Happy almost Valentine’s Day, my lovelies!

How many of you are planning to spend this Saturday with your wonderful, Cupid-bestowed, significant others?

Awesome. All of the single people want to punch you lovebirds in the face.

But, despite the wave of existential dread this holiday brings to single people everywhere (#foreveralone, am I right?), SCOTUS seems to be in a weirdly lovey mood. In what can only be interpreted as an early Valentine’s Day gift to coupled-up gay people nationwide, SCOTUS dropped a solid hint on Monday that it’ll be making gay marriage a nationwide reality soon.

Early Monday morning, SCOTUS refused to extend the stay on a lower court’s decision that declared Alabama’s ban on gay marriages unconstitutional. Basically, that means that SCOTUS is allowing gay marriages to happen in Alabama right now, despite the fact that the constitutionality of state-level gay marriage bans isn’t on deck to be decided upon until later this summer.

Folks, this is a big fucking deal for gay marriage.

The validity of state-level gay marriage bans are currently under SCOTUS’ consideration, and it’s uncertain which way the court will rule. Will SCOTUS decide that individual states totally have the right to ban gay marriage? Will it decide that that’s bullshit, and all of the states have to allow marriages of all people, regardless of the couple’s gender pairing?

Basically, until this summer, the answer on that is TBD.

With that understanding, SCOTUS could do well to allow states that currently have gay marriage bans to continue on with their marriage banning. If these states were forced to allow gay marriages during this current limbo period—and if SCOTUS ultimately decided that state level marriage bans were A-OK—then a whole mess of married couples would suddenly find themselves in a legal quagmire.

So, why create all that mess? It would make more sense to wait until the decision is final, and then marriages can proceed or not, depending on the official decree.

But that’s the opposite of what SCOTUS did on Monday morning!

The justices ruled, without further comment, that the federal district court in Alabama’s ruling could go forth, allowing thousands of gay couples in the state to get married.

Why would SCOTUS do that if it was planning to uphold the constitutionality of gay marriage bans this summer?

Monday’s decision strongly suggests that, come summertime, SCOTUS will rule that state-level gay marriage bans are unconstitutional, and unfettered gay marriage will reign throughout the land.

I’m really hoping that decision comes through in time for Gay Pride. Can you imagine the parties? GOOD LORD. I’m already excited.

For marriage equality advocates across the nation, SCOTUS’ decision Monday morning comes as a welcome victory. Gays in Alabama are happily marrying, and most likely, all of the gays in all of the states will be able to follow suit very soon.

Hurray for all the gay couples who want to get married, for lots of totally valid reasons! Tax benefits, inheritance, hospital visitation rights, health insurance sharing, co-parenting and custody benefits, and citizen sponsorship are just a few of the myriad benefits that legal marriage affords to couples. Signing your name on that dotted line is a huge deal for a lot of people, and it’s a right that tons of people—many of whom I personally know and love—are fighting really hard to secure.

However.

Let’s not forget that marriage is a discriminatory and problematic institution. It’s not the magical cure-all for the LGBT community’s marginalization and disenfranchisement. It’s not even the most pressing issue on our list of things to fix, despite what organizations like the HRC and Lambda Legal might have you believe.

Violence, poverty, unemployment, criminalization, and homelessness are all issues that are—or should be—more highly prioritized on the docket of LGBT issues than gay marriage. Because let’s face it—while well-to-do gay couples are busy planning their weddings, queer youth of color are dying in the streets.

Literally. I’m not exaggerating. Nearly half of the homeless population is comprised of LGBT kids. Trans women of color are getting murdered left and right. This shit is real.

So, while I’m totally enthused about SCOTUS’ hat tip this week in favor of the gay marriage fight, I’m not waving the rainbow flag of victory just yet. No matter which way their final decision goes this summer, we’ll still have a lot more work to do before the queer community can live safely and equitably in American society.

So Happy Valentine’s Day, lovelies! You might be able to get married soon. And then, after your wedding bells have died down, we’ll all have to keep working towards real justice.

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Happy Valentine’s Day! Gay Weddings May Soon Be Sanctioned by SCOTUS appeared first on Law Street.

Did you watch President Obama make the Republicans cry Tuesday night?

Yeah you did! Because you’re smart and well informed and give a crap about where this nation is headed, am I right?

Obviously.

So today, instead of reacting to the SOTU—because let’s be real, you’ve read a thousand of those pieces by now already—we’re going to talk about something a little less official. A little more ridiculous. A little more—Meninist.

Yep, that’s right. Meninist is a word now. Thanks, Men.

But who is a Meninist, you ask, and what in fuck’s name is Meninism? Sadly, it’s not an adjective used to describe a person who is both a zealous believer in Leninism and also suffering from meningitis.

I love the word #meninist. It cleverly combines the painful brain inflammation of “meningitis” with the doomed zeal of “Leninist”.

— Tom Freeman (@SnoozeInBrief) January 17, 2015

We’re sorry, Tom Freeman. We like your definition a whole lot better.

Nope. In fact, Meninism is a sad little play on Feminism, because those goddamn men’s rights activists are so fucking convinced that their lives are super hard and women are out to get them.

All together now.

UGGHHH.

So basically, the Meninist movement has gone something like this, so far.

Men started tweeting at each other with a cute little Meninist hashtag. It started out as a joke (rolling my eyes so hard right now), and then morphed into an outlet where people with penises could bitch about how hard it is to be a man in the twenty-first century.

The first challenge, it seems, is spelling. #MeninistTwitter and #MenimistTwitter are used interchangeably across this little trend, which I think is probably the funniest detail about this whole thing.

Anyway! After these dick-swingers had built up something of a Twitter community, some entrepreneurial folks decided to capitalize on this jackassery and make some merch.

Courtesy of Teespring.com.

And so was born the Meninist T-shirt and hoodie combo. Douche canoes galore are modeling their swag proudly on Twitter.

Look what came in the mail #Meninism #meninist pic.twitter.com/cCJGMgDMzZ

— Evan Conway (@evandotconway) January 15, 2015

And some of them are even totally not-ironic women! Because men need equal rights too, guys. It’s just so unfair that they get to make more money than women do, spend less on their cost of living (having a vagina is expensive, yo), participate less in childrearing and other household tasks, and control the vast majority of corporate and governing bodies across the globe.

Supporting equal rights @MeninistTweet #meninist pic.twitter.com/ZBqssfyFXG

— Paige (@tubapay) January 16, 2015

So much power, so little justice.

Folks, I can’t. And apparently, neither can a lot of you! Because some wonderful feminists also took to Twitter to mock and ridicule these Meninist fuckers, because COME ON. This shit is ridiculous.

Fixed the meninist tshirt guys pic.twitter.com/JgM3LT1dUP

— Emily ReyNOlds (@rey_z) January 19, 2015

the "I'm never getting laid" starter pack: pic.twitter.com/dfQXxhfbDw

— Kuh-Reem (@WTFKAREEM) January 17, 2015

noticed a little typo in the new #meninist hoodies, so i thought i'd help out! pic.twitter.com/7E4NuEdC1b

— Inglourious Beanpole (@ladyepicenter) January 17, 2015

You folks are heroes.

But, all jokes aside, this Meninist crap is genuinely not okay, and here’s why.

A feminist is, by definition, “a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.” Thanks for defining this baggage-laden, complicated term in such a straightforward way, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie! We love you.

So, here’s the thing. If you’re not a feminist—or, if you’re like these Meninist jerks who are actively taking a stand against feminism—that means that you don’t believe in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.

Got that?

You’re cheering for inequality and oppression. That’s what you’re fighting for. That’s really fucking shitty, guys.

