Misogyny and Sexism in the News

[Soon]

[Kobi]

'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

[Kobi]

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

[Soon]

CNN's Steubenville Coverage Focuses On Effect Rape Trial Will Have On Rapists, Not Victim

[Kobi]

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

[Toughy]

I'm so frigging mad at CNN I cannot see straight. Those poor boys will suffer the rest of their lives................SPIT..........fuckers need to stay in jail til they are 21........

I also cannot believe not one single kid....boy or girl... stepped up and stopped this from happening. The little shits were way to busy taking pictures and posting them on-line..........they need some jail time also......it's despicable all around......

A great blog:

http://blackgirldangerous.org/new-bl...he4zc46go4awsu

[Greyson]

High-skilled immigration debate grows over stark gender imbalance, favoring men for H-1B visas

By Matt O'Brien
mercurynews.com
Posted: 03/19/2013 06:28:07 AM PDT

The long-overlooked disparity is beginning to attract attention on Capitol Hill, where activists demanded Monday that the federal government take a closer look at whether U.S. visa policy discriminates against women.

Corporate hiring practices, outdated U.S. visa policies and entrenched gender discrimination in immigrants' home countries are all contributing to the disparity. The hearing marked the first time this year that lawmakers specifically addressed how reform of the immigration system will affect women.

While the Obama administration came under fire at the hearing for not revealing how many men and women hold H-1B visas, the nation's centerpiece program for highly skilled workers, the data requested by the Bay Area News Group provided the scope of the imbalance: The U.S. Office of Immigration Statistics recorded 347,087 male H-1B visa holders entered the country during the 2011 fiscal year compared to 137,522 women.


http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_228190...r?source=email

[Kobi]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The officer in charge of the U.S. Air Force effort to curb sexual assault in the military was arrested over the weekend for allegedly grabbing a woman by the breasts and buttocks in a parking lot not far from the Pentagon, officials said on Monday.

Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, was arrested on Sunday and charged with sexual battery after the alleged incident in the Crystal City area of suburban Arlington, Virginia, officials said.

An Arlington County Police spokesman said the woman fended off Krusinski, who was under the influence of alcohol, and when he attempted to grab her a second time she was able to call the police, who arrived a short time later and detained him.

Krusinski initially was held on a $5,000 unsecured bond. He has since posted bond and been released from the Arlington County Detention Facility, said the spokesman, who confirmed Krusinski's name and arrest but did not have his rank or title with the Air Force.

The Air Force said that Krusinski, whom it identified as a lieutenant colonel, had been removed from his job as chief of the service's sexual assault prevention and response branch after his arrest. The branch is responsible for overseeing the Air Force's sexual assault prevention effort.

News of the arrest came as the Pentagon is preparing to release its annual report on the problem of sexual assault in the military.

A total of 3,192 cases were reported in the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2011, a 1 percent increase in reporting from the previous fiscal year, according to last year's report.

Pentagon officials have said the actual number of sexual assaults, including those that go unreported, is much higher, possibly as many as 19,000 a year.

The Air Force has faced a series of embarrassing sexual assault scandals over the past year. An investigation at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, that began in 2011 has so far turned up 59 cases of sexual assault of military recruits by drill instructors.

General Mark Welsh, the top Air Force officer, called the scope of the case "stunning" during a congressional hearing earlier this year.

In another case, the top general in charge of an Air Force court martial at Aviano Air Base in Italy overturned the sexual assault conviction of a lieutenant colonel, threw out his one-year prison sentence and reinstated him to duty.

That case has prompted U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to recommend that Congress alter the military justice system to limit the ability of a military commander to throw out court-martial verdicts.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/head-u-air-...223841205.html