I was very disturbed when I first read about this in the local news here in the SF Bay Area. The school is in Piedmont. Piedmont is in the East Bay and it is an upper middle class community. It is the same city that the recent assasinated Ambassador to Libya was raised in. Most of these teens come from a very privileged background. I shutter to think of what these young men may grow up to be.

The City I live in now shares a Fire Chief with the City of Piedmont. The city where we live has a public school system where the students do well academically and is very similar to the Piedmont public school system. Apparently money cannot buy humanity, civility or an expectation of decency for young women, girls.

I interviewed at that school. I didn't get the job, probably because I don't have that upper middle class sheen. But I don't hold that against them. I got tons o job offers that year. Anyway, I have to say that the administrators seemed like truly decent people. That's not always the impression one gets.

My point is that it is the culture. Upper middle class white male. I bet the school will come down hard on them. I don't believe the implication that the school might be covering up for them though I know that happens. It's not a private school. And it's near Oakland, therefore politically correct by osmosis. Teachers who suspected that there was a cover up would whistle blow, I am sure. So I can't imagine that happening for real.

Independent Lens (PBS) shared today that they plan on airing a film called The Invisible War and also added a link to an article published by The New Yorker (Four Generals, Four Scandals, and A Sprawling Rape Case).

(LINK)


I hope to be able to watch this film.
I read the article and took heart that
Gloria Allred is not backing down from
advocating on behalf of the known victims.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee - Marie Myung-Ok Lee is a novelist who teaches at Columbia University and writes for Slate, Salon, The New York Times, and The Guardian




For being affronted, I was chastised for having poor social skills, the first black mark in my record (later removed when I challenged it—it actually said in its wording that I was not "submissive" enough).




http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/arc...-sachs/265572/

This article would have been on the hottest ninja-note exchange between me and a former professor and my peers. When I was at the height of a graduate level study, we were investigating corporate culture and breaking the proverbial glass ceiling women often face in corporate culture! I found a few 'best ever' lines, but the one that seems most telling, chilling actually, was the strand of thought where Myung-OK Lee suggests that ... "the place was just too soul-killing for me".

Which, if you ask me, the situation recorded by Myung-OK Lee is probably the most telling feature of any organizational culture where predominant top-down authority is the preferred organizational model: Organizational culture that is rife with proliferate examples of objectification of the subordinate in favor of the superordinate seems to always illustrate the capacity of the machination of unchecked and unchallenged seats of power.

Thanks for the article, Greyson.

V A G I N A
 

I put this in this particular thread because I have come to realize just how much negative stuff is out there, embraced and internalized about the female body.

Lindsay Abrams - Lindsay Abrams is an editorial fellow with The Atlantic Health channel. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times.

The 'Wide Open and Unregulated' Marketing of Vaginal Cosmetic Surgery

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...urgery/265526/



Melanie Berliet - Mélanie Berliet is a writer/producer based in New York City. Her work has appeared in New York, Vanity Fair, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Self, Esquire, and McSweeney’s. She worked as a consulting producer on MTV's The Buried Life.

Designer Parts: Inside the Strange, Fascinating World of Vaginoplasty

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...plasty/255188/

Afghan girl beheaded after refusing man’s marriage proposal
 

A 14-year-old Afghan girl was beheaded and killed in an attack by two men, one of whom apparently asked her to marry him.

The attack happened Tuesday, a day before new legislation was introduced in Congress calling on the U.S. government to take steps to help protect Afghan women and girls as the U.S. military prepares to exit Afghanistan.

Gasitina, a student, was beheaded in the Imam Sahib district of Kunduz province. The attack was initially reported by local media, and was confirmed by Amnesty International researcher Horia Mosadiq in an email.

The girl was fetching water when she was accosted, according to reports. The men, who have not been identified, were arrested by police. The girl and her parents had refused a marriage proposal by one of the men, according to the Amnesty International report.

This was the 15th deadly attack on a female victim in Kunduz in 2012, the human rights organization said.

"Amnesty International is very concerned about the violations against women in Afghanistan," said Cristina Finch, director of the organization's Women's Human Rights program.

Amnesty reported a similar incident in October, when a young woman was murdered and her throat slashed. In that case, the woman apparently refused to work as a prostitute.

Although it appears such attacks are increasing in frequency, it may be that the world outside Afghanistan is just beginning to hear about them, Finch said.

On Wednesday, Sen. Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican from Texas, introduced the Afghan Women and Girls' Security Promotion Act. If passed in its current form, the bill addresses how women's security will be monitored as the U.S. military withdraws from the country.

The bill also calls for improved gender sensitivity among Afghanistan's national security forces and recruitment of women within the ranks of those forces.

Amnesty International USA's executive director Suzanne Nossel applauded Casey and Hutchison for introducing the bill.