Now, to be fair, a lot of these Meninists don’t seem to be holding up signs telling women to get back in the kitchen. (Although a fair amount of them are pissed off that we don’t want to see their dicks.) They aren’t actively calling for the vag-havers to be oppressed. Instead, they’re just looking for some sympathy.

These seemingly reasonable Meninists are simply saying that equality between the sexes has already been achieved, and so feminism has become obsolete. Anyone who STILL identifies as a feminist is actually a man-hater, looking to reach beyond simple gender equality and over toward flipping the power dynamic, leaving men in the oppressed position that women used to be in before we got equal rights and all.

To those Meninists, I say, UNTRUE.

Gender equality has not been achieved. This is not a real thing.

Women are still paid less on average than their male counterparts. Women are still disproportionately at the mercy of domestic and sexual violence, which (not coincidentally) are crimes that are disproportionately committed by men. Women are still responsible for a greater share of the household and childrearing responsibilities. Women are still more likely to live in poverty, more likely to have difficulty accessing quality health care, and more likely to be single parents.

Why are all of these things happening?

In part, it’s because of shitty legislation. The Equal Rights Amendment never passed, meaning that it’s still legal to deny or abridge the legal rights of women simply because they have vaginas. There are also a shit ton of laws out there that specifically bar us from maintaining control over our own bodies or accessing the health care we need.

These are the problems that are officially on the books.

But off the books? We’re in trouble there too.

As a culture, women are almost exclusively valued as objects, not people. We’re treated like ornaments to be admired, fetus incubators to be legislated, pieces of ass to be fucked. When compared to men, women are literally paid less and raped more—and that’s because we aren’t valued as highly as men are.

So, to all the Meninists complaining about how fucking hard it is to be a man in the twenty-first century:

You’re missing the point.

Feminism isn’t about making life hard for you, and if you think it is, then you’re acting like a self-involved brat. Please wake the fuck up.

Women want to be valued and respected. We want to live in a world where social, political, and economic equality is a real thing.

And we want you to stop whining about it and get the fuck out of our way.

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Misogynists Are At it Again, Now With T-Shirts! appeared first on Law Street.

Folks, the New Year is upon us.

Time to break out your most bedazzled dress, pop the champagne, and party your way into 2015, am I right?

Fuck yeah I am.

But, while New Year’s Eve is a night of epic intoxication, huge crowds, and glittery debauchery (if you’re at the right party), it’s also notorious for being the pre-game to a little thing we all do every New Year’s Day.

Resolution making.

And this is where New Year’s turns into a giant letdown.

Because who really keeps their resolutions? Who really follows through on any of this crap? Hardly any of us. But this year, loves—this year’s going to be different.

Why, you ask? Because we’re not making resolutions that are steeped in the bullshit ways of our racist, sexist, patriarchal culture, setting unreasonable standards for ourselves that we don’t even actually want to fulfill.

Nope.

This year, we’re keeping it simple. We’re keeping it real. We’re going to do this.

So here, my dears, are five totally rad resolutions for a more feminist New Year. Happy 2015!

1. Don’t lose weight.

How many times have you woken up from your New Year’s Eve bender to solemnly swear that THIS YEAR, you’re going to get super healthy and drop all of your excess body fat and become a granite, kale-worshipping tower of flawless muscle tone?

Like, practically every year. Because we’re all constantly barraged by magazines, TV shows, movies, and commercials that feature super thin, Photoshopped millionaires looking unattainable and telling us that we’ll be our happiest selves if we can get our bodies to look the same way.

This year, forget it. Reject all the media bullshit that encourages you to hate your body. Give the middle finger to all the Photoshopped images that you can’t possibly replicate in real life because literally no one looks like that. Fuck all of that noise.

Instead, resolve to love yourself exactly the way you are, right now. Because you’re fucking fabulous, and owning that is a revolutionary act all to itself.

2. Learn to be a better ally.

We’ve seen it time and time again—well-meaning people in positions of privilege who want to support those of us who are on the outside, but who do so kind of terribly.

I’m talking about the white people who wore “I am Trayvon Martin” hoodies in 2013. I’m talking about the #CrimingWhileWhite movement that took over Twitter a few weeks ago. I’m talking about folks who encourage women not to walk alone at night, who chastise fat people while insisting that they’re only concerned about their health, who spend money with abandon and shame peers who can’t or won’t do the same.

If you have racial, gender, sexual, class, body, or any of the other myriad types of privilege you can possess—own it. Investigate it. Question it. Understand that you’re not Trayvon Martin. That you’re not a health or safety expert. That you don’t know the specifics of any person’s situation.

Instead, ask people in the community you’d like to ally with about how you can better support them. And then, resolve to sit down, really listen, and do it.

3. Follow your passion.

What makes you as happy as this panda bear?

Resolve to do more of it.

I’m not talking about the thousand things on your to-do list that you really should do. Put that list down and walk away from it. Tear it up into tiny little pieces and burn it.

Subtract all of the things that you really should do—like learn Spanish, or read more books, or do more sit-ups—until you’re left with the one thing that you are irrationally excited to do. Or the handful of things that you’re stupid happy about doing!

We all have a tendency to spread ourselves too thin—especially in a world that encourages shorter attention spans while claiming that it’s easier than ever to accomplish more.

Fuck all that noise. Every moment that you spend feeling overwhelmed and scatterbrained is a moment that you don’t get to spend fighting the good fight.

So, resolve to give yourself license to have a shitload of fun. Do more of what—or who!—you love.

4. Practice better self-care.

Are you taking care of yourself? Like, really taking care of yourself?

I’m willing to bet that more often than not, the answer to that question is no.

While you’re busy challenging yourself to love your body, become a better ally, and follow your little heart’s true desires, it’s reasonably likely that you aren’t also making time to cook healthy meals or sleep a solid eight hours. Not to mention, leaving space in your schedule to sit quietly with a good book, snuggle with your favorite people, or drink your coffee while strolling through the park.

Here’s the thing—we aren’t encouraged to take care of ourselves. We aren’t taught to stop and really appreciate our lives, ourselves, or the people who love us the most.

Instead, we’re pushed to do more, eat more, buy more, sleep less—because all of that constant energy keeps us distracted, exhausted, and unsatisfied. And who can smash the patriarchy when they’re that frazzled?

No one. So, seriously, resolve to practice better self-care this year. You’ll be amazed at how much more positive change you can affect in the world when you’re grounded and cared for.

5. Let things go.

Finally, folks, let’s just admit it. This world is rough. It’s filled with people and messages that are constantly telling us that we aren’t good enough. And it’s ridiculously easy to internalize all that shit.

Don’t. Resolve to let that fuckery roll right off your back. Because you know what? In a world filled with negativity, inequality, and brutality, it’s a beautiful act of resistance to just be at peace, or even—gasp!—genuinely happy.

So, take a lot of deep breaths and smile, lovelies. You’ve got this.

What do you think, people of the Internet? Can you keep these resolutions in 2015? Do you have some awesome resolution suggestions that I missed? Blow it up in the comments.

And in the meantime, have a happy, healthy, patriarchy-smashing New Year!

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post 5 Resolutions For a More Feminist New Year appeared first on Law Street.

Folks, Christmas is right around the corner. Unlike my awesome, totally not annoying friend on Facebook who has had a daily countdown to Christmas going since like, October (I shit you not), I am kind of freaking out right now.

Oh come on, like you aren’t. Gift buying is hard.

However! Despite the stress of Christmas money-spending and family-schmoozing, there is some holiday time awesomeness happening in the world this week.

And it’s happening in—wait for it…

Australia!

The land of terrifying spiders and other freakishly large insects is setting a really great example for the rest of the world this week, as they respond to the hostage crisis that’s currently unfolding in Sydney.

