The Brigham Young University wage gap tells the story of Mormon feminism — Quartz
Jeezus…
Category: Chick Stuff,
There are two types of hijabs. The difference is huge.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said, “To me, the hijab means power, liberation, beauty and resistance.”
…There are two vastly different kinds of hijabs: the democratic hijab, the head covering that a woman chooses to wear, and the tyrannical hijab, the one that a woman is forced to wear.
…In Saudi Arabia, the abaya and niqab, allowing only women’s eyes to show, are not legally imposed, but the patriarchal society makes wearing them essentially compulsory.
Women who live under these forms of hijab effectively live under a gender apartheid. The coverings mark women as lesser citizens, legally and socially unequal. In Iran, there are restrictions on women’s ability to travel, obtain a divorce or enter sports stadiums. A woman’s courtroom testimony is in most cases given half the weight of a man’s. The forced hijab honors neither tradition nor religion; it is a powerful tool of misogynist oppression.
…These women aren’t seeking the hijab’s eradication; they are simply demanding the right to choose what they wear. They hunger for the sort of liberty that is the cornerstone of U.S. democracy. We are pleased to see Omar proudly exercise her right to don the hijab. In an era when nativism is rising in the United States and in many other countries, it is important for those who support the values of a pluralistic society to stand up for the rights of their threatened minorities. In that spirit, we wholeheartedly stand with our Muslim sisters in the West and support their choices.
In return, we ask the global sisterhood to stand with Iranian women as they fight against the mandatory hijab.
There are two types of hijabs. The difference is huge. – The Washington Post
Sorry, ladies, Hope your holding your breathe. Omar isn’t exactly known for supporting women she doesn’t feel a kinship with. (Nancy Pelosi vs. “The Squad” anyone?)
Facial-recognition systems misidentified people of color more often than white people, according to a federal study
Asian and African American people were up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white men, depending on the particular algorithm and type of search. Native Americans had the highest false-positive rate of all ethnicities, according to the study, which found that systems varied widely in their accuracy.
…The faces of African American women were falsely identified more often in the kinds of searches used by police investigators.
…Women were more likely to be falsely identified than men, and the elderly and children were more likely to be misidentified than those in other age groups, the study found. Middle-aged white men generally benefited from the highest accuracy rates.
…The study could fundamentally shake one of American law enforcement’s fastest-growing tools for identifying criminal suspects and witnesses, which privacy advocates have argued is ushering in a dangerous new wave of government surveillance tools.
..Searches are critical to functions including cellphone sign-ons and airport boarding schemes, and errors could make it easier for impostors to gain access to those systems.
hmmm
Commandant Responds to Troubling Study on Marine Corps Culture
The commandant of the Marine Corps has a message for fellow Marines who have a problem with women wearing the uniform: “Go somewhere else.”
“If we have one leader, one Marine, who thinks that females are really a pain in my backside and they don’t help my combat readiness, he’s either or she’s either got to change their mind, or go somewhere else,” Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger said during a discussion with reporters at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday. “We have one standard in the Marine Corps. Not two, not three. One.”
Commandant Responds to Troubling Study on Marine Corps Culture | Military.com
Thank you, Commandant. The Peanut Gallery has been saying this for years.
If you can’t take orders (and that includes accepting women, etc. into the ranks,) you can’t be in the military. Period.
Waking the Giants: Progressive DAs
His office has ended bail payments for nonviolent offenders; reduced the supervision of parolees; decriminalized marijuana possession; opened a sentencing review board to evaluate past cases and sentences; pushed for safe-injection sites to lessen the rate of opioid overdose; and diverted low-level drug offenses, some gun violations, and some prostitution cases from criminal prosecution to addiction treatment or other social-service programs. Krasner’s office has also given priority to reforming the police force, reportedly compiling a list of officers with a history of abuses like violence, racial profiling, or civil-rights violations.
…Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and Baltimore have gained national attention for the reforms their new DAs have enacted.
