse, and a survivor is someone who survived it. I’m not saying that they don’t have hard moments still, or things to work through, but it’s more about making that choice: that they want to survive, that they no longer want to remain the victim and they’re taking the steps to move on in their life.”
“I’m not saying it’s easy,” she adds, careful not to minimize anyone’s path to recovery.
[An] editor of a journal on Mormonism …says of Elizabeth, “She’s entirely faithful. And while she’s not part of the feminist ferment in Mormonism, and I doubt she’d call herself a feminist, she is strong in a way that feminists can admire.”
…”The church explicitly considers feminists to be enemies.”
This puts Elizabeth Smart in a very strange position. She is a champion of victims of sexual violence, a hero for so many survivors, and an outspoken critic of religious purity culture. By all accounts, she is a feminist in the truest sense of the term.
…Later, I ask Elizabeth whether she identifies with the term or rejects it, as the New Yorker piece would suggest. At first, she equivocates. “I think there are so many different kinds of feminism—some good, some maybe too extreme—it’s a wonderful thing for women to come together, to be strong, to be independent, to have equal rights as human beings… There shouldn’t be a glass ceiling,” she says, sort of talking around the question. “At the same time, I like it when a man holds the door open for me, and I like it when I’m treated like a lady. I mean… I’m married, I have a husband, I have a family.”
Given the Mormon church’s antagonistic view of the movement, her discomfort with the label makes sense; still, believing in—and actively campaigning for—equality between men and women is pretty much the definition of feminism. When I tell her this, Elizabeth seems to casually change her position. “I’ve never thought of myself as a feminist before… Sure, call me a feminist,” she says.
Elizabeth Smart Is Standing Up for Rape Victims—And Tearing Down Purity Culture – Broadly
Bad. Ass.
Sexist Cam Newton Avoids a Good Football Question
Cam Newton avoided answering a good football question on Wednesday and instead responded to a female reporter with a sexist jab. How will the Carolina Panthers react to their quarterback’s lack of professionalism?
Sexist Cam Newton Avoids a Good Football Question | SI.com
hmmmm
Anti-Abortion Rep. Tim Murphy Won’t Seek Re-Election After Report On Abortion Request
The Republican congressman has voted to impose tighter restrictions on abortion access. He reportedly asked a woman with whom he had an affair to get an abortion.
hmmmm
This “pro-life” Congressman was caught telling his extramarital boo to get an abortion.
Rep. Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania doesn’t want any women (except his girlfriend!) to get abortions.
This “pro-life” Congressman was caught telling his extramarital boo to get an abortion.
Typical.
The Real Lives of Young Women Living in Saudi Arabia
What it’s like to come of age in one of the strictest [and most patriarchal] countries in the world.
The Real Lives of Young Women Living in Saudi Arabia
hmmmm
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