"As the United States military transitions out of Afghanistan, Afghan women's human rights continue to be at grave risk and demand urgent attention," Nossel said in a statement. "The fate of women will be a crucial determinant of that country's prospects for a stable and prosperous future."

In a report on Afghan violence against women, Amnesty International wrote that one of the justifications of the U.S. military going into the country in 2001 was to ensure the protection of human rights, including women's rights.

"More than 10 years after the overthrow of the Taliban, modest advances have been made for girls and women in Afghanistan," the report said. "But much remains to be done. Peace talks between the Taliban, Afghan government and the U.S. jeopardize even these modest gains as the U.S. searches for a quick exit."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...nlwYWdl;_ylv=3

This week in victim-blaming: 11-year-old gang-rape survivor as seductive “spider”

Two years ago, an 11-year-old Cleveland, Texas girl was gang-raped by 20 young men. The crime was recorded on cellphones and circulated amongst students at the local school before finally coming to the attention of the police. And since then plenty of allies have stepped forward to rally around the “real victims”: the rapists.

First the New York Times ran an article focused on the terrible strain the investigation had on the community. Forget about the survivor’s trauma: “The case has rocked this East Texas community to its core” and, as one concerned neighbor pointed out, “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.” The paper was also criticized for its focus on the young girl’s appearance and friends. Author James C. McKinley, Jr. wrote, based on local gossip, that “she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground.”

Now defense attorney Steve Taylor thinks that the 11-year-old rape victim, not her assailants, should be punished. As detailed in a Tuesday Chronicle article:

Former Cleveland Police Department Sgt. Chad Langdon, who was the lead investigator on the case, also testified that an 11-year-old – due to her emotional immaturity – legally cannot give consent for a sexual encounter.

Taylor questioned why the underage girl had not been charged with anything for choosing to violate that rule, indicating that she was “the reason” that the encounters happened.

“Like the spider and the fly. Wasn’t she saying, ‘Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly?’ ” Taylor asked.

This thread is so disturbing sometimes.

By Charlene Gubash, NBC News
Updated at 7:48 a.m. ET: CAIRO


Walaa Al Momtaz doesn’t leave her home for up to five days at a time. The neatly veiled 22-year-old misses her friends at City University, where she studies English and German, but what she faces upon leaving her house defeats her.


http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2...pts-women?lite

In an emotional speech as she nears the end of her term of office, Hillary Clinton warned there would be “many sacrifices and losses” before daughters were “valued as sons” across the world, according to reporters traveling with the secretary of state.


http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2...countries?lite

Calif. judge says victims' body can prevent rape
 

A Southern California judge is being publicly admonished for saying a rape victim "didn't put up a fight" during her assault and that if someone doesn't want sexual intercourse, the body "will not permit that to happen."

The California Commission on Judicial Performance voted 10-0 to impose a public admonishment Thursday, saying Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson's comments were inappropriate and a breach of judicial ethics.

"In the commission's view, the judge's remarks reflected outdated, biased and insensitive views about sexual assault victims who do not 'put up a fight.' Such comments cannot help but diminish public confidence and trust in the impartiality of the judiciary," wrote Lawrence J. Simi, the commission's chairman.

Johnson made the comments in the case of a man who threatened to mutilate the face and genitals of his ex-girlfriend with a heated screwdriver, beat her with a metal baton and made other violent threats before committing rape, forced oral copulation, and other crimes.

Though the woman reported the criminal threats the next day, the woman did not report the rape until 17 days later.

Johnson, a former prosecutor in the Orange County district attorney's sex crimes unit, said during the man's 2008 sentencing that he had seen violent cases on that unit in which women's vaginas were "shredded" by rape.

"I'm not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something: If someone doesn't want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage is inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case," Johnson said.

The commission found that Johnson's view that a victim must resist to be a real victim of sexual assault was his opinion, not the law. Since 1980, California law doesn't require rape victims to prove they resisted or were prevented from resisting because of threats.

In an apology to the commission, Johnson said his comments were inappropriate. He said his comments were the result of his frustration during an argument with a prosecutor over the defendant's sentence.

Johnson said he believed the prosecutor's request of a 16-year sentence was not authorized by law. Johnson sentenced the rapist to six years instead, saying that's what the case was "worth."

http://news.yahoo.com/calif-judge-sa...GlvbnM-;_ylv=3

Sexual assault reports jump 23 percent at US military academies
 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sexual assaults reported by students at the three U.S. military academies jumped 23 percent in 2012, underscoring what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said was a "persistent" problem that required a "strong and immediate response" from the services.

Eighty cases of sexual assault were reported by cadets and midshipmen during the 2011-2012 academic year, compared to 65 the previous year, the Pentagon said on Friday in its annual report on sexual harassment and violence at the academies. The victims were primarily women, although four were men.

