Women

[gotsnowgotslush]

1848, a small group of visionaries started a movement to secure equal rights for women in the United States. But it took more than almost 80 years just to win the right for women to vote.

Wyoming applied for statehood in 1889. That year, woman suffragists worked hard to elect delegates that were friendly to their cause. Some members of the U.S. Congress tried to remove the woman suffrage clause in the Wyoming charter. The territory’s voters replied that they would become a state that would let everyone vote equally or they would not become a state at all.

President Wilson was disturbed that the push for women’s suffrage was causing division during the war. He was also deeply impressed by Carrie Chapman Catt.

In January 1918, he announced his support for the Anthony Amendment. By this time, 17 states as well as Great Britain had granted women the right to vote. Wilson’s support helped build momentum for the amendment.

In the summer of 1919, the House and Senate approved the 19th Amendment by a margin well beyond the required two-thirds majority. Then the amendment had to be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

With one last state needed for ratification, the Tennessee legislature voted on the amendment. The outcome depended on the vote of the youngest man in the Tennessee state legislature. He voted for ratification, but only after receiving a letter from his mother, urging him to be a “good boy” and support women’s suffrage. Thus, on August 18, 1920, half the adult population of the United States won the right to vote.


Ripping a woman down from her lofty position

MARCH 26, 2011

Geraldine A. Ferraro, the former Queens congresswoman who strode onto a podium in 1984 to accept the Democratic nomination for vice president and to take her place in American history as the first woman nominated for national office by a major party, died Saturday in Boston.

She was 75 and lived in Manhattan.

64 years after women won the right to vote, a woman had removed the “men only” sign from the White House door.

Abortion opponents hounded her at almost every stop with an intensity seldom experienced by male politicians.

Though she opposed the procedure personally, she said, others had the right to choose.

New York Times
DOUGLAS MARTIN
MARCH 26, 2011

How did they tear her down ? Through her husband and her son,
and by reacting in a hypocritical manner.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...8-election-changed-the-world-for-women/63440/

But there is no question that Hillary (Clinton) being that candidate brought out the worst in men. It elicited wildly sexist comments from male audiences ("Iron My Shirt!") and commentators ("I am so glad you're not my wife!" "Shrillery!") and divided office workers in liberal workplaces into other-hating hostilely bemused camps.

"...hopefully, that no woman, should she be Jennifer Granholm or Debbie Wassermann Shultz or Claire McCaskill or some female Barack Obama we have not yet heard of, will ever be treated like this again."

-Lynda Obst SEP 27, 2010


Hilary Clinton campaigns in 2015
Attacks begin

Pennsylvania Democrat and the first woman ever elected as Attorney General in the state, Kathleen Kane, was indicted on Saturday for charges stemming from a leak against one of her political rivals. Kane says she is innocent of the charges, and thinks that she is being targeted by angry men who are upset that she uncovered their dirty habits.

Kane has said the charges are being levied against her as payback for an investigation she launched that exposed emails being sent by public officials that contained porn.

Kane released a trove of porn emails, uncovered during the Sandusky inquiry, that had been exchanged by Corbett-era staffers.


"...their (porn emails) existence on state computers does appear to flout internal office policy dating to 2006 that bars viewing or storing "any sexually suggestive, pornographic or obscene material" on state computers."

"The content ranged from off-color greeting card humor to leave-nothing-to-the-imagination sex tapes."

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/09/racy_emails_werent_unusual_in.html


The emails - all in apparent violation of office computer use policies - came to light earlier this year during Kane's internal review of her predecessors' handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse case.

Castille asked Kane's office for the opportunity to review the files out of concern over published reports suggesting that members of the judiciary were implicated in the email distribution rings.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/10/pennsylvania_pornography_scand_1.html


Rep. John Payne on Friday introduced a bill that would criminalize the use of state-owned computers and cell phones to look at pornography. Violations would constitute a third-degree misdemeanor, punishable by a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.)

There would be exceptions to the law — investigators whose duties required them to view such images, as well as anybody who unknowingly received such images, as long as they they didn't turn around and pass the prohibited material along to somebody else.
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/...a-state-computers-phones/#IDvDY7hZkEA87xko.99


http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/...rn-on-pa-state-computers-phones/#more-2925885

When I saw them they literally took my breath away,” Kane said. “And they are deplorable: hardcore, graphic, sometimes violent emails that had a string of videos and pictures depicting sometimes children, old women. Some of them involved violent sexual acts against women.”

One of Kane’s lawyers in the case, Lanny Davis, says he hasn’t seen all of the emails involved and isn’t sure to what Kane was referring. He says two images he saw of children were inappropriate but not necessarily child pornography.

gsgs comment-
Excuse me while I vomit.
Did they send sexual jokes about children, while they were overseeing the Sandusky trial ?
/end gsgs comment

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Here are just eight things feminists still have to explain to others —


Women like sex.

Our society may uphold two extremes when it comes to women’s sexuality (virgins or whores) without much room for identities in between, but this double standard is bullshit.

Women not only enjoy sex, but also occupy a variety of sexual identities, behaviors and preferences.

Women have distinct sexual fantasies. They watch porn. Plenty of women like casual sex, and they aren’t programmed to pursue monogamy.

They also identify as lesbian, bisexual, asexual and even reject labels altogether.

There’s hardly an expiration date on these identities and behaviors: A recent survey found the majority of women over 60 who are married or living with someone are sexually active.

It’s time to dispel the myth that female sexuality extends only to pleasing male partners or reproducing.