In case you haven’t been following the news, Man Haron Monis, an Iranian political refugee, held 17 hostages at gunpoint inside a Lindt Chocolat Café in downtown Sydney early Monday morning. After 16 hours, Australian police stormed the café.

Three people were killed—Monis being one of them—and four were injured. Monis had an extensive prior record with law enforcement in Sydney, and officials currently believe he acted alone.

This is a terrible, awful thing that happened in Sydney, and I think it’s safe to say that our hearts are collectively with the hostages and their families.

However.

The people of Sydney are handling this tragedy remarkably well. And I mean like, really, REALLY well. People of the United States—and actually, the whole rest of the world—take note.

Here’s what’s happening.

Muslims in Sydney were feeling understandably concerned about their safety in the aftermath of this hostage crisis. In countries like the U.S., every time Muslims are in the news, for literally any reason—whether it’s a terrorist attack or an innocent debate about where to build a new mosque—anti-Muslim hate crimes increase.

So, to recap, whenever Americans are reminded that there are Muslims among them, they start attacking them at significantly higher rates.

Seriously, guys? This is some racist bullshit. Stop it.

But, in Sydney, they tend to handle things a little better. Or, you know, a LOT better. Instead of attacking Muslim Australians or vandalizing their homes, businesses, and mosques, non-Muslims in Sydney decided to step up and protect their fellow residents.

A Twitter hashtag, #IllRideWithYou, started when a single, non-Muslim person offered to walk with a woman wearing a Hijab who presumably felt unsafe.

Muslim removed her hijab, out of fear. Passenger told her to put it back on and offered to walk w her #IllRideWithYou http://t.co/h3uGyTjUmC

— Jeremy Duncan (@duncanjeremy) December 15, 2014

Tweets started to follow, as other non-Muslims throughout Sydney started to post their commuting routes, offering to ride with any Muslims in religious clothing who were concerned about their safety.  

Anybody concerned for their safety going to work in Brisbane tomorrow morning from the Northside, #illridewithyou — Ben Clark (@scouse_roar) December 15, 2014

If you wear religious attire, & need to get from #Adelaide‘s west suburbs to the city on Tues but don’t want to travel alone #illridewithyou

— Sharna Bremner (@sharnatweets) December 15, 2014

Practical thing: I’ve made a temporary sticker for my bag so people who need me can spot me #illridewithyou pic.twitter.com/aVldEn9wVU — Kristen Boschma (@Kristen_Boschma) December 15, 2014

The hashtag has since gone viral, and that’s really fucking awesome.

#illridewithyou anytime. This campaign makes me proud to be an Aussie in the face of something truly… http://t.co/YDsD8FC1VE

— Ms Darlinghurst (@msdarlinghurst) December 15, 2014

“Small acts, if multiplied by millions, can transform the world”#illridewithyou [pic] — https://t.co/NrF8jgNW5A — Linda Sjahreza (@lindasjahreza) December 15, 2014

The people of Sydney are using social media to let Muslims in their communities know that they’re safe in their homes and on the streets. No need to fear retaliation in the name of this hostage crisis—the people of Australia understand that the actions of one disturbed human being don’t translate to an entire religion of people who have nothing to do with him.

For those who still struggle, here’s a better illustration. #illridewithyou pic.twitter.com/5DiHn6BfS3

— Junaid (@Its_JunaidS) December 15, 2014

In short, Australians are responding to the Lindt hostage crisis by doing the opposite of what many Americans would do.

They’re being actively anti-racist.

I’ll be in the city/Craigieburn line/59 tram today with this on. Sorry the writing isn’t very big! #illridewithyou pic.twitter.com/GCJ6sjCgvo

— Neezus. (@thatnem0kid) December 15, 2014

So, people of Sydney, we salute you. You’re restoring our collective faith in humanity today. Keep being awesome.

Everyone else—let’s follow Sydney’s example, mmkay?

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Australians School the World on How To Not Be Racist appeared first on Law Street.

Happy December, folks!

Have you all awakened from your turkey coma? Good. Because the situation in Ferguson has taken an interesting turn, and you’re going to want to be alert for this one.

The Oath Keepers have descended upon Ferguson in response to the riots, taking up armed positions on the rooftops of local businesses to guard against looters. Working as a sort of vigilante militia, these rooftop patrollers are veterans, ex-cops, and paramedics. They work at night and, apparently, they’re prepared to shoot down anyone who crosses their path.

So, here’s the thing about the Oath Keepers. On the one hand, some folks are happy they’re there. Local business owners who are receiving their protection have reported feeling safer, and that’s pretty great.

However, the Oath Keepers are a super problematic—and frankly, pretty scary—organization, and their presence in Ferguson is anything but benign.

The Oath Keepers are a radical, militant, right-wing non-profit that was founded in 2009. Not coincidentally, their appearance aligns perfectly with the election of President Obama and the rise of the Tea Party. The Oath Keepers are—shockingly—mostly white men, and their stated mission is to protect Americans’ Second Amendment rights and to prevent a dictatorship from ever taking hold in the U.S.

But really, that’s a lot of coded language for racist, paranoid, gun fanatics who decided to form a vigilante militia in response to a black president being elected to office.

Here’s what the Oath Keepers are really about—they’re a particularly militaristic arm of the Tea Party, a group that sprang up with Obama’s election because conservatives were scared as fuck. The economy was (and, let’s be real, still is) in the shitter, thanks to Republican tax policies that caused the housing crisis of 2008. Their beloved straight, white, Christian, family-man conservative president, George Dubya, was leaving office and being replaced by someone new and relatively unknown. The face of the United States was changing drastically.

So, naturally, conservatives freaked the fuck out. Enter the Tea Party and its bevy of reactionaries—folks dressing up in colonial garb, romanticizing the Founding Fathers and their Constitution, ignoring the existence of slavery, and holding up signs of President Obama fashioned as Hitler, the Devil, and a monkey, all demanding to see his birth certificate.

Yeah, so, the Oath Keepers are those people. Except they carry guns and act as unlicensed, armed security guards whenever things start to happen that they don’t like.

What’s high on their list of things they don’t like? Black people rioting in the streets after a grand jury decided that their lives don’t matter, and that we should all just collectively shrug our shoulders as another young black man’s life gets cut short—like Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner before him—and hold no one accountable for his death.

This the type of shit that gets the Oath Keepers riled up to restore order. God forbid people of color should rise up and demand that their lives be valued by the American justice system.

This is the third time in three years that we’ve had to collectively mourn the untimely death of a young black man, shot down because his blackness made him threatening to the shooter. And those are just the cases that have made national headlines. How many more people of color have been cut down in the last three years by a justice system that’s stacked against them?

More than any of us would like to admit.

And so, as the Oath Keepers descend upon the city of Ferguson, it’s no coincidence that the men standing on shop rooftops with guns are mostly white, and the assailants they’re taking aim at are mostly black.

These radical right-wingers are feeling all kinds of sympathy for the store owners whose businesses have been looted. And that sympathy isn’t entirely misplaced. It’s not a situation that any of us would wish on another person—to have their life’s work plundered or burned to the ground.

But if we all take a step back from the riot-shaming that is implicit to the Oath Keepers’ presence in Ferguson, it’s clear what side of this issue the radical right is on.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that a “riot is the language of the unheard.” And conservatives, like the Oath Keepers, want to keep the unheard quiet. They’ll shoot them down to preserve the silence if they have to.

Instead of patrolling rooftops, threatening to gun down people who are fighting for their lives, the Oath Keepers should be listening to this latest outcry from the unheard.

They’re telling us that black lives matter. Michael Brown matters. Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner matter. And, contrary to what the American justice system might have us believe, these losses aren’t to be taken lightly.