It was the third straight year of increases, from a low of 25 in 2009. Prior to that, reported sexual assault cases had fallen regularly from 42 in 2006, when the Pentagon first began tracking the issue at the direction of Congress, the report said.

"Despite our considerable and ongoing efforts, this year's annual report ... demonstrates that we have a persistent problem," Panetta said in a memorandum to the secretaries of the Navy, Army and Air Force.

He said the lack of progress at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, merited "a strong and immediate response."

Panetta and he asked the services to identify "new ways to advance a climate of dignity and respect" at the academies and report back to him by the end of March.

The findings drew expressions of concern from lawmakers and special interest groups that track the issue. Representative Niki Tsongas said that while the rise could partly be attributed to improved conditions that encourage people to report assaults, they also showed the issue remains a problem.

"Sexual assault remains a persistent and untenable crime throughout the armed forces," she said in a statement. "These numbers are an affront to the educational institutions that are developing our military's future leaders."

Nancy Parrish, president of Protect Our Defenders, said the report "shines a light on the severity and scope of the crisis" of sexual assault in the military.

"There is a culture of high tolerance for rape and sexual predators in the ranks that pervades the military," she said. "Clearly all the reforms that have been announced over many years aren't making a difference."

The academies are implementing programs to try to reduce sexual assaults. At the same time, they are attempting to create an environment that encourages reporting, whether on a confidential basis that enables victims to get care and counseling or an unrestricted basis that also permits full criminal investigation.

Of the 80 cases reported in 2012, 42 were unrestricted, allowing authorities to pursue a criminal investigation with the assistance of the victim. Thirty-eight cases remained confidential and were not investigated, officials said.

The academies investigated 40 sexual assault cases in 2012, 23 from 2012 and 17 from the previous year. Of that number, 11 were prosecuted and punished, including eight suspects who were court martialed. The others were not prosecuted, either because the military lacked jurisdiction or evidence, officials said.

The Pentagon surveys students every two years to assess gender relations at the schools and to get a better idea about the number of sexual assaults that go unreported.

The survey conducted as part of this year's report found that 12.4 percent of women and 2 percent of men had reported unwanted sexual contact during the previous 12 months - statistically unchanged from the prior survey.

Fifty-one percent of women reported experiencing sexual harassment during the previous year, down from 56 percent in the 2010 survey. Ten percent of men reported experiencing sexual harassment, statistically unchanged from the earlier survey.

Unwanted sexual contact ranged from rape or sexual assault, to attempted attacks, forcible sodomy and other types of sexual contact, officials said. Major General Gary Patton, director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, said there was an important correlation between sexual assault and sexual harassment.

"Eliminating sexual harassment is critical to preventing sexual assault," he said, adding that those who experience sexual assault in the past year had also been sexually harassed.

"The solution to this problem is ... creating a nonpermissive environment where sexual harassment, sexist behavior, stalking and these types of behaviors are not condoned," Patton said.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/sexual-assa...182855083.html

Dental Assistant Fired For Being 'Irresistible'
 

After working as a dental assistant for ten years, Melissa Nelson was fired for being too "irresistible" and a "threat" to her employer's marriage.

On Friday, the all-male Iowa State Supreme Court ruled that James Knight, Nelson's boss, was within his legal rights when he fired her, affirming the decision of a lower court.

"We do think the Iowa Supreme Court got it completely right," said Stuart Cochrane, an attorney for James Knight. "Our position has always been Mrs. Nelson was never terminated because of her gender, she was terminated because of concerns her behavior was not appropriate in the workplace. She's an attractive lady. Dr. Knight found her behavior and dress to be inappropriate."

For Nelson, a 32-year-old married mother of two, the news of her firing and the rationale behind it came as a shock.

The two never had a sexual relationship or sought one, according to court documents, however in the final year and a half of Nelson's employment, Knight began to make comments about her clothing being too tight or distracting.

"Dr. Knight acknowledges he once told Nelson that if she saw his pants bulging, she would know her clothing was too revealing," the justices wrote.

Six months before Nelson was fired, she and her boss began exchanging text messages about work and personal matters, such as updates about each of their children's activities, the justices wrote.

The messages were mostly mundane, but Nelson recalled one text she received from her boss asking "how often she experienced an orgasm."

Nelson did not respond to the text and never indicated that she was uncomfortable with Knight's question, according to court documents.

Soon after, Knight's wife, Jeanne, who also works at the practice, found out about the text messaging and ordered her husband to fire Nelson.

The couple consulted with a senior pastor at their church and he agreed that Nelson should be terminated in order to protect their marriage, Cochrane said.

On Jan. 4, 2010, Nelson was summoned to a meeting with Knight while a pastor was present. Knight then read from a prepared statement telling Nelson she was fired.