2. Women deserve to authentic media representation.

Women are still vastly underrepresented in media across the board: In 2014, women accounted for only 12% of on-screen protagonists and 30% of characters with speaking roles, according to the Women’s Media Center’s 2015 report.

Even when female characters do exist, they are far from complex or representative of the range of women’s experiences. One Tumblr user pointed out in March that female Pixar cartoon characters suffer from “same face syndrome,” whereas male characters are aesthetically diverse.

Similarly, a BuzzFeed census of Disney characters revealed that most leading female characters were younger than 20 years old, about 71% were white and about 57% were married or about to be by the end of the film.

But while some may write this off as annoying or lazy, these representations send a clear message and especially influence young viewers. Representation meaningfully shapes and reflects society’s attitudes towards women and the broad expectations we hold for them.

Studies demonstrate that not only can media representation affect the way women see themselves, but also that witnessing powerful female characters can positively shape audiences of all genders’ perceptions of women.

Putting more female characters on screens (and more complex female characters at that) is not just a matter of parity, but a meaningful indication of — and avenue for generating — progress.

3. Inequality is the enemy, not men.

Feminism is a movement dedicated to gender equality. Yet plenty of people still interpret feminism as an effort to prioritize women over other groups — like, for example, the many Men’s Rights Activists who believe feminists are concerned with destroying men by falsely accusing of them of crimes like rape and denying them other rights.

In reality, feminists do not want to destroy or hate men, but rather alter social, political and economic structures so that people of all gender identities can live equally.

The existing system, known as the patriarchy, doesn’t only disadvantage women but yields multiple types of oppression, including forms that hurt men.

This is why men are not only capable of identifying as feminist, but can benefit from the movement as well.

4. Reproductive rights are not privileges.

In 1973, the Supreme Court effectively prohibited states from outlawing abortion through its landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Yet 51 statewide abortion restrictions have been passed in the first half of 2015 alone, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

This results in a cultural landscape where governments regulate what women do with their bodies and other people add cultural enforcement, as anti-choice activists continue to target and even terrorize and murder abortion providers.

Yet these harsh restrictions don’t effectively reduce abortion rates. Even when states restrict abortions, women will still make the choice that makes sense for them; many travel to neighboring states to obtain the procedure, Sarah Erdreich, author of Generation Roe: Inside the Future of the Pro-Choice Movement, told Mic in June.

What these restrictions do effectively accomplish is further disadvantaging already marginalized groups and bolstering abortion stigma.

Young, poor and single women are the least likely to have access to safe abortion in this landscape, and women of color face similarly disproportionate barriers to this right.

5. Choosing traditionally feminine roles isn’t inherently anti-feminist.

When it comes to choices about traditional gender roles, it seems that women today can’t win. For example, if women choose not to become mothers, they’re considered shallow or selfish.

But if they do and then decide to stay home with their children, they’re somehow failing womankind.

While many women have fought for the simple right to make choices, others have noted that some choices still stem from internalized misogyny and abet a patriarchal system.

The more productive viewpoint, therefore, may be to focus less on praising or criticizing the actual choices women make, and more on questioning the systems that create the conditions for those choices.

Instead, Andrea Grimes wrote in 2013 for RH Reality Check, women should be celebrated when “they choose to fight, to rebel, to challenge, to speak up.”

6. Body image isn’t just a superficial concern.

The numbers are staggering: Eighty percent of 10-year-old American girls have been on a diet, more than half of girls age 6 to 8 indicate their ideal bodies are thinner than their current bodies and an estimated 1.3 million adolescent girls have anorexia, according to a Common Sense Media data review released early this year.

Behaviors that come with this reality, like disordered eating, are overwhelmingly normalized, as body image issues are largely seen as part of being a woman in this society rather than a serious problem.

The truth is, these attitudes are holding women back in myriad ways. The proven correlation between negative body image and low self-esteem, for example, can shape how confident they are and even affect their sexual pleasure.

This valuing of thin bodies is not just internally felt: Overweight women are more likely to be paid less, according to a 2014 study.

Body image may concern one’s appearance, but that doesn’t make it superficial, and women shouldn’t have to explain this or defend their experience with it.

7. We’re still working toward equality at work.

When the public learned that FIFA paid 2014 Women’s World Cup competitors 40 times less than their male counterparts, outrage ensued. This is hardly the first or only instance of women being paid less in the sports world, let alone the rest of American and global society.

Pay isn’t the only form of workplace discrimination women still face. Although Anita Hill paved the way for women to discuss sexual harassment in the workplace more than 20 years ago, one 2015 survey found that 1 in 3 women still reports having been sexually harassed at work.

Plenty of women also more anecdotally discuss the persistence of the “glass ceiling” and the fact that women are still vastly underrepresented in a variety of fields. Congress is only 20% female, women hold a mere 14.2% of the top five leadership positions at companies in the S&P 500 and in 2013, they held just 26% of computing jobs in the U.S.

Just because women have come a long way in terms of work opportunities and professional success doesn’t mean we’ve achieved victory in the fight for workplace. In fact, we’re still far from it.

8. Sexism is still a daily experience.

People often point to evidence of women’s broader progress as proof of feminism’s absolute success. While it’s true that feminists have won many victories, ranging from landmark legislation fighting for their rights and against discrimination to infiltrating male-dominated spaces, this overarching progress often obscures the everyday sexism most women still experience.

From relatively innocuous things like being told to smile, or that we did something well “for a girl,” to the truly damaging cultural tendency to blame women for crimes committed against them and discredit their accounts, the vast majority of women still experience sexism on a regular basis.

When we know and acknowledge what that looks like, that’s when we can start dismantling what keeps us all apart.

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/08/feminists-tired-explaining/