Feminism in News and Popular Media

[Kobi]

NEW YORK (AP) -- When Lisa Parker was new to corporate coaching, a senior-level colleague she respected brought her in as his No. 2 for a series of training seminars. Time and time again, he introduced her as smart, capable and beautiful.

"I was so uncomfortable," she said. "The first time it happened I remember standing there waiting to take the front of the room and thinking, 'Oh my gosh, I can't believe he just said that.'"

Parker asked him to stop. Embarrassed, he responded: "But you ARE beautiful." That was a decade ago and he never did it again. The two have happily worked together many times since.

Sound familiar? Fast forward to April 4, when President Barack Obama introduced California's Kamala Harris at a Democratic fundraiser as brilliant, dedicated, tough and "by far, the best looking attorney general in the country."

The remark — the two are friends — raised a few eyebrows over whether it amounted to sexism. The president, who has similarly complimented men before, called Harris and apologized. A Harris spokesman assured the world she remains an Obama supporter.

But the question lingers. Male-to-female, female-to-male, peer-to-peer, superior-to-subordinate: Are workplace compliments focused on looks or other personal details like dress ever OK? Is the alternative a more sterile professional life? When do such remarks rise to actionable harassment, or become worthy of a friendly rebuff or a trip to HR?

"If we all end up trending toward the center we become pure vanilla. It's boring and it's a huge loss," said Parker, the New York author of the March book "Managing the Moment."

Parker, compliance experts and human resource managers agree that tone, context and a pattern of behavior are everything when it comes to unwanted remarks.

"Personally I'm not offended by a compliment, but I do take the issue very seriously," said labor lawyer Ingrid Fredeen, once in-house counsel for General Mills and now a vice president for ethics and training at Navex Global, a supplier of computer-based training tools.

"Whenever you're in some kind of a male-dominated world, there are always many sides to a compliment. Some of them are just pure. They don't mean anything other than, 'You have a nice jacket on.' End of story," she said.

Others are dripping with innuendo. "They're about power, and so using a compliment is a way to change the power dynamic between two individuals, and there's some tension there. That happens very frequently."

According to the nonprofit group Catalyst, which works to expand opportunities for women in business, sex discrimination charges amount to about 15 percent of allegations handled by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2011. That includes sexual harassment, defined as "unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature" that unreasonably affects employment or a work environment.

Nearly all large employers in the U.S. had harassment grievance policies in 1998 and 70 percent of U.S. companies provided training related to sexual harassment, according to research published in 2007 in the American Journal of Sociology by Frank Dobbin of Harvard University and Erin L. Kelly of the University of Minnesota.

But where does that leave the casual remark? "If it's made in public, laugh it off in the moment and then privately speak to the person," Parker counsels.

Fredeen notes: "When you're thinking about the legal landscape, compliments alone don't typically constitute unlawful sexual harassment."

Donna Mazzola, who recently retired after 30 years in HR in the banking and insurance industries, said the way codes of conduct are enforced is important. Even then, atmosphere from department to department, floor to floor, is everything.

"In the sales office, the women gave it right back to the guys and you would almost never have a complaint," she said of one large insurance company where she worked. "It's very common to have a sales guy say, 'Gal, were you out drinking, what the hell are you wearing today? Jeez, your dress is awful short.' In corporate you would have never said something like that."

Much also depends on personal relationships, Mazzola said. "Is this someone you hang out with in the lunch room? Or is this a more senior person or a colleague who you're not that close with?"

Such remarks are definitely not restricted to men, she said, recalling a female senior executive who once hauled a female vice president into her office to chide her about the way she dressed.

"'You dress way too sexy for this company and for your role,'" Mazzola recalled. "The VP said, 'Well, have there been complaints?' And this woman said, 'No, but I see the way men look at you in training sessions.'"

The vice president's response? "Well, if there are no complaints, I don't understand."

Parker said appearance can indeed be a legitimate target of complaints if a person creates a distraction.

But falling short of that, is it OK to compliment an outfit or a coworker's new hairdo? Why risk a compliment or a casual remark if the intent is innocent? Why not stick with ball scores, the weather or the latest movie?

"We're human and we form close bonds with the people we work with and we care about them," Fredeen said. "At the end of the day, for most, nothing bad is going to come of me telling you, 'Gee, you look terrific.'"

http://news.yahoo.com/ever-ok-compli...155428104.html

[Kobi]

Ford Motor Company and the advertising firm WPP have issued apologies after mock ups of ads for the Ford Figo, a hatchback made in India, were posted online last week, Business Insider's Laura Stampler reports.

While three posters were uploaded to (and removed from) Ads of the World, the one that has perhaps received the most attention features caricatures of three scantily-clad women with their hands and feet bound and their mouths gagged. In the driver's seat -- looking back and flashing a peace sign -- is a grinning man who looks a lot like Silvio Berlusconi, the embattled former Prime Minister of Italy. (Berlusconi is, of course, not only known for throwing wild "bunga bunga" sex parties, but is facing charges of paying for sex with an underage woman.)




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Apparently sensibilities in India, at least in the case of some Ford marketing partners, are downright lascivious at times. Case in point are a new series of print ads, presumably touting the vast cargo capacity of the Ford Figo hatchback, that involve more than a whiff of T&A, S&M and other sexy abbreviations.