"Dr. Knight felt like for the best interest of his marriage and the best interest of hers to end their employment relationship," Cochrane said.

Knight acknowledged in court documents that Nelson was good at her job and she, in turn, said she was generally treated with respect.

"I'm devastated. I really am," Nelson said.

When Nelson's husband tried to reason with Knight, the dentist told him he "feared he would have an affair with her down the road if he did not fire her."

Paige Fiedler, Nelson's attorney, said in a statement to ABC News affiliate KCRG that she was "appalled" by the ruling.

"We are appalled by the Court's ruling and its failure to understand the nature of gender bias.," she wrote.

"Although people act for a variety of reasons, it is very common for women to be targeted for discrimination because of their sexual attractiveness or supposed lack of sexual attractiveness. That is discrimination based on sex," Fiedler wrote. "Nearly every woman in Iowa understands this because we have experienced it for ourselves."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blog...opstories.html

Site matches single co-eds with benefactors
 

BOSTON (WHDH) -- Some local students think they've found a sweet solution to pay for college -- in the form of “sugar daddies.”

A new website aims to match "sugar daddies" with "sugar babies".

While some think it's a great idea to cut down on debt, others aren't so sure.

Students in Boston find themselves under the same crushing college debt load as kids all over the country. Some of them will look for jobs, or second jobs. Others are turning to a website where they can find benefactors advertised as boyfriends.

Answer a couple of questions, post your picture, and you could be just a couple of clicks away from finding a match made of cash.

The dating site “seekingarrangements.com” says its gaining popularity, especially with coeds struggling to pay for school.

“A lot of these girls grew up thinking college is going to be paid for and then when the recession happened they had to use their savings to stay afloat and now there's no college money for those girls,” said Jennifer Gwynn, “seekingarrangement.com”

“Seeking arrangements” lets singles find what they call a “sugar daddy” or “sugar momma.” The company says the average college aged sugar baby gets an allowance of about $3,000 per month -- that's for what it describes as a “mutually beneficial relationship.”

“We really believe this is a better way to pay for school,” said Gwynn.

“Seeking arrangements” claims to have 2 million users, it says 44 percent of them are college students, including some at BU and UMass.

“Given the expense of your colleges it doesn't surprise me that people are forced to end up doing things like this,” said one man.

“Sugar babies” can earn as much as $20,000 per month;more than enough to pay for books, loans, or even tuition.

But to most students, whatever the payout, it isn't worth the price.

“It sounds dangerous. I wouldn't do that. Wouldn't recommend it,” said one woman.

BU and UMass representatives told 7News they were not aware of any of their students participating with the site.

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/l...h-benefactors/
---------------------------

Sometimes there just arent any words.

My first thought when reading the above article is that gay men have been doing this forever.

The site is set up for all combination of sexes, with sugar daddys, sugar mommas, sugar male babies, and sugar female babies. Straight and gay.

Sorry but the article really pushed my buttons. One of my first thoughts is yet more enabling of spineless "I am too special, smart, talented and beautiful to be expected to live among the mortals."

I live in an area full of well intentioned middle class liberals who are clueless and raised to believe they are open hearted, fair minded and not racist. They could not do an honest day of work or find their way out of a paper bag if their life depended on it.

College fees, tuition are rediculious. Guess what? It has been this way for generations for many. So now that it is in the back yard of the little darlings, it is a problem? Gawd forbid they might have to get a job or take the bus instead of daddy's old car.

Well, when I went to the site I didn't see anything about it being a paying for college type of thing, so it seems to me that the article is making the assumption that this is what the site is mainly used for. But, it is not like I read further into it.

I took a look at the site after I read the article and it seems to be also used as just a regular personals site. Many of the "sugar mommas" make around 40K per year, so I don't see how they plan to spend $1,000-$3,000 for their "sugar male babies". Some of them are also in their 20's.

However, I didn't join the site, so maybe they mention the college thing, I don't know.

Really, this stuff already goes on on personal sites, anyway. People searching for wealthy people to help take care of them. The difference is this site gives one location for those people.

So, for me, when I read the article it pushed my buttons, but when I looked at the site and saw how it was a level playing field between the sexes, it "pushed my buttons less", so to speak.

Dapper, thanks for digging deeper. I am not against women making ends meet, raising their standard of living, spending their money however they choose among consenting adults. What rubs me the wrong way is when women, men and any other gender believes are entitled to something. Although the article does not speak directly to "entitlement" for me, it pushes that button.

In the media the discussion of entitlement is usually about "minorities." What is glossed over is the reality of middle class, upper middle class and cooperate entitlements. IMO, many are born into it and do not even realize their world is full of entitlement, privlege.