Krasner and other DAs are at work remaking a criminal-justice system focused on fairness, rehabilitation, and community. They are providing admirable examples of how to resist Trump’s politics of fear.
Waking the Giants | Commonweal Magazine
hmmm
Steve Bannon warns that women are going to ‘take charge of society’
“The anti-patriarchy movement is going to undo ten thousand years of recorded history,” Green quoted Bannon as saying. “You watch. The time has come. Women are gonna take charge of society. And they couldn’t juxtapose a better villain than Trump. He is the patriarch.”
Steve Bannon warns that women are going to ‘take charge of society’ – Business Insider
oy…
Government study finds racial, gender bias in facial recognition software
After reviewing 189 pieces of software from 99 developers, which NIST identified as a majority of the industry, the researchers found that in one-to-one matching, which is normally used for verification, Asian and African American people were up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white men.
In one-to-many matching, used by law enforcement to identify people of interest, faces of African American women returned more false positives than other groups.
Government study finds racial, gender bias in facial recognition software | TheHill
hmmmm
Blogger Katie Bowman’s Post About Visitors After Birth Goes Viral
Blogger Katie Bowman’s Post About Visitors After Birth Goes Viral
for fucks sake woman, just tell them to leave!
Michigan State Rep Barred From Speaking After ‘Vagina’ Comments
Brown, a Democrat, argued that her Jewish faith allowed for therapeutic abortions when the mother’s life is in danger without regard to length of pregnancy.
“I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adopt yours?” she said. But what came next is what got her in trouble: “And finally, Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no.'”
…She defended her use of the word “vagina,” saying it is the “anatomically medically correct term.”
“If they are going to legislate my anatomy, I see no reason why I cannot mention it,” she said according to the Free Press.
“Regardless of their reasoning, this is a violation of my First Amendment rights and directly impedes my ability to serve the people who elected me into office,” Brown added.
…”Byrum, D-Onondaga, caused a disturbance on the House floor Wednesday when she wasn’t allowed to introduce an amendment to the abortion regulations bill banning men from getting a vasectomy unless the sterilization procedure was necessary to save a man’s life,” the Detroit News reports.
Michigan State Rep Barred From Speaking After ‘Vagina’ Comments : The Two-Way : NPR
hmmmm
Lessons of the Kamala Harris campaign
One, know and establish your political persona before you get in.
…Harris promised a focus on racial issues with an implicit suggestion that Barack Obama, the first African-American president might have been too timid here. By this fall, there appeared to be no focus — race or otherwise.
…A candidate can alter, modify or change a position or two, but the overarching message has to be consistent and coherent.
…Two, when you get that moment in the limelight, be ready to capitalize on it and move on.
…Three, a campaign [organization/staff] matters. A staff is — to an extent — a mirror reflection of the candidate. [Which makes the Peanut Gallery curious why the Hill singled out her sister and not her stuff in the rest of the paragraph.]
…There is no doubt the political bar is a little higher for women — and more so for minority candidates.
It’s hard to cite this as the major factor in Harris’s collapse: In the past three presidential elections, twice the Democratic nomination went to an African-American, Barack Obama, the other to a woman, Hillary Clinton.
Lessons of the Kamala Harris campaign | TheHill
Yup.
…Also can we stop any talk of nominating sitting Senators to VP or cabinent positions. Enough already. They need to stay where they are.
George Skelton: Kamala Harris should have never run for president
“The hard truth: Harris was a weak presidential candidate [emphasis: Peanut Gallery],” Duran wrote.
Harris excelled in California politics because she’s part of a home state Democratic cabal, an insiders’ machine. But that machine doesn’t work outside California. [emphasis: Peanut Gallery]
…She hadn’t yet established herself in the U.S. Senate. And she hadn’t exactly excelled in her previous job as California’s attorney general.