So please, Oath Keepers, get the hell off the rooftops. Stop trying to intimidate the unheard people of Ferguson into silence.

Try listening to them instead.

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Dear Oath Keepers: GTFO of Ferguson appeared first on Law Street.

Hey there folks! Are you pumped for tomorrow?

You should be, because it’s HALLOWEEN! Also known as the spookiest and most fun holiday of the year.

Why am I such a big fan of Halloween, you may ask? Considering it’s a super commercialistic, capitalism-run-amok type of holiday, that’s a great question.

And the answer is threefold.

First, I was fairly obsessed with witches growing up—I was very disappointed when, at 16, I didn’t inherit any magical powers a la “Sabrina and the Teenage Witch”—and so I’m a big fan of the holiday’s spooky pagan roots. As the legend goes, Halloween is the day of the year when the veil between the world of the living and the dead is at its thinnest. Call me morbid and weird, but I think that’s pretty cool.

Second—CANDY. Obviously. I’m very excited for gigantic bags of chocolate to go on mega-sale come November 1st. No shame in my game.

And third—costumes! Dressing up as someone who you’re not can be really fun and empowering. Not to mention, this is literally the easiest holiday to pick up that hottie you’ve been eyeing at the bar. Costumes make for bountiful conversation starters. Go forth and get laid, dear readers!

This is obviously the best way to do that.

So, on the subject of costumes—we’ve seen some real doozies the past few years. We’re looking at you, 2013 Julianne Hough. And I’m here to make sure that you don’t make the same mistakes.

So, if you want to have an awesome time this Halloween while simultaneously not offending people or repelling that barroom hottie, here are five things NOT to do.

 1.) Don’t make a joke about anyone’s death.

Courtesy of Brandsonsale.com.

Last year, the joke was on Trayvon Martin. This year, it’s this dumbass hazmat costume—which, come on people—genuinely doesn’t even make sense. Your whole body is exposed. This costume protects no one from infectious disease.

Anyway! Trayvon Martin isn’t a joke, he’s a kid who met a violent and unjust death. And Ebola victims are also not jokes. They’re real people with families and lives, who are suffering and dying as a result of a terrible disease.

So please, when choosing your costume, pick one that’s not poking fun at any kind of situation where people are dying.

Unless you’re dressing up as a zombie, in which case, carry on.

2.) Don’t wear blackface.

For the love of God, please, oh please, do not wear blackface. DO NOT DO IT. No matter how good of an idea it seems to be, no matter how tempted you are.

Julianne Hough’s costume as Crazy Eyes from OITNB caused quite an uproar. Why? Because she was dressed in blackface pic.twitter.com/LNIxdplR7P

— Black Student Union (@IU_BSU) October 27, 2014

Blackface is always offensive. It is never OK. So just cross it right off your list of costume possibilities.

Seriously. Cross it off now and never consider it ever again.

3.) While we’re talking about blackface, just stay away from cultural appropriation in general, mmkay?

Not sure what cultural appropriation means? Here’s a nifty guide that’ll make it crystal clear for you. But basically, here’s the gist:

If you’re a white person who’s planning to dress up as a sexy geisha, a sexy Arab belly dancer, or anything else that is racially based, you need to rethink your costume choice.

Racism is deeply ingrained in American culture, and you don’t need to be a racist douchecanoe to perpetuate racial stereotypes with your costume choice. Garb that doesn’t read as “white” is understood to be funny, farcical, or exotic—all things that make for perfect costumes—and when you wear a race-based costume, you’re perpetuating stereotypes that label an entire culture as exoticized and other.

Still not convinced? Think of it this way—if a black person dressed up in some American Apparel and Ugg boots, would that pass as a “white girl” costume? My guess is no. Those would just be clothes, and that’s because whiteness is (wrongly) assumed to be the normal, default setting.

AKA, not a costume.

The fact that other cultures can be costumized when whiteness can’t be is, in itself, a perfect illustration of how deeply ingrained racism is in our society.

So just don’t dress up as any other race or culture to which you don’t belong, mmkay? Let’s all do our part to be actively anti-racist.

 4.) Don’t be a slut-shamer.

While you’re out partying this Halloween, you’ll notice that some women will be dressed in provocative costumes. Not all of them, mind you—but some of these women are going to look really fucking sexy.

They have every right to look that way, and have (hopefully) chosen to do so not for your benefit, but because it’s fun and makes them feel good.

I will be the first to admit that I’ll be dressing as a sexy witch this Halloween, and I’m going to have a damn good time doing it. But that doesn’t mean that anyone is entitled to my body, or to shame me for choosing to put it on display.

So, while respectful flirting is encouraged—as long as consent has been given—do not slut-shame, harass, or assault any women this Halloween. Or ever, while we’re at it. But sexy costumes are not an invitation.

5.) Last but not least, don’t be an asshole.

We all tend to be a bit less inhibited when in costume. You can be the craziest of crazy people behind the safety of your dinosaur mask, because no one will recognize or judge you.

But, the thing is, our actions still have consequences. So, please use your costumed bravery responsibly. The people you just screamed at in the middle of the street—because WGAF on Halloween, right guys!?—might be genuinely upset. The person you just creepily hit on might be super freaked out.

So don’t be a jerk, OK folks? We’re all real people beneath our costumes. Let’s treat each other accordingly.

So, who’s ready for Halloween? I am! Get out there and have some safe, respectful, non-racist fun.

And by that I mean, party your asses off.

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post 5 Things Not To Do This Halloween If You’re a Decent Human appeared first on Law Street.

Hey folks! How many of you are big video game players?

Probably a decent number of you. I, personally, don’t really get the whole video game thing, mainly because I didn’t grow up with them. My parents had really strong opinions about what kinds of activities made children’s “brains melt out of their ears.” Melodramatic, Mom.

But! I’m in the minority here. You guys totally like to relax with a cold beer and a few hours of Madden, am I right?

Yeah I am.

So! If you know anything about video games, you probably — hopefully — know about how insanely sexist the industry is. Really, it’s depressing.

Only about 21 percent of video game developers are women. Giant Bomb, the largest online video game database, exclusively employs white, straight men. And the characters in video games? They’re rarely, if ever, women — and when they are, they tend to be hypersexualized sidekicks with insane amounts of T&A.

On every level, from who designs the video games, to who distributes them, to who’s featured in them, the video game world sends one message loud and clear.

This is a place for men.

But the thing is, it’s not. Forty-eight percent of video game players are women. That’s nearly half. The world of video games is absolutely a place where women are hanging out, passing time, and spending money. Yet they’re almost unilaterally shut out of every aspect of the gaming world that reaches beyond their personal playing console.

Enter women like Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu. A feminist cultural critic and a video game developer, respectively, these women are two among a community of feminist gaming critics. They speak out against the sexism and misogyny that runs rampant in the video game industry, and on Wu’s part, she develops games that feature corporeally realistic and empowered female characters.

As a result, they both receive violent, sexualized death threats almost constantly. Because obviously, advocating for the video game industry not to be a weird club of circle-jerking white dudes is something that merits murder, right?

Apparently so. This week, those depressingly routine threats of violence reached such a fever pitch that Sarkeesian was forced to cancel a speaking engagement at Utah State University, and Wu was driven from her personal home.

What happened, exactly? We’ll start with Sarkeesian. She was scheduled to give a speech at Utah State University on Tuesday, but the day before, university administrators received an email threatening that a gun massacre would happen if they allowed the event to go on.

Now, keep in mind that bomb threats are par for the course when it comes to Sarkeesian’s speaking engagements. So she’s used to fearing for her life every time she steps out in public, as are the folks who choose to book her to speak at their establishments.