I guess I kind of see it as both. I have mixed feelings about Hooters, too, but seem to lean more towards viewing it is exploitation since it is most often very young women. Of course, the women who work there may be insulted by my feeling that way.

School Tells 13-Year-Old That She Should Get a Breast Reduction to Combat Bullying



"It makes me feel like now you are telling me it's my fault, it's God's fault the way he made her. The lady on the phone said they could transfer my daughter and said her boobs were so large she will always get teased. And the only suggestion she had for me is to have my daughter get a breast reduction," said Jackson.

Remembering Civil Rights in 1963, 50 Years On

Posted: 01/27/2013 2:42 pm

In 1963, Pauli Murray was working hard to make Americans aware of an idea she had come up with two decades earlier -- one that influenced people as different from one another as Eleanor Roosevelt and Marian Wright Edelman -- and which would help change the meaning of equality. She called it Jane Crow. Alongside the system of Jim Crow race segregation, Murray argued, there was an equally wrong system of sex segregation. Sex discrimination should be against the law for the same reasons as race discrimination. This was a radical idea at the time. In the early 1960s, there were still laws excluding women from certain jobs (like bartending), and from jury service (unless they volunteered to serve).

In 1963, Pauli Murray was working hard to make Americans aware of an idea she had come up with two decades earlier -- one that influenced people as different from one another as Eleanor Roosevelt and Marian Wright Edelman -- and which would help change the meaning of equality. She called it Jane Crow. Alongside the system of Jim Crow race segregation, Murray argued, there was an equally wrong system of sex segregation. Sex discrimination should be against the law for the same reasons as race discrimination. This was a radical idea at the time. In the early 1960s, there were still laws excluding women from certain jobs (like bartending), and from jury service (unless they volunteered to serve). As Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote in 1961, "woman is still regarded as the center of home and family." The mainstream view, among men and many women, was that restrictions on women were a simple reflection of their essential nature as wives and mothers.



Murray strongly disagreed, and had been developing her contrary view of "civil rights" ever since she graduated first in her class at Howard Law School in 1944, hoping to become a civil rights lawyer for the NAACP. That job never materialized, but by the early 1960s the lawyer/activist found herself at the crossroads of history, as civil rights and feminist groups sometimes worked at cross purposes. Seizing the opportunity, Murray began pushing her view of Jane Crow everywhere. When Congress had to decide whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should apply to sex discrimination, she was there, writing a memo that went to every member of congress, arguing that it should -- and it did. When civil rights activists planned the March on Washington, she was there, publishing an open letter that criticized march leaders for appearing at the National Press Club, which excluded women from its central space. When women's rights activists pushed for enactment of the Equal Rights Amendment, she was there, convincing them that they should also look to the civil rights movement's successful use of the existing Fourteenth Amendment. She was a founding member of the National Organization for Women -- and one of its few early black leaders. Among her most important listeners was a young lawyer (now a Supreme Court Justice) named Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In 1971, when Ginsburg convinced the Supreme Court to rule that the Fourteenth Amendment applied to sex discrimination in a case called Reed v. Reed, she placed Murray's name on the brief as the originator of that idea.



Then, as now, there were many who argued that the legacy of the civil rights movement of the 1960s should be restricted to the African American fight against Jim Crow. To most civil rights leaders, women's equality was a different cause with a different history. Murray, however, felt differently. The reason lay in what one of her friends called Murray's struggle as a "minority of minorities." Murray always felt out-of-place as a representative of African Americans -- a person who was supposed to stand in for the aspirations of her entire racial group. She was light-skinned and hailed from multi-racial family, and often found herself on the wrong side of the color lines that were supposed to divide blacks and whites. More importantly, she was a sexual dissenter. Although her own society lacked the words to name it, Murray felt as though she was a man trapped in a woman's body. Although it was the source of intense emotional discomfort, Murray wanted to do the things in life that only men did -- including becoming a black civil rights lawyer.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kennet...Black%20Voices

New Jersey Catholic School Makes Girls Swear Not to Swear, Lets Boys Do Whatever the Fuck They Want

/snip:

Following in the grand tradition of Catholic hypocrisy and misogyny, the girls at Queen of Peace High School in North Arlington, NJ were asked to take a no-cursing pledge on Friday while their male classmates looked on, blinking like the bemused rescue greyhounds the Pope flagellates every time he stubs his toe on a piece of priceless marble statuary.

Who You Calling a Female?

Ask Demetria: Before accepting a date, consider how a guy refers to women. It says a lot about him.

By: Demetria L. Lucas | Posted: February 7, 2013 at 12:11 AM


That you are startled by his use of "female" in a nonscientific context implies that you and I may have similar thoughts on the use of the word. To me, it's objectifying women, robbing us of a bit of our personhood. And that makes it sound woefully misogynistic.