…After being elected to the Senate in a 2016 cakewalk [emphasis: Peanut Gallery]…
…Harris’ lack of money was just a symptom of her failed presidential bid, not the root cause of its demise. [emphasis: Peanut Gallery] Her downward slide in polls destroyed the confidence of potential campaign contributors in her ability to win, drying up the money flow. But the plunging poll numbers resulted from her inability to connect with voters.
And she couldn’t connect with voters because of the core weakness in her candidacy: a lack of cohesive strategy and clear [personalized message].
…The campaign was confident she would win the votes of African Americans in South Carolina and from fellow Californians. [Without much basis for that other than the color of her own skin, that incomplete thinking was an insult people of ALL backgrounds. Whoever thought she could have California liberals without actually being a liberal hasn’t seen too many campaigns.]
…Anyone who watched Harris as attorney general could have predicted this outcome. She refused to take positions on any state ballot proposition. Her excuse was that the attorney general writes the official ballot titles and summaries, and she didn’t want to appear biased. But that was nonsense. She was trying to avoid making political enemies, especially among law enforcement. [Which is understandable but not very courageous or principled. And it sure as shit doesn’t leave much room for paving a clear path forward.]
…“This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly.” [This indictment doesn’t actually mean that she personally is difficult to work with but it does mean her top brass were. Like a President and their administration, the buck for that ultimately rests with her.]
George Skelton: Kamala Harris should have never run for president – Los Angeles Times
sigh…
Oh, and her refusal to shake hands and do selfies was cast by her campaign as a security decision. The Peanut Gallery believes wholeheartedly that there were indeed threats to her safety, threats a candidate who was not a woman and a POC would never have had to endure. The Peanut Gallery has also seen a lot of campaigns and a lot of Secret Service people in action and firmly believes this was a cop out and excuse for lazy and/or California style campaigning. The Secret Service are damn good at their job and they weren’t going to let anything bad happen to her. Basically this is the job she was asking for and reality is the place she was running for it. It’s harsh but true but she need to woman up or get out of the way. If Barack could manage to do selfies, shake hands, and bend down to talk to children she could too.
If you are too good to speak to early state voters (and make no mistake, this is how the campaign presented her) then you do not deserve to be in the running for the job.
Harris Policy Proposals That Got Lost in that Shitshow of a Campaign
Under Harris’ proposal, homebuyers who rent or live in historically redlined communities can apply for a federal grant of up to $25,000 to assist with down payments or closing costs. Harris’ campaign estimates that this will help up to 4 million families.
Redlining is the discriminatory practice of denying financial or other services for low-income and minority communities.
Harris’ policy proposal also aims to prevent discrimination in home sales, rentals and loans by promising to strengthen and strictly enforce anti-discrimination laws.
…In May, Harris reintroduced her 2018 bill to tackle racial disparities in maternal health and rolled out her proposal to fine companies that don’t achieve pay equity
Harris’ education proposal — her first major policy as a presidential candidate — would boost teacher pay, make additional investments in public schools and support programs dedicated to teacher recruitment, training and professional development, particularly at historically black colleges and universities.
Kamala Harris unveils $100 billion black homeownership plan – CNNPolitics
sigh…
Kamala Harris’s decline in the polls, explained
Kamala Harris’s decline in the polls, explained – Vox
Coalition building?! Don’t make the Peanut Gallery laugh. You can’t build a coalition relying on one firm for advice and only one demographic of voter.
We’re hearing a lot about concerns about her electability but that wasn’t a concern in Iowa or NH, both places that if she put the effort in and garnered a good finish could have really added that aura of electability to her candaciacy as he headed into places where that is more of a concern for voters, places like South Carolina.
Sigh… What a waste.
Kamala Harris Says She’s Still ‘in This Fight,’ but Out of the 2020 Race – The New York Times
Throughout her candidacy, Ms. Harris faced concerns about her political strategy and her campaign’s organizational structure. She relied on a stable of California political strategists, led by the longtime political operative Averell Smith, who did not heed warnings from grass-roots organizers to invest more heavily in early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Instead, the campaign focused on later primaries in states with more nonwhite voters, including South Carolina and California.