But this time was different. The dude who made this threat sent it out under a pseudonym referencing Marc Lépine, the Montréal shooter who killed 14 women and himself back in 1989. His email reads like something straight out of Elliot Rodger’s diary. And, most importantly, because of the concealed-carry laws in Utah, the folks at USU refused to prevent anyone from bringing a firearm into the event.

So, faced with the prospect of giving a speech to a crowded room full of concealed guns — one of which might be attached to the deranged misogynist who threatened to make sure that all the life-ruining feminists on campus were killed (he literally said that) — Sarkeesian made the obvious decision.

She canceled the event. The lack of security USU was offering left her with no other real choices.

She did.

And this Marc Lépine character isn’t alone. He’s part of a vast community called #GamerGate, which is essentially an online club of gamer boys who haven’t learned yet that girls don’t have cooties. But they aren’t little boys; they’re grown-ass men. And that means that they aren’t just taunting the girls on the playground; they’re threatening to rape and murder all the women in the gaming community who dare open their mouths.

This week, #GamerGate didn’t stop with Sarkeesian. They also attacked feminist game developer Brianna Wu. Frustrated by the boys’ club’s temper tantrums, Wu tweeted a meme poking fun at them.

This was just sent to me, a new meme called Oppressed Gamergater. Love it. http://t.co/Sp9sQPgLxQ pic.twitter.com/6UEWRgPGcn

— Imperator Brianna Wu (@Spacekatgal) October 9, 2014

The response?

The police just came by. Husband and I are going somewhere safe. Remember, #gamergate isn't about attacking women. pic.twitter.com/ZU6oEVxMGL

— Imperator Brianna Wu (@Spacekatgal) October 11, 2014

#GamerGate started battering Wu with crazy-train subtweets, threatening to anally rape her until she bled, castrate her husband and choke her to death with his severed penis, and murder all of her future children. Because they were going to grow up to be feminists anyway, so clearly that means they should die, right?

After the threatening Twitter creeps revealed her personal address, Wu was forced to leave her home.

Folks, this shit is batshit insane. The gaming world isn’t the only place where women — and feminist women, specifically — are targeted with a violence and vitriol that’s truly disturbing. Sexism is rampant in the tech industry in general. Just take a look at the wildly sexist (albeit nonviolent) comment Microsoft’s CEO made last week about closing the income gap.

But this week’s events have put the gaming community’s particular brand of misogyny in the spotlight. It’s seriously time this crap stopped.

The men of #GamerGate are threatening to kill women like Sarkeesian and Wu simply because they dare to speak and to work within their universe. They play video games. They make video games. They ask that video game companies hire more female developers and design games with more realistic and empowered female characters.

These are reasonable, nonviolent, nonthreatening requests. They’re only asking for women to be more positively represented in the gaming world.

And yet, somehow, that’s a goal that merits a sexually violent, vengeful death.

This shit’s unacceptable. People of the world — especially you, men of #GamerGate — stop treating the women in your worlds with violence and aggression. We have every right to be here and to demand respect. And if you can’t handle that, we’re kindly asking you to GTFO.

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post #GamerGate Takes Misogyny to a Whole New Level appeared first on Law Street.

You guys, I’m getting really fed up with the GOP.

This week, Senate Republicans voted unanimously to block the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill aimed at closing the gender wage gap.

It would have encouraged salary transparency among employees, protected workers who share salary information with one another, imposed more serious penalties for pay discrimination, and required employers to prove that any existing wage gaps are in place for reasons other than gender.

Basically, the Paycheck Fairness Act is exactly what it sounds like — a bill that seeks fair paychecks for everyone, regardless of gender.

You’d think that’d be a pretty standard, reasonable goal: pay everyone fairly based on the work that they do, not on the genitals they have! Easy enough, right? Well, apparently not. Because this is the fourth time that Republicans have blocked it.

It’s a pretty counter-intuitive move, considering that just a few weeks ago, the Republican National Committee claimed that, “All Republicans support equal pay.” It appears that these Senate Republicans are voting against the official party line.

This #LaborDay, the White House & Democrats believe paying women less than men is an acceptable practice. pic.twitter.com/AhCYH5RGgR

— RNC (@GOP) September 1, 2014

Not to mention, earlier this month, Politico leaked that the GOP was sorely lacking in support from single women, and would be targeting the Beyoncé-voters’ bloc come election season. Senate Republicans didn’t seem to get that memo, since their actions this week are only further alienating the key voting demographic they need to win over.

The Paycheck Fairness Act is a direct response to the realities of gender discrimination in the workplace — women earn an average of 77 cents to a man’s dollar. That statistic hasn’t changed in a decade. And while it’s true that it’s a fairly complex number, determined by a variety of factors, it’s still very real that the average female worker earns less than her male counterparts.

And Republicans are voting to keep it that way.

Women are paid less than men from the minute they enter the workforce right through to the moment they get promoted to the executive corner office. There are a ton of factors that go into the wage gap — industry, tenure, marital status, and education level, just to name a few — but women are getting paid less no matter which of these variables get thrown into the mix.

Passing the Paycheck Fairness Act would send a clear message that the federal government cares about women in the workforce. This bill would not only take real steps toward closing the pay gap between men and women, it would also communicate that female workers are valued. The way they’re treated, and how much they’re paid, matters.

But Republicans are voting to hang on to current practices, like salary secrecy, that work to keep women’s paychecks smaller and their professional contributions undervalued. Why? According to the Senators, they worry that the bill would cause employers to stop hiring female employees, fearful of discrimination lawsuits. They’ve also argued that the wage gap is exaggerated and that women are already protected from discrimination enough.

So basically, the Republican Senators who blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act on Monday night are sending a number of shitbag messages:

They’re dismissing the very real problem of pay discrimination, invalidating the experiences of women who are forced to support themselves on inadequate wages simply because they have vaginas.

They’re telling the world that women are not valuable workers, and that it’s perfectly acceptable for women to work just as hard as — if not harder than — their male counterparts, and get paid less.

They’re upholding a hostile, sexist culture in which, apparently, if employers are expected to treat their female workers in a non-discriminatory manner, they simply won’t hire female workers at all.

And finally, they’re sending a crystal clear message to women across the nation that the GOP does not take our priorities seriously. Instead, they’ll tell us our problems don’t exist, our concerns are invalid and unnecessary, and then vote in favor of policies that harm us.

The RNC’s Twitter account claims to be in support of equal pay for women, but actions speak louder than words.

You’re not fooling anyone, conserva-turds.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York City. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of  [Gage Skidmore via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The GOP Blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act AGAIN appeared first on Law Street.

Happy Friday, folks! We’ve finally made it through the week. Phew! It’s been a long one, am I right?

Unfortunately, women in Missouri aren’t feeling much relief today. Legislators in the Midwestern state enacted a bill on Wednesday that mandates a 72-hour waiting period for any woman seeking an abortion. There are no exceptions to this rule, even in cases of rape or incest.

So, unless you are about to literally die as a result of a pregnancy gone terribly wrong, if you want an abortion in Missouri, you’ll have to wait it out through a mandatory, three-day “reflection period.” The bill becomes effective in 30 days.

Folks, this bill is extremely problematic for a bunch of reasons.

First, there are the practical ones. Requiring a standard medical procedure to span over a number of days places a real logistical burden on women seeking abortions. Since there’s only one abortion clinic left in the state, accessing abortion services is already super difficult. Many have to travel long distances to reach this single, lonely clinic — a trip that requires a steep financial investment of gas money, wear and tear on your car, and probably a day off from work.

And that’s all before you can even get the actual abortion, which will cost you money, since a number of restrictions on Obamacare and public employee coverage mean it’s pretty unlikely that your insurance will pay for it.