That, of course, is a red flag, one that many people don't recognize. The heterosexual man who enjoys sex with women but doesn't actually like women -- or, er, "females," as he might call them -- is initially a bit of an enigma. I believe that calling women "females" is one of his calling cards. Whenever I hear it, it's as if the guy is trying really hard not to say "b--ch."

http://www.theroot.com/views/who-you-calling-female
__________________________________________________ _______________

For me, I feel and think similar to the use of the word "female" when referring to women. I am Trans. This means I have lived much of my life socialized as a woman in many ways. When and if I was ever referred to as a female instead of a woman, I would say something.

I was reluctant because this word is used by many POC and/or others at the lower end of the economic scale. Since I come from both, I was more willing to say something to the use of "female" when referring to a woman. When I was going through my morning reads, I knew I had to post this one.

UNC sexual assault victim faces possible expulsion for speaking out
 

A University of North Carolina sexual assault victim has been charged with violating the school's honor code and creating a hostile environment for her attacker by speaking out about her ordeal.

The charge came approximately a month after Landen Gambill, a sophomore at UNC—who last spring reported being raped by a student she says is still on campus—filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. Gambill, as well as others who filed with her—including current and former students, and Melinda Manning, the school's former assistant dean of students—allege that the school had pressured Manning into underreporting sex offense cases.

An email sent to Gambill last week by the school's graduate attorney general—published by Jezebel.com—reads in part:

You are being charged with the following Honor Code violation(s):

I.C.1.c. - Disruptive or intimidating behavior that willfully abuses, disparages, or otherwise interferes with another (other than on the basis of protected classifications identified and addressed in the University's Policy on Prohibited Harassment and Discrimination) so as to adversely affect their academic pursuits, opportunities for University employment, participation in University-sponsored extracurricular activities, or opportunities to benefit from other aspects of University Life.

The matter has been turned over to UNC's Honor Court. If found guilty, Gambill could be subject to a range of sanctions, including probation, suspension or even expulsion.

"This type of gross injustice is unacceptable," Gambill wrote on her Facebook page. "It's important to me that we continue to advocate for the rights of survivors—not just because it affects me personally but because I desperately hope no one has to go [through] anything like this again."

Some of Gambill's supporters have also taken to Facebook and Twitter, changing their avatars to say "I Stand With Landen" and tweeting messages with the hashtag #standwithlanden.

Colby Bruno, managing attorney for the national Victim Rights Law Center, told InsideHigherEd.com the code violation is "outrageous.” For the university "to entertain this as a viable claim is a problem, because it's not,” Bruno said.

The university would not comment on Gambill's case, citing federal privacy laws. But at a board meeting last month, Leslie Strohm, UNC's vice chancellor and general counsel, told trustees "the allegations with respect to the underreporting of sexual assault are false, they are untrue, and they are just plain wrong."

In 2010, the Department of Justice estimated that 25 percent of college women "will be victims of rape or attempted rape before they graduate within a four-year college period," and that schools with more than 6,000 students "average one rape per day during the school year.”

According to New York University's "National Statistics about Sexual Violence on College Campuses," fewer than 5 percent of such cases are reported to law enforcement.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...142933849.html

Why Seth MacFarlane's Misogyny Matters
 

Teri James, Pregnant Woman Allegedly Fired For Premarital Sex, Sues Christian School
 

A former employee at a Christian college has enlisted the help of high-profile attorney Gloria Allred to sue a California school that allegedly fired her for engaging in premarital sex, NBC's "Today" reports. In a bizarre twist, the school reportedly went on to offer the pregnant woman's job to her then-fiance.

Teri James, 29, told the news outlet that she did sign a two-page contract with San Diego Christian College that included a provision agreeing not to engage in "sexually immoral behavior including premarital sex."

"I needed a job in this economy and so I never thought that anything would happen," James explained to "Today."

But James said she was humiliated after being pulled into her supervisor's office last fall, where she was asked if she was pregnant and then was let go. After James lost her job, she claims the school offered a position to her now-husband, even though they were aware he'd had sex before getting married, too.

During a news conference featured in a KTLA report, James said she felt she was treated unfairly.

"I was unmarried, pregnant and they took away my livelihood," James said.

Legal clashes involving teachers at religious schools who've been fired for pre-martial sex are not entirely uncommon.

Last year in Florida, an appeals court ruled that a teacher's case would be moving to trial after the judges decided the school might have fired the womannot because she admitted to getting pregnant while unmarried, but because they didn't want to find a replacement for her during while she'd be on maternity leave, according to Reuters.

And as ABC News previously reported, an unmarried teacher in Texas sought legal counsel after she was fired over her pregnancy. The women offered to expedite her wedding in order to keep her job, but school officials still said "no," claiming the pregnancy violated their definition of being a Christian role model.

