Gaston really is the most terrifying Disney villain because he could be anyone in the world.
(via womenorgnow)
SO HAPPY THESE HAVE ARRIVED *CRIES* ALL THE WAY FROM CALIFORNIA *CRIES* MUST SEW THEM ONTO MY JANSPORT BACKPACK IMMEDIATELY *CRIES*
awesome!
Messages from Women in the World
With the powerful, personal testimonies of women at the summit, Secretary Clinton summed it all up well by saying, “Improving women’s lives is not a panacea, but it’s hard to imagine progress without giving all women and men the chance to achieve their dreams. Now we must focus on the unfinished business of girls and women’s empowerment.”
Feminism? In MY Nashville? It’s more likely than you think.
Sarah Seltzer: Hi Lauren! Despite its fluffy pop star exterior, this is a show that’s created by someone with genuine feminist bona fides, Callie Khouri of Thelma and Louise fame, and starring another recent heroine of reproductive rights on television, Connie Britton, aka Tami Taylor from Friday Night Lights. I think you can see the feminism creeping in at the edges of this show, or at the very least a certain woman-centric point of view. Do you detect any traces of real ideological edge in this primetime soap, or is any impulse in that direction tempered by the need for big ratings?
LK: Ah yes, our Lord and Savior Connie Britton. There are many reasons to love her and the characters she plays. On Friday Night Lights, Britton, playing Tami, has that great series of scenes where she’s persecuted by anti-choicers for discussing abortion with a teenage student. Britton plays those scenes with so much compassion—not to mention frustration at the anti-choice activists (“Come on, y’all”).
As for Nashville, I think you’re absolutely right about feminism “creeping in at the edges.” The show very much passes the Bechdel Test. It’s about strong-willed women, Rayna James and Juliette Barnes, who are super career-focused. They’re vocal about what they want out of their careers, they negotiate hard, and they’re ambitious. There are plenty (plenty) of sub-plots about the men in their lives, but the show is first and foremost about two women who are successful music stars, trying to navigate the industry.
The beauty of an inclusive, intersectional, progressive feminism that champions positive reinforcement is that it allows a wider spectrum of people to participate in social change. Choose a battle that will allow your sisters and brothers in the fight for gender equality to have more and better choices, and someone else will do the same for you in another arena. We have to use our collective efforts to lift each other up, rather than become mired in criticism.
-Andrea Grimes
“Let’s value activism and intentional change-making more than we value having the world’s most feminist pubic hair, whatever that means right this second. And hell, maybe your feminist pubic hair is being the change you want to see in the world, but it doesn’t have to be everyone’s.”
- Andrea Grimes
Four Things You Probably Don’t Know About Title IX
Written by Becka Wall for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, February 6th, is National Girls & Women in Sports Day, which has people singing the praises of Title IX from soccer fields, softball diamonds, tracks, pools and countless other sporting venues — and for good reason! Title IX is an enormously important law for female athletes — no other law has done more to expand opportunities for women and girls in athletics. While there is still work to be done, the progress we have made thanks to Title IX is tremendous.
But what many people don’t know is that the benefits and protections of Title IX aren’t limited to athletics. Here are four other ways Title IX is there for young women (and men, too):
1. Equal opportunities in career and technical programs in traditionally male-dominated fields
Title IX requires that girls and boys be given equal opportunities in career and technical education programs, particularly in traditionally male-dominated fields. Getting more women in these fields may be the key to closing the gender wage gap, since predominantly female occupations pay lower wages than predominantly male ones. Women still face barriers and a lack of encouragement in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (often referred to as STEM), but Title IX has broadened opportunities for a number of women and girls.
President Obama: Women Stood for You. Stand With Us and Remove Abortion Restrictions From Your Budget
Written by Ashley Hartman for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
This election, I was proud to work with many young people to engage our communities and campuses in the issues that impact us. One issue that engaged many young women in the election work I did this year in Ohio was access to health care, especially pregnancy related services, such as pre- and post-natal care, maternity care, and abortion care. Sixty-five percent of 18-to-24 year-olds believe abortion should be legal all or most of the time, which is higher than any other age group. I am lucky to have employer-funded health insurance that allows me to access a full range of preventive services, including all pregnancy-related services.
Sadly, not all women — even women with insurance — have access to these services. Current law unfairly limits insurance coverage for abortion for women with government-funded insurance. This is because federal dollars are withheld from covering a woman’s abortion except in limited circumstance.
Response to Time: What Choice? *Our* Choice
Written by Charlotte Taft for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
It is always exciting when one of our colleagues is featured in an important article such as Time Magazine’s Cover article What Choice? Many thanks to Abortion Care Network member Tammi Kromenaker and all her staff and patients at the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, ND for inviting this journalist into their daily routine and letting her see firsthand both the caring provided by an independent abortion provider, and the ridiculous hoops that patients have to jump through. Tammi made sure that the journalist understood some of the complex reasons that women choose abortion. Pickert noted that when a patient wasn’t sure about her choice she was given more time to consider what she wanted to do. She shared many statistics that the public may not be aware of, for example that independent clinics provide the majority of abortions, and that most of the women who have abortions already have children.
But I was sorry to see that, like so much journalism, this article seemed determined to focus on conflict and failure, rather than on the extraordinary energy and transformative gifts of the movement for women’s reproductive choice have yielded over these past forty years.
I know Kate Pickert had access to another perspective of the movement because I had a lengthy interview with her. I shared the fact that there is really nothing new about the Reproductive Justice concept — that what the early women’s movement worked for was a panoply of changes including access to excellent child care; health care; housing; freedom from violence; access to credit; equal pay; progressive divorce laws; an end to forced sterilization; access to understandable consent information for any medical procedures; safe birth control; and, yes, safe and legal abortion. Of course we didn’t see abortion as separate from other aspects of women’s’ lives.
What we wanted is what we still want — a society that supports the ability of women to make real choices about their lives — not one in which women have children they don’t want to have because they don’t have access to abortion; or have abortions they don’t want because they can’t afford to have children.
The Elephant in the Room: Why is the Gunman Always Male?
Written by Sheila Bapat for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
As a nation, we are reeling. On Friday, December 14, 20 young children — 12 girls, 8 boys — and six female teachers and school administrators were massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in one of the most harrowing acts of gun violence in this nation’s history. After a year of some of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history, Newtown’s was among the most sickening in large part because the majority of the victims were young children between five and seven years old. A number of writers have begun to offer policy suggestions to outline, as President Obama called it, “meaningful action” on gun control.
To truly address the problem of which Newtown reminded us in the most horrific way, gender, and its entanglement with culture, poverty, and mental health requires serious attention in addition to gun policy reform. On NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, Shankar Vedantam pointed out common characteristics of gunmen in the most recent gun massacres including Friday’s in Newtown:
“[I]f you look at the series of incidents that have happened in recent years, there are several things that stand out in terms of patterns….the shooters have always been men.”
Why is the gunman always male?