Now, multiply all that hassle by three. Thanks to this bill, not only do Missouri women have to go through all this mess, they also have to take multiple days off from work and book a hotel room.

Oh! And to top off this logistical disaster, that three-day waiting period? You have to go through counseling sessions before it can even begin. They’re specifically designed to misinform women about abortions, and are meant to discourage patients from going through with the procedure — so add another day to that hotel bill, ladies.

The problems with this bill don’t stop there, however. Aside from the practical issues it will cause Missouri women looking to access safe abortion services, it also wreaks a certain level of psychic havoc.

Forcing women to undergo a reflection period to reflect upon a decision they’ve already thought about and made is incredibly condescending, demeaning, and paternalistic. If you’ve traveled 100 miles to get this procedure done — the average distance a patient at St. Louis’ Planned Parenthood will travel to receive an abortion — you’ve already made your decision.

You’ve thought this through.

Abortion isn’t a decision to be taken lightly, and guess who knows that better than anyone else? WOMEN WHO ARE SEEKING ABORTIONS.

Imagine these women were seeking different kinds of medical procedures. A cystectomy, for example, or a colonoscopy. How absurd would it be for someone — aside from her doctor — to step in and tell her to hold on, she’d better think this through?

It would be ridiculous. But the Republican lawmakers of Missouri have decided not to treat abortions like what they are — standard medical procedures — and instead, to separate them out into a special circumstance where women cease to be independent, intelligent adults, capable of making their own decisions. Apparently, when abortions are on the table, the women of Missouri are to be treated like ignorant, irresponsible children.

Now, it’s important to note that this bill didn’t pass easily. When it was introduced earlier this year, Democrats and women’s rights activists protested it, and Governor Jay Nixon even vetoed it. But this week, Republican legislators voted to override the veto, then cut off a Democratic filibuster to force a new vote.

In other words, Missouri Republicans really, REALLY care about forcing women who need abortions to undergo 72 hours of physical, mental, and financial hardship before they’ll be allowed to receive medical care.

Why, exactly, is the GOP so concerned about women’s reproductive systems? The past few years have been filled to the brim with cases of Republican lawmakers restricting women’s access to safe, affordable birth control and abortion services.

New research points to the idea that conservatives believe that women simply shouldn’t be having consequence-free sex. A recent study that surveyed Americans on their views about promiscuity found that people who think casual sex is wrong, also believe that women need a man to financially support them.

So, basically, a woman who’s totally independent, both financially and sexually, is a really foreign and potentially threatening concept to many conservative folks. As a result, they’re trying to reign in our ability to have consequence-free sex — which any man can do, by the way, with a quick stop at a local convenience store.

And in Missouri, they’re doing a damn good job.

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post If You Need an Abortion in Missouri, Your Life Just Got Harder appeared first on Law Street.

Happy Back to School, folks!

While I was traveling around Canada last month, all of you were clearly partying up your last few weeks of summer, right? RIGHT? I hope so, because law school is now officially back in session.

And you know what that means!

You need me back in the saddle to keep you informed about all the racist, sexist, homophobic legal bullshit that’s going on! (Also, to give you lots of procrastination material. Let’s be real.)

So! Let’s talk about the Republicans and women, shall we?

This is going to be good.

Now that President Obama is getting depressingly close to being a lame duck, all the politicians are really starting to get antsy about the 2016 election. Candidates are being tapped, strategies are being thought out, and groundwork is being laid to win over the decisive voting blocs.

For the Republicans, a key point of concern is the Beyoncé Voters. All the single ladies — and even plenty of the not-so-single ladies — are seriously skeptical of conservatives these days. According to a recent GOP report leaked by Politico, 49 percent of women hold a negative view of the Republican Party. It bluntly reported that women believe Republican policies to be misaligned with their own priorities and to be lacking in compassion and understanding.

As a result, the ladies are taking their votes elsewhere. And for good reason. Women aren’t wrong when they say that conservative politicians aren’t acting in their best interest. Republican policies advocate restricted access to birth control, virtually no access to safe abortion services, the continued entrenchment of rape culture and domestic violence, as well as a hearty LOL at equal pay.

So nope — we’re not voting for policies that take away our bodily autonomy, restrict our access to safe and affordable healthcare, leave us vulnerable to violence, and also make us poorer.

Goodness, what a mystery that more of us aren’t voting for you, conserva-turds!

Well, apparently, Republicans have solved the mystery, and are rolling out a new initiative to win the vaginal vote in 2016.

Are you ready for it?

They’re going to calmly explain to us little ladies that we’ve been mistaken this whole time — the Republican Party really is acting in our best interest — and now that we’ve cleared that whole mess up, won’t you please vote for us, darlin’?

They aren’t going to actually change any of their policies. They aren’t going to actually do anything different AT ALL.

The big, awesome, Republican strategy is to tell women that they know us better than we know ourselves, expect us to laugh good naturedly at our silly, womanly inability to understand the complex, crazy world of politics, and agreeably hand over our votes, glad to have been educated about our own feminine ineptitude.

What exactly will this episode of mansplaining look like? Republicans are going to attack the Democratic claim that their policies are unfair to women — without interrogating or changing those policies, mind you — and every time abortion comes up, they’ll change the subject as quickly as possible.

Conservatives seem to genuinely think this is a good plan.

R.R. Reno, an editor for the conservative journal First Things, wrote a completely serious, non-satirical essay about just how this plan would work in practice.

In it, he creates a fictional woman to use as an example of all the women who are mistakenly eschewing Republican policies. She’s a single, 35-year-old consultant, living in the suburbs of Chicago, “who thinks of herself as vulnerable and votes for enhanced social programs designed to protect against the dangers and uncertainties of life.”

Translation: She’s a misinformed damsel in distress who presumably owns about 12 cats.

Apparently, this woman is in favor of social safety net-type Democratic policies — not because she believes that all people should have access to a baseline quality of life — but because she has no man to provide for her, which is clearly TERRIFYING. She dislikes Republican policies that take away her bodily autonomy and expect her to lead a traditional life of wife and motherhood NOT because they’re sexist and terrible and render her, legally, as a quasi-human/permanent child, but because “she wants to get married and feels vulnerable because she isn’t and vulnerable because she’s not confident she can.”

So basically, all the women who aren’t voting Republican are in serious need of the D. And according to Reno, conservatives can and will deliver it.

He goes on to theorize that our fictitious cat lady should support Republican policies because a pro-marriage culture will increase her likelihood of getting married, therefore increasing her overall happiness. All we have to do is explain that to her! And then she’ll vote for us! Yay! Problem solved!

What Reno, and his conservative compatriots, fail to realize, is that women aren’t voting Democrat because of their inability to legally bind themselves to a penis.

We’re voting Democrat because we want to have control over our own bodies, our own reproductive systems, and our own lives. We want to be able to support ourselves. We want to lead lives that aren’t wracked with violence.

Also, they’re clearly forgetting that some of us don’t even like the D. (Fellow clam divers, I see you.)

So, Republicans, I totally applaud your strategy for locking down the vaginal vote in 2016. It’s a really great idea.

Because you’re buying Hillary a one-way ticket to the Oval Office.

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post LADIES: Vote Republican and You’ll Get the D appeared first on Law Street.

Hey loves! How’ve you been? Did ya miss me?

I know, I know, it’s been awhile. I’ve left you hanging. But I’m back now, and after the past few weeks of doom and gloom left in the wake of the Hobby Lobby catastrophe, I’ve got some slightly lighter fare up my sleeve for you all.