Her campaign miscalculated.
…Mr. Biden, campaigning in Iowa, called Ms. Harris “a first-rate intellect, first-rate candidate, real competitor.” He walked away when a reporter asked whether he would consider Ms. Harris as a running mate.
Kamala Harris Says She’s Still ‘in This Fight,’ but Out of the 2020 Race – The New York Times
Did she or her campaign take all of the next/female Obama hype she had been generating since before she ran for Senate too seriously? Because there was a certain arrogance behind some of her bad decisions on the campaign trail….
A lot of talk about where she fell on the ideological spectrum but did she &/or anyone on the campaign ever sit down and plot it out?
If she did a review of the finances this late in the game and made her decision on this where was she in the past six months? Did she even check her spending or have a skeleton budget she adhered to? (Thinking about that private plane the Peanut Gallery saw taking off after one her events…)
What did unifying goals mean to her? This was the woman who spent most of 2019 not bothering to talk to voters in NH and Iowa because they were too white.
Can’t speak for Iowa but NH is full not only a white state state, it is a gray state, full of successful professional women in their sixties and seventies who were (by virtue of when they started their careers) barrier breakers themselves. …Women who naturally felt a kinship and empathy towards her as another barrier breaker. She blew those women off and their interest in her and they went from dying to hear from her to, “Oh, Well, I guess she doesn’t want my vote.” Not exactly the stuff of a unifier….
Did she not realize she was vulnerable to candidates too her in California? How could she possibly have put together a campaign plan without accounting for that? (Oh, that’s right. Her campaign had no plan!)
As for her breakout moment calling Biden not quite a racist… What kind of politician attacks someone for supporting a position they themselves also hold? (Hint: a total frigging idiot who doesn’t think things through. That’s who!)
Also, Democrats have a tendency to eat their own and attack those on their own side who came before them. Fair or not, attacking Biden was also attack the Obama administration. Candidates who do this might as well be pulling the rug out from under their own feet.
Oy…. what a waste!
Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign is bad news for Democrats (even her critics)
Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign is bad news for Democrats (even her critics)
For fuck’s sake… Kirsten Gillibrand cut her own legs off before she entered the race by calling for WJC to retroactively resign. She pigeon-holed herself and didn’t expand her message when it didn’t catch on.
It stinks that Kamala didn’t run a better but she didn’t. She just didn’t. Maybe we should anointing people 2,4,6 years before the election? Maybe hiding in backroom with big donors isn’t the way to introduce yourself to voters…
Julian Castro went bitchy instead of finding a less abrasive way to get all of his great wonky points across. He was downright aggressive in trying to make Biden look old and it didn’t make seem forceful, he came across like the mean kids table in a junior high cafeteria. He also never developed a ground game.
The problem isn’t Bloomberg or Steyer, the problem is the three candidates did not enter the race in any way prepared. They needed mentoring and guidance and they either didn’t have or didn’t listen.
I wonder where all of these journalists and posters were while these candidates they loved so much were in the hunt. I wonder where they were in 2016. Did they volunteer or donate for the their preferred 2020 candidate or HRC? No? Then sit down and STFU. Whiny freaking children.
I do
Progressives cite racism, sexism in Harris exit: Women of color ‘get twice the scrutiny’
Progressives cite racism, sexism in Harris exit: Women of color ‘get twice the scrutiny’ | TheHill
Yes, all of this exists.
Kamala Harris also ran a shitty, shitty campaign. Bad hires, bad policy roll outs, piss poor strategy, and just a ridiculously ineffectual approach to just about everything.
The leadership skills show she showed were abysmal. In the face of racism and sexism, she needed to run a good campaign. She did not. If you cannot run a campaign, how do expect to run the country?