The legal waters can get murky, though, when contracts between teachers and religious schools are involved.

After a Catholic school in Ohio fired Christa Dias for becoming pregnant through artificial insemination, the school aruged that she had violated Catholic doctrine and failed to fulfill her contract.

“This is not the classic pregnancy discrimination case in which pretexts must be evaluated and discriminatory intent must be divined,” the school’s attorneys wrote, according to Cincinnati.com.

Dias sued the archdiocese and according to Courthousenews, the trial is set to begin on March 19.

Some teachers, on the other hand, have decided to leave religiously affiliated schools rather than agree to lifestyle contracts.

As Christianity Today reported in 2012, a third of the faculty at the Southern Baptist-based Shorter University decided to quit rather than sign a "lifestyle statement," which condemned drinking in public, sex before marriage and homosexuality.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_2790085.html

"Nice legs, get in the trunk": Thousands of women experience street harassment on a daily basis - but now they are #shoutingback
 

'Nice legs', 'Hey sexy lady', 'Now I know where you live', 'Get in the trunk, bitch'.

For many women and teenage girls these remarks are not a rare but a daily occurrence.

Coupled with lewd remarks and gropings comes a prevailing attitude that this is simply something women should put up with.

And while many might consider such boorish behaviour verging on the criminal as a relic of yesteryear it is a daily blight on the lives of many in Britain today.Laura Bates, 26, set up the project to document the everyday harassment and sexism women are forced to put up with …

Laura Bates was the target of such behaviour and knew it was wrong but didn't know what to do about it. It was only when she shared her experiences with her friends that she realised she was not alone. And that was when she decided something needed to change.

The 26-year-old freelance writer hit upon using Twitter to collect women's stories and empower them and in April last year launched ‘The Everyday Sexism Project’. She invited Twitter users to share their experiences of harassment through the hashtag Shoutingback thereby giving women a modern tool and a platform with which to fight back.

Within five days it had 3,500 tweets.

Women like Melinda Greenacre, 23, who works in advertising stumbled upon the hashtag and decided to contribute.

She said: “Rarely a day goes by without a man making comments, like ‘hey sexy lady’, or ‘get in my car’. Most of the time I brush it off but when it’s at night – then I get scared and feel uncomfortable.”

She, too, knew such behaviour was wrong but had normalised it. It was by taking part in Shoutingback that she knew she should never have put up with it. And her story is not an isolated case.

For Laura it reinforces the reason why she started the Twitter campaign and its associated 'Everyday Sexism Project’ to encourage women to speak out.

The tweets make for sobering reading. Women have documented how men catcall them while walking down the street, touch them inappropriately, follow them home and even threaten them with rape.

They also described the frequency of these incidents. That they happened everyday, regardless of where they were, regardless of the time of day, regardless how drunk or sober they were, regardless of what they were wearing.

One woman described how she was "chased to my door at 11.30pm by two lads who 'Didn't want to hurt me.' I ran faster".

They also showed how aggressive the harassers become upon rejection – a comment such as “Come here” can switch to “You whore, I’ll beat you so hard” within seconds.

The stark reality of these experiences reverberated around the Twitterverse and caused many to sit up and take note of the true extent of sexual harassment in Britain today.

Laura said: “The profile made women feel more confident to speak up about it. When they had said something before they would get a backlash – responses like ‘you’re frigid’ or ‘you can’t take a joke’. There was this idea that the problem did not exist anymore.”

Sexism at work is one of the most common entries.

Laura said: “We’ve had stories of women in IT who answer the phones and the man on the other end say they want to speak to a man because a women won't understand the problem. Another story was a boss telling a women to sit on his lap to get a Christmas bonus.”

But not all of the stories involve adults.

She continued: “Girls in their school uniform have been sexually harassed or touched in the street.”

Having young girls share such traumatising stories with her shocked and upset Laura, but she added: “It doubles my determination to get the information out there.”

The entries also showed sexual assault in public places was a common theme - with many women simply unaware they had been victim of a crime.

She said: “Women would go to bars and clubs and regularly be touched on their a**e, their breast and so on and they had no idea they were being sexually assaulted.”

The definition of sexual assault is it is when someone is inappropriately touched without giving consent - such as a hand on the bottom or leg. Its most serious form is rape.

Many of the women sharing their experiences were naïve and didn't realise that being groped in a bar constituted sexual assault – and most importantly that it could be reported to the police.

Laura, who since launching the project has received death threats and threats of rape from men, said: “When a women is shouted at on the street the silence of people around her says volumes. There was an instance when a women on a bus was cornered at the back by men saying lewd and threatening things to her - no one stepped up and intervened. People just thought these experiences were just part of being a women.”