Have any of you heard of Google Code School? It’s pretty rad. Basically, Google and Code School — two separate companies — teamed up to offer coding and development classes for folks working in technology. More rad, they announced that they’d be giving out vouchers for free classes to women and minorities — two groups that aren’t as well represented in the tech industry, in large part due to lack of access.

My best friend shared the news with me when Business Insider broke it earlier this summer, and both of us were pretty pumped.

We’re women! We work in technology — sort of. Doesn’t everyone kind of work in tech, nowadays? Our jobs are almost completely dependent on the Internet, so improving on our very rudimentary knowledge of coding would be hugely, wildly useful.

So, my friend and I followed Business Insider’s prompting and signed up for Code School. It was a pretty straightforward application, as user-friendly as all things Google tend to be. We gave our basic identifying information, confirmed that we were, in fact, WOMEN, a.k.a. qualified for said vouchers, and provided a little mini-essay about why we wanted to learn more about coding.

Easy enough.

Unsurprisingly, neither of us was accepted. Probably about a zillion other people applied for Code School, and Google can only give out so many vouchers for free classes. We understand, Google. We forgive you. (Sort of.)

That’s where the story should end, right? Apply to Code School, get rejected, walk away with our womanhood and lack of HTML coding fully intact, right?

You would think so.

But! The plot thickens. In applying for Google Code School, my friend and I were both also clandestinely enrolled in a strange, mysterious mailing list. It’s now terrorizing our inboxes a few times a week.

Has anyone here heard of the Levo League? It’s fucking ridiculous.

On its website homepage, Levo League claims to be a community “dedicated to your career success.” It’s geared toward professional women and offers tips for progressing in your career, weekly video chats with mentors, and job listings. To be fair, some of the mentors are pretty awesome — it counts women like Sandra Fluke among its ranks, and even a healthy smattering of men, like Humans of New York creator Brandon Stanton. (HONY, we love you.)

But, I didn’t come across Levo League because I was excited to hear Sandra Fluke tell me how to stick it to asshats like Rush Limbaugh. Nope. I came across Levo League because it sent me this wildly — almost laughably, absurdly — infuriating email.

Subject line, “How to Dress Professionally for Your Body Type.”

Seriously? This is the awesome advice you’re dishing out to professional women about how to boost their careers, Levo League?

How about, PUT PROFESSIONAL CLOTHES ON YOUR BODY. Boom. Done. You’ve dressed professionally.

Because, seriously, isn’t that what men do? Show me an article telling men how to hide their beer bellies and elongate their legs at work. Can’t find any? Yeah. That’s because a man’s professional worth isn’t measured by how tastefully he shows off his pecks or how skillfully he can cinch his waist.

Articles like this do nothing to help women boost their careers. If anything, they contribute to a culture that devalues women’s contributions in the workplace, reminding us all that our main function is ornamental. We’re only as valuable as we are attractive.

Despite Levo’s obvious effort to be a wee bit less objectifying than most attempts to sort women into shapes — they define body types not by fruit, but by adjectives like “petite,” “curvy,” “athletic,” the ever diplomatic “column,” and the always obnoxious “plus-size” — this is still nothing but sexism and body-shaming, cloaked in kindly advice.

Instead of instructing curvy and plus-size women on how to appear thinner and more petite, and dishing to athletic, column, and petite women about how to appear shapelier, why don’t we just tell all the women to love their damn bodies and pour more brain power into their actual work than into their wardrobe?

Think about all of the awesome, wonderful, revolutionary things women could be doing if they weren’t so busy worrying about whether their peplum top is making their hips look too big.

Think about all the time and brainpower we’d collectively save if we thought less about if our pants are just the right length for our curvy/athletic/column-shaped legs (each type requires a different length, apparently), and more about our actual jobs.

These kinds of advice articles — all of them — do nothing but distract women from doing valuable, wonderful things by reminding us that we have a thousand other things to worry about. Were you feeling confident and secure in yourself for a minute there, sweetheart? Stop that shit right now, take all of the energy you were previously dedicating to positive innovation and self-love, and redirect it toward fretting endlessly about all of the insecurities our patriarchal, consumerist society has manufactured for you.

Not to mention, this particular article assumes that all of the women it’s addressing are cis-gendered, feminine, and upper-middle class. Levo League, like so many other women-in-business organizations, fails to address the needs of queer folks, gender-non-conforming people, butch women, poor women, or working class women.

In other words, Levo League is really only interested in helping the women who need help the least. They’re not about inspiring and facilitating a mass revolution, where all the women collectively rise up and improve their lots in life. They’re about helping already privileged women amass even more privilege.

Levo League, you’re not helping. You’re just perpetuating the same damn problems that keep women disadvantaged at work in the first place.

Knock it off.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York City. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured imaged courtesy of [Andre Benedix via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Levo League’s Advice to Working Women: Look Prettier appeared first on Law Street.

Happy Thursday, folks!

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks for women out there.

First—as I’m sure you recall—SCOTUS ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, giving employers the right to deny workers birth control coverage because of religious exemptions, and essentially giving douche-wad bosses everywhere the potential to control their employees’ uteruses.

Awesome.

And now, things are getting much, much worse.

Following the Hobby Lobby decision, religious institutions, religiously-run corporations, and basically anyone who is a fan of Jesus and also has some modicum of control over other people’s lives, are filing for the right to discriminate against people under religious exemptions.

Say good-bye to your civil rights, folks.

A group of 14 religious leaders wrote a letter to the Obama administration asking for the right to discriminate against LGBTQ people in closely-held corporations. George Fox University demanded a religious exemption that would allow it to bar a transgender student from living on campus, and the Department of Education granted it.

The Hobby Lobby ruling, not even a month old, is already proving to be disturbingly broad. Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned us about this in her dissent—that granting religious exemptions for IUDs and Plan B would be like opening a Pandora’s Box of discrimination potential—but did anyone listen to her?

And so here we are, with religious zealots breathing down the necks of the Supreme Court and of the President—and they have legal precedent to back themselves up.

Loves, this shit is scary. And not fear-monger-y type scary. Legit disturbing.

When the Hobby Lobby decision first came down it signaled yet another chip away at civil liberties and women’s rights in this country. One more piece of legal bullshit that diminishes a woman’s right to control her own body. One more reminder that women aren’t seen as real people or full adults in the United States, but rather as wards of the state, our spouses, our fathers, or apparently, our employers.

But as awful as that is, the asshat Justices who voted for this decision assured us that the Hobby Lobby ruling would end there. It would be a narrow ruling, applicable to only this situation, and that feminists would only have to fight against this one, single issue. Access to birth control regardless of what your boss’s religious beliefs are.

Justice Ginsburg called bullshit, and now I’m calling that she was right.

This ruling is not narrow. We can no longer be solely concerned with its reversal because women deserve the right to control their own goddamn bodies.

Nope. Instead, it’s turning out to be frighteningly broad, as the Supreme Court demands reviews of similar cases in lower courts and considers handing out more religious exemptions based on the precedent that Hobby Lobby’s now set.

Where does this end? There’s really no way to know just yet, but the possibilities are kind of endless.

Don’t want to hire women at your company? Sure thing, buddy! Claim that doing so would place an undue burden on you as a result of your religious beliefs and you’re good to go.

Don’t want to hire black people at your company either? No problem. Religious exemptions all around.

Can’t stand the thought of your female employees having consequence-free sex? Awesome. Religious exemption and boom! You just gained control over your workers’ uteruses. Don’t you feel better knowing your vagina-laden employees aren’t sleeping around (at least, not without feeling extreme anxiety about their reproductive systems)?

And maybe you don’t want to pay LGBT people the same amount of money as your straight employees. Or maybe you don’t want to hire them at all! Cool, dude. Religious exemption.