It’s sad the only African-American woman in the race has dropped out but sadder still is that her campaign didn’t have the organization or breath of experience, knowledge, and strategy that would have cast her in a better light.
Unfortunately Kamala’s dropping out is less of indictment of the our country’s lack of intersectionality and diversity and more of a statement on her own apparent lack of leadership and administration skills.
‘One of the hardest decisions of my life’: Kamala Harris ends once-promising campaign
Her candidacy got one of its first major breaks in the first Democratic debate in June, when Harris pulled off a blistering ambush of former Vice President Joe Biden over his previous stance on busing, which prompted another review of his record on race issues. Harris’ performance sent her soaring in the polls, and the campaign raised $2 million in the 24 hours following the debate.
But the attack blew back on Harris when her own stance on busing came under scrutiny in the days after.
‘One of the hardest decisions of my life’: Kamala Harris ends once-promising campaign – POLITICO
Campaign Lesson Number 3: Only a moron attacks a rival for holding views that they, themselves, hold as well.
Also, anyone who thought she wouldn’t be held to higher standard than a white male candidate is an idiot. It was coming. It was real. No, it’s not fair but it is real and she did not seem prepared for it.
Kamala Harris Drops Out of the 2020 Presidential Race
Ms. Harris also faced questions about her political strategy and her campaign’s organizational structure. She relied on a stable of California political strategists, led by the longtime political operative Averell Smith, who did not heed warnings from grass-roots organizers to invest more heavily in early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Instead, the campaign focused on later primaries in states with more nonwhite voters, including South Carolina and California.
…“Sometimes campaigns can tear friendships apart but we have grown closer,” Ms. Klobuchar tweeted. “Her good work will continue.”
“Her campaign broke barriers and did it with joy,” Mr. Booker tweeted. “Love you, sister.”
Mr. Biden, campaigning in Iowa, called Ms. Harris “a first-rate intellect, first-rate candidate, real competitor.” He walked away when a reporter asked whether he would consider Ms. Harris as a running mate.
Kamala Harris Drops Out of the 2020 Presidential Race – The New York Times
Yes, there were fund-raising issues but they only manifested because of all of the other issues in her once promising campaign. The lessons?
1.) POC and women candidates need to be better than their white/male counterparts. It’s an ugly truth but it is the truth.
2.) Iowa and NH are very white. They are also smaller populations which make retail politics easier and more effective to pull off. Both states like to go their own way though so there is a huge opening for new faces to succeed there. The media markets are so inexpensive it is staggering. The Peanut Gallery’s point here is that although they are very white states there are definite (and relatively inexpensive) paths to success for “outsiders” and “newcomers” who are WILLING TO PLAY BALL with retail-style campaigning. For all of those reasons and more, blowing them off isn’t just poor strategy, it’s just plain stupid.
3.) Sticking to the message is how campaigns win. Changing up the message every other day is how candidates lose. Period.
4.) California is a big state. It is not the entire country though. Banking on a California campaign strategy while employing a tightly knit, closed circle of California-only consultants and leadership is, well, naive and a bit arrogant.
5.) If you can’t campaign in all of the different regions of the country, what does that say about your ability to conduct yourself among the varied cultures across the globe? Don’t answer that. Because it doesn’t say anything good.
6.) She picked a poor cycle to run as America’s “top cop.” We don’t need a law and order prosecutor. We need a reformer.
7.) Outside of La-la-la land donations dry up when candidates don’t do retail politics. Anyone who couldn’t see her war-chest drying up has never campaigned outside a major media market.
The Peanut Gallery doesn’t really see itself ever willingly voting for a prosecutor in a primary but it still wanted to see her do better than this.
It’s not the press, it’s not white men telling her sit down and be quiet, and it’s not ‘electability’ (whatever that means) that sunk her. It was piss-poor decision making that did her in.
The Peanut Gallery is secretly breathing a sigh of relief she finally dropped out. The country needs someone with more savvy and leadership skills than she showed.
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