Laura has since launched another hashtag called ‘followed’ which encourages women to tweet occurrences when she feels she is being pursued. Like Shoutingback, the experiences are common and heartbreaking to read.

So far 20,000 experiences have been shared and the project has had the backing from MP Stella Creasy and ‘Double Jeopardy’ actress Ashley Judd. Recently the project encouraged Twitter users to tweet a supermarket chain to change the display of its magazines after spotting the supermarket stocked science and politics magazines only in the men’s lifestyle section.

The project has seen men also give their support to women and vow to intervene if they witness street harassment or sexual assault.

As International Woman’s Day celebrates its 102nd year Laura is adamant that there is still a need for feminism and projects like ‘Everyday Sexism’.

She adds that what may seem like a harmless catcall on the street can quickly escalate to sexual assault and rape. One in five women over 16 in England Wales have been the victim of a sexual offence.

Laura said: All of these issues are connected and everyday sexism is an underlying factor.”

She added: “The laws that are there to promote equality are not matching up to the reality. It suggests that we have not come as far as we think we have. If we look back to the Jimmy Savile scandal, when the allegations came out a lot of people said ‘thank goodness it’s not like that anymore’ - but we see the same complaints on the projects.”

Laura’s message is clear – as long as these experiences persist, women will keep shouting back.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/internation...171432386.html

Egypt's Islamists warn giving women some rights could destroy society
 

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Egypt's ruling Muslim Brotherhood warns that a U.N. declaration on women's rights could destroy society by allowing a woman to travel, work and use contraception without her husband's approval and letting her control family spending.

The Islamist movement that backs President Mohamed Mursi gave 10 reasons why Muslim countries should "reject and condemn" the declaration, which the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women is racing to negotiate a consensus deal on by Friday.

The Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party propelled Mursi to power in June, posted the statement on its website, www.ikhwanweb.com, and the website of the party on Thursday.

Egypt has joined Iran, Russia and the Vatican - dubbed an "unholy alliance" by some diplomats - in threatening to derail the women's rights declaration by objecting to language on sexual, reproductive and gay rights.

The Muslim Brotherhood said the declaration would give "wives full rights to file legal complaints against husbands accusing them of rape or sexual harassment, obliging competent authorities to deal husbands punishments similar to those prescribed for raping or sexually harassing a stranger."

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice last week touted at the commission - a global policy-making body created in 1946 for the advancement of women - progress made by the United States in reducing the rate of violence against women by their partners.

"All 50 states in our union now have laws that treat date rape or spousal rape as just as much of a crime as rape by a stranger," Rice said. "We cannot live in truly free societies, if women and girls are not free to reach their full potential."

The contrasting views show the gap that needs to be breached in negotiations on the declaration, which this year is focused on urging an end to violence against women and girls. The commission failed to agree a declaration last year on a theme of empowering rural women due to similar disagreements.

WORLD IS WATCHING

Egypt has proposed an amendment, diplomats say, that would allow countries to avoid implementing the declaration if it clashed with national laws, religious or cultural values. But some diplomats say this would undermine the entire declaration.

The Muslim Brotherhood warned the declaration would give girls sexual freedom, legalize abortion, provide teenagers with contraceptives, give equality to women in marriage and require men and women to share duties such as child care and chores.

It said the declaration would allow "equal rights to homosexuals, and provide protection and respect for prostitutes" and "equal rights to adulterous wives and illegitimate sons resulting from adulterous relationships."

A coalition of Arab human rights groups - from Egypt, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan and Tunisia - called on countries at the Commission on the Status of Women on Thursday to stop using religion, culture, and tradition to justify abuse of women.

"The current positions taken by some Arab governments at this meeting is clearly not representative of civil society views, aspirations or best practices regarding the elimination and prevention of violence against women and girls within our countries," said the statement issued by the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies.

Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile and head of U.N. Women, which supports the commission, said the commission was unable to reach a deal a decade ago when it last focused on the theme of women's rights and ending violence against women.

"Ten years later, we simply cannot allow disagreement or indecision to block progress for the world's women," Bachelet told the opening session of the commission last week. "The world is watching ... the violence needs to stop."

http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-islamis...020322994.html

unbelievable
 

Social media gives Indonesian women new voice
 

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A judge being interviewed for a Supreme Court job jokes that women might enjoy rape. A local official takes a 17-year-old second wife, then quickly divorces her by text message.

Both cases reflect attitudes toward women's rights and safety that have persisted for years in this Southeast Asian archipelago nation of 240 million people. The difference now: Both officials are at risk of losing their jobs.

Women in this social-media-obsessed country have been rallying, online and on the streets, against sexist comments and attacks on women. The response is seen as a small step for women's rights in Indonesia, where the government is secular and most people practice a moderate form of Islam.


http://news.yahoo.com/social-media-g...065228116.html