Misogyny and Sexism in the News

[DapperButch]

Happy-Go-Lucky. There is no link to an article I can see. Maybe this is just your commentary?

As an aside to everyone, it is hard to find links to the articles posted unless you put them at the top of your post. Also, I think that all posts should have links, even just photos. Used to be standard here.

Just my two cents.

[Happy_Go_Lucky]

http://www.golfdigest.com/blogs/the-...-doing-on.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/mo...icle-1.1746710

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/pa...132635952.html

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2...nd-controversy

[Kobi]

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy has asked for a column he penned for Breitbart California to be removed from the site in the wake of a sexist ad controversy. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was depicted in a poster for the news site's launch on her hands and knees in a bizarre, punk-inspired "street art" homage to Miley Cyrus. Democrats, including Pelosi, have blasted the ads as “foul, offensive and disrespectful to all women.”

McCarthy topped the bill of Breitbart California’s conservative contributors from the state, the jewel in the crown of a list that includes Fox News host Greg Gutfield and Rep. Tom McClintock. But it appears that McCarthy, the third-ranking House Republican, is standing in solidarity with Pelosi at the expense of the outlaw conservative credibility attached to Breitbart. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a frequent contributor to Breitbart News, promoted the news site last week, and wrote, “Breitbart California will only help our party evolve, not die” and called on California Republicans to “[e]volve, adapt or die.”

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times about the images, McCarthy spokesman Matt Sparks said, “We didn’t condone them. We thought it was the right thing to do to ask for the column to be removed.” Another spokesman, Mike Long, told ABC News, “The images are inappropriate. We requested that Whip McCarthy’s piece be taken down.”

Breitbart’s defense largely revolves around the argument that Democrats do the same thing to Republican women all the time. After the ad controversy swelled into frothing Internet outrage on Monday, Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle compared the Pelosi ad to a 2013 Saturday Night Live skit in which Michelle Bachmann was depicted by none other than Miley Cyrus (her again), writhing around with Taran Killam’s perma-tan, tank top-wearing John Boehner in a political parody of the video for her song, "We Can't Stop."

“Cyrus herself raunchily depicted Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) in a Saturday Night Live skit touching her crotch while writhing on the ground, shaking her backside in tight shorts, and sticking out her tongue and licking people with a gay, hypersexual John Boehner,” Boyle writes, which makes us wonder which is more offensive to Breitbart: Cyrus as Bachmann, or a gay Boehner.

http://news.yahoo.com/breitbart-unap...JmMQR2dGlkAw--

The Ads

[Kobi]

Senate Republicans blocked a vote on Wednesday to open debate on the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would hold employers more accountable for wage discrimination against women. The Senate voted 53 to 44 to move forward on the bill, falling short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.

The bill would prohibit retaliation against employees who share their salary information with each other, which supporters say would eliminate the culture of silence that keeps women in the dark about pay discrimination. It would also require the Department of Labor to collect wage data from employers, broken down by race and gender, and require employers to show that wage differentials between men and women in the same jobs are for a reason other than sex.

All Republicans present and one Independent, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), voted against proceeding to debate the bill. All Democrats and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) voted in favor.

"At a time when the Obama economy is already hurting women so much, this legislation would double down on job loss, all while lining the pockets of trial lawyers," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said before the vote. "In other words, it's just another Democratic idea that threatens to hurt the very people that it claims to help."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) criticized McConnell's caucus for opposing the bill.

"Are they so repulsed by equal pay for hardworking women that they'll obstruct equal pay for equal work?" he said Wednesday before the vote. "I'm at a loss as to why anyone would decline to debate this important issue."

The bill is part of the Democrats' larger policy push, ahead of the November election, to increase economic security for women, which includes proposals to raise the minimum wage, allow workers to earn a certain amount of paid family and sick leave and expand affordable childcare and pre-Kindergarten for working parents.

"This is not just an issue of fairness," President Barack Obama said in a speech on Tuesday. "It’s also a family issue and an economic issue, because women make up about half of our workforce and they’re increasingly the breadwinners for a whole lot of families out there. So when they make less money, it means less money for gas, less money for groceries, less money for child care, less money for college tuition, less money is going into retirement savings."

U.S. Census Bureau data shows that women who work full-time earn an average of 77 cents for every dollar men earn in a year. When you compare women and men with the same education and experience levels working the same jobs, the pay gap shrinks, but there is still an unexplained gap of 7 to 9 percent, economists estimate, suggesting persistent pay discrimination against women.

Most Republicans in Congress object to all of the Democrats' proposals related to women's economic security. Senate Republicans have blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act twice before, claiming that it will only result in more lawsuits against employers. GOP lawmakers slammed the Paycheck Fairness Act again on Tuesday, calling it "condescending" to women.