In all seriousness, the advertising campaign is taking some major heat in the Indian press for being outrageously sexist. All three images – which seem to be produced by a graphic artist with some Heavy Metal work in his/her portfolio – show bound and gagged people stuffed into the Figo's boot. With a tagline reads, "Leave Your Worries Behind." one version features a peace-sign throwing Silvio Berlusconi holding hostage three buxom and barely clad women, all wearing ball gags with hands and feet bound. Charming. Another version shows Paris Hilton ­similarly kidnapping a trio of Kardashians, while a third (tame in terms of the clothing at least), has Michael Schumacher toting Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, and Lewis Hamilton.

Clearly in bad taste, at least, the Indian source also questions the timing of these risqué Ford ads, as the follow by days new anti-rape legislation passed by the Indian Parliament. Ford has responded in a statement, that it and its advertising partner (JWT India) "deeply regret" the ads, and claim that they "never should have happened."

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/03/22/f...y-bondage-ads/

[femmeInterrupted]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/28/us/mar...html?sr=reddit




(CNN) -- Journalist Mary Thom, a prominent feminist who was an editor of Ms. magazine in its early years, has died. She was 68.
Thom was killed Friday when she crashed her motorcycle on a highway in Yonkers, New York.
She helped found Ms., an influential feminist magazine, and served as an editor there for 20 years.
After leaving in 1992, she worked as editor in chief of the features section of the non-profit Women's Media Center, which works to raise women's visibility in the media.
"Mary was and will always be our moral compass and steady heart," said the center's co-founders Robin Morgan, Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda in a statement.
"Wherever her friends and colleagues gather, we will always ask the guiding question: What would Mary do?"
Thom had picked up her 1996 Honda Magna 750 from winter storage when she veered into traffic upon entering a highway in Yonkers, north of New York City.
She struck a vehicle and was struck by another, according to her nephew Thom Loubet.
The nephew's account was conveyed to CNN by Women's Media Center spokeswoman Cristal Chancellor.
The Westchester County police said it could not make the incident report available until later Sunday.
Born in Akron, Ohio, Thom spent all but 20 years of her life in Manhattan. As a result, her interests straddled the two.
She was an avid fan of comedian Jon Stewart, and she rooted for the Cleveland Indians.
In addition to her work with the magazine and the Women's Media Center, she consulted for several nonprofit women's organizations, including the National Council for Research on Women.
Among the books she authored was one on the history of Ms. Among those she edited was a history of feminist leader Bella Abzug.
"In Mary Thom's accidental death, Ms., the Women's Media Center and U.S. journalism suffer a huge loss," Morgan of the Women's Media Center said in a statement. "And I grieve for a wry, ethical friend."
Thom leaves behind her nephew, her sister Susan Thom Loubet, her niece-in-law Mariko Silver, and her grand-niece Kumi Silver Loubet.
"She was the source of our joy and our edits," the family said in a statement. "She charged through life with a generous and compassionate strength and wisdom, and that is how we will forever remember her."

[femmeInterrupted]

[Kobi]

At the kickoff of a six-figure campaign to elect America's first female president in 2016, Emily's List President Stephanie Schriock addressed the question on everybody's mind: Will Hillary Clinton run?

"There is one name that seems to be getting mentioned more than others," Schriock told reporters at the National Press Club Thursday. "We do not know if Hillary is going to run. But we're hopeful that she may."

Schriock, whose group (the name stands for "Early Money Is Like Yeast") works to get pro-choice Democratic women elected to office at the local, state and federal levels, noted there are other women who could run for president in 2016, but that she believes Clinton currently has the best chance to win.

"I think it’s clear if she decides to take this on, she’s in an incredible position," Schriock said in response to a reporter's question. "[But] for us, it’s not about one particular candidate."

Emily's List's effort—which will utilize its network of 2 million members—is called the "Madam President Campaign." It will focus on battleground states such as Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire, and will include town hall meetings, online events, ads and Internet engagement.

The group says it's armed with data commissioned from political pollsters Anzalone Liszt Grove Research that shows America has reached a "tipping point" and is ready to see a woman as president.

According to the poll, conducted April 3-9, 86 percent of battleground voters in Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina believe the U.S. is ready to elect a woman as president. Nine percent of respondents said America is not ready, and 5 percent were unsure.

Seventy-two percent of those surveyed believe it's likely America will elect a woman as president next cycle, and 24 percent percent say it's unlikely.

At the news conference, Schriock and the pollsters said the polling suggests more voters feel a female president would do a better job at, among other things, bridging partisan politics, and would better understand the challenges facing the middle class. Eighteen percent of respondents said a woman would be better at ending partisan bickering and 6 percent said a man would be better, according to the polling data.

(The data not noted at the conference, shows that a whopping 74 percent of respondents said that overall gender didn't make a difference on ending partisanship, and the same was true for understanding the middle class.)

The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Schriock also noted that the fact that a historic number of women were elected to office in 2012 is evidence of America's readiness for a female president.

Having a female perspective in the nation's highest office, Schriock emphasized, will be helpful to all: “We really want to ignite this national conversation about how it is going to be beneficial to all Americans to see a woman in the White House."

Schriock on Thursday publicly asked polling firms to conduct research on potential female candidates for president as way to drive the conversation about having a woman in office and grant greater visibility to the available bench of female candidates.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/e...145716477.html

[femmeInterrupted]

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...pcake-feminist



Homeward Bound
Why women are embracing the new domesticity
by Emily Matchar



And the essay the article is based on:


http://thequietus.com/articles/07962-cupcake-feminism




Half Baked: The Trouble With Cupcake Feminism

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http://thequietus.com/articles/10179...agina-feminism

Fave Part:

"If you're wondering what the sound you can hear after reading that little snippet is, it's Andrea Dworkin turning so hard in her grave that she's almost tunnelled her way to Tartarus."