"Many ladies I know feel like they are being used as pawns, and find it condescending [that] Democrats are trying to use this issue as a political distraction from the failures of their economic policy," Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.), the GOP conference's vice chair, said Tuesday at a press conference.

Equal pay advocates expressed their dismay after Wednesday's vote, suggesting the consequences will be felt in November.

"Today's vote is a disappointment for women and families across the United States. Considering the impact of the gender pay gap, it's mystifying that the Senate can't even agree to debate it!" said Lisa Maatz, the vice president of government relations at the American Association of University Women. "That's what happened today –- GOP senators essentially filibustered equal pay for women. Given the size of the gender voting gap, Republicans are foolish to cede this issue to Democrats."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5118254.html

[Kobi]

Children in Iraq could be legally married before the age of nine under sweeping legislation tabled on Tuesday that introduces new religious restrictions on women's rights.

As almost its last act before elections at the end of the month, the Iraqi parliament looks likely to pass new marital rules for its majority Shia community with a draft law criticised by human rights activists as "legalised inquality"

The legislation has been approved by the governing coalition in an effort to attract support from Shia Muslims in the April 30 vote.

Current Iraqi law sets the legal age for marriage at 18 without parental approval and states girls as young as 15 can be married only with a guardian's approval. It does not allow for special provisions according to sect.

But the legislation, known as the Jaafari law, introduces rules almost identical to those of neighbouring Iran, a Shia-dominated Islamic theocracy.

Ayad Allawi, a former Iraqi prime minister, warned on Tuesday that approval of the law would lead to the abuse of women. "It allows for girls to be married from nine years of age and even younger," he said. "There are other injustices [contained in it] too."

While there is no set minimum age for marriage, the section on divorce includes rules for divorces of girls who have reached the age of 9 years.

Marital rape is condoned by a clause that states women must comply with their husband's sexual demands. Men are given guardianship rights over women and the law also establishes rules governing polygamous relationships.

Hanaa Edwar, a well-known activist and head of the charity Al-Amal ("Hope" in Arabic), has campaigned against the law as a setback for women's rights in a country that has struggled since the 2003 invasion.

"It turns women into tools for sexual enjoyment," she said. "It deletes all their rights."

Human Rights Watch, the US-based organisation, has issued a plea for the Iraqi government to abandon the legislations.

"Iraq is in conflict and undergoing a breakdown of the rule of law," Basma al-Khateeb, a women's rights activist, said in a Human Rights Watch report. "The passage of the Jaafari law sets the ground for legalised inequality."

Supporters of the draft, named after a Shiite Muslim school of jurisprudence, say it simply regulates practices already existing in day-to-day life. Officials said there has been a surge in under 18s being married off since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-marriage.html

[Kobi]

According to Wharton professor Katherine Milkman's new study, released on Tuesday, professors are less likely to want to mentor female and minority students. Especially in fields that lead to the most lucrative careers.

Milkman explained her research on NPR's Morning Edition. To determine how professors respond to different students looking for mentoring, Milkman and her colleagues Modupe Akinola and Dolly Chough created fake student emails with names that are representative of different genders and racial groups. These "students" emailed professors at top universities to see if they could meet about their work. Professors were more likely to respond, and respond positively, to white men. Even female and minority faculty are more likely to help the white guys. Milkman explains,

" There's absolutely no benefit seen when women reach out to female faculty, nor do we see benefits from black students reaching out to black faculty or Hispanic students reaching out to Hispanic faculty."

Faculty bias is particularly entrenched in areas of study that lead to the best-paying jobs, like the natural sciences and business. "The very worst in terms of bias is business academia," Milkman says. "We see a 25-percentage-point gap in the response rate to caucasian males versus women and minorities."

It's this kind of bias that explains why women excel in college but still reach a glass ceiling in their careers, especially in business. Women currently hold 60 percent of bachelor's degrees in the U.S., but that achievement isn't reflected in the number of women excelling at Fortune 500 companies. Next fall, more Latinos will be enrolled as freshmen in the University of California system than whites for the first time. But white students, especially males, will still have an easier time finding a professor to help them transition from college to career.

In her now-legendary advice book on women and careers, Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg has an entire chapter titled "Don’t Ask Anyone to be Your Mentor." She advises that women seek answers to questions from a variety of people in the office, instead of focusing on finding one mentor. But college is a time when it would be great to have one professor dedicated to helping you with your academic and career development. When female and minority students put themselves out there, ask for help, and get no response or a negative response, it's got to be frustrating. No wonder women tend to have less confidence once they get out into the workforce.

http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/...school/361047/