This shit is ridiculous. With the Hobby Lobby ruling, the Supreme Court just created a loophole for every piece of non-discrimination legislation ever enacted. Civil rights of all kinds—not just for women—are at serious risk. If anyone feels like they want to engage in some good, old-fashioned discrimination, they can pretty much do so! They just have to make a case for getting a religious exemption first.

And clearly, based on the fact that Hobby Lobby won its case, despite building it on a foundation of craptastic non-science, that’s not super hard to do.

So, way to go, SCOTUS! You really fucked things up for all of us, this time. Not only have you created an environment where everyone can be their own law book, but you’ve sent us down a path that will undoubtedly be littered with regressive politics.

The fight for personhood just got that much harder, lovelies.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York City. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Daryl Clark via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post WARNING: The Christians Are Coming for Your Civil Liberties appeared first on Law Street.

Folks, this is not a happy Tuesday.

Why? Because the Supreme Court made a really shitty decision yesterday. (And we’re not even talking about the bullshit Aereo ruling from last week. WHY DO YOU TAKE ALL THE GOOD THINGS AWAY?!)

Monday, with a slim 5-4 majority, SCOTUS ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, deeming that employers can’t be legally compelled to provide insurance coverage for birth control and emergency contraception that are in conflict with their religious beliefs.

This decision is so wildly fucked up on so many levels. SO. MANY.

For those of you who don’t remember, we covered the Hobby Lobby case here at Law Street earlier this year, but here’s the quick gist: the company, which is owned by a family of devout Christians, is not a big fan of the Affordable Care Act and its rules regarding birth control.

While so far Hobby Lobby’s been covering 80 percent of the mandatory contraceptives listed in the ACA for its employees, it’s been holding out on two forms of intrauterine contraception and two forms of emergency birth control. Why? They’re spewing some zealously crap-tastic pseudo-science claiming these methods are “abortifacients,” which they unequivocally are not.

Despite the fact that Hobby Lobby’s case is built on totally unsubstantiated non-science and a complete disregard for the separation of church and state, SCOTUS decided to rule in their favor.

Now, thanks to this fuckery, if your boss’ religion says you shouldn’t be preventing or planning your pregnancies, sorry ladies! No bodily agency for you. The guy who signs your paycheck each week now controls your uterus.

Oh, and just to be clear, this refusal to cover birth control methods only applies to women. Vasectomies, which serve exactly the same purpose for men, will still be covered. So we’re really not talking about the religious evils of family planning or bodily autonomy. We’re only talking about the evils of women maintaining control over their lives.

But actually.

First of all, let’s talk about who made this decision, shall we? A tiny little group of men.

Literally. That slim majority who voted in favor of Hobby Lobby was 100 percent men. Every female Supreme Court justice sided with the dissent. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. (Obligatory shout out to Justice Stephen G. Breyer for being the only dude to side with the feminists on this one. We appreciate you, sir.)

So, let’s all take a moment and sigh gigantic, heaving sighs of exasperation at the fact that the bodies of women all over this nation have just been legislated by five, non-uterus-having men.

This could not be clearer. This ruling is about controlling women. Plain and simple.

And it gets worse. Aside from the fact that a bunch of entitled, sexist, wing-bat man-justices just infringed upon women’s bodily autonomy, they also opened up a Pandora’s Box of legal ambiguity.

As the oh-so-wonderful Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg points out in her ball-busting dissent, exempting employers from providing health insurance coverage for birth control because of their religious beliefs brings up a slew of other possible exemptions.

Will companies owned by Jehovah’s Witnesses be allowed to withhold coverage for blood transfusions? Can Scientologists deny their employees antidepressants? The pig-derived ingredients used to produce anesthesia, vaccines, and pills coated in gelatin can conflict with the religious beliefs of Muslims, Jews, and Hindus. Will employees of companies held by owners of these religions find themselves without coverage as well?

In truth, maybe. That’s the precedent the court is setting with this Hobby Lobby decision. So, watch out if you work for an orthodox Jewish-owned company and need surgery. You might have to suffer through it sans anesthesia.

Seriously? This shit is ridiculous. The legal absurdity SCOTUS is willing to open itself to in the interest of tightening its leash on American women is completely, batshit crazy.

But wait. There’s more. Now that SCOTUS has decided that companies/people (because corporations are apparently more human than women) can pick and choose which parts of a law they abide by based on their religious convictions, all of the laws have the potential to become piecemeal and sort of meaningless.

Everyone, potentially, can become a law book unto themselves. Don’t like this new bill? No problem! Say it conflicts with your religion, and you can opt right out. This defeats the purpose of law entirely — which is, presumably, to protect the people with a set of rules that are established for the common good.

There is no common good anymore, and there is no protection. Your employer thinks you’re a slut who shouldn’t be sleeping around? Too bad for you, love. He can limit your choices and circumscribe your life, and you get no say in the matter.

And finally, the mess this ruling makes out of the freedom of religion clause is insane. Folks are meant to be free to practice their religion without fear of persecution — not to impose their religion as a tool for persecution on unwilling others.

At this moment, the United States is as politically polarized as it was during the Civil War. Secularist, social-safety-net-supporting liberals and religious, anti-tax conservatives are at war right now. This Hobby Lobby decision is just another case in which the battle field is women’s bodies.

So let’s fight this bullshit war, folks. If you believe that women should have affordable access to birth control, join me and Planned Parenthood by telling SCOTUS just how you feel.

We want control over our own bodies and our own lives. Fuck anyone who gets in our way.

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post SCOTUS Just Made a Battlefield Out of Women’s Bodies appeared first on Law Street.

Folks, have you been watching the news lately?

I’m guessing yes, because you’re all socially conscious, politically engaged legal mavericks, right?

Awesome! So you’ve heard about ISIS, then, I’m sure.

In case you haven’t been watching the news lately — because sunshine and summer weather — ISIS is an extremist Muslim terrorist group that currently controls a significant chunk of northern Iraq and parts of rebel Syria. Not coincidentally, their territory overlaps a TON with important oil sources. Once a part of al-Qaeda, ISIS split off as its own separate entity earlier this year.

Why?

Because their ideology was too extreme even for bin Laden’s cronies. That says a lot.

ISIS — which stands for The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – made news this week after the Washington Post translated its “Contract of the City,” a document that was distributed to citizens of the Iraqi province of Nineveh. Folks, it’s pretty cray.

The contract essentially reads like a list of rules, a dos and don’ts guideline, if you will, for the people of Nineveh. It lists limb amputation as a suitable punishment for stealing, allows for the crucifixion of criminals, and essentially bans women from leaving their homes.

This is really not cool. But! Before you get all hawk-eyed and demand American intervention in Iraq to save all the poor, downtrodden Iraqi victims, let’s all take a moment and listen to Jon Stewart.

I fucking love this man.

Folks, here’s the deal: Groups like al Qaeda, and its increasingly violent offshoot, ISIS, are awful and dangerous and need to be stopped. They totally need to stop existing. We are all in agreement there.

Not only do they pose a threat to the Iraqi people as a whole — who are at risk of getting their limbs chopped off willy nilly if they break a rule on their way to work — but they also pose a threat to the larger global community. Their ideology is depressingly common, and the more power groups like theirs seize, the more hostile the world becomes to people who don’t fit into their agenda.

Namely women, queer people, trans people, disabled people, and people of different races, ethnicities, and religious backgrounds.

This is a group that sees women as inherently less than. They’re required to wear “modest dress,” which essentially means they’ll be punished for wearing anything other than a full burqa. They can’t leave their homes. They are bought and sold like property from fathers to husbands. And wife beating? Totally cool.

ISIS doesn’t see women — or anyone else who isn’t a straight, masculine-presenting, Muslim man — as people. They’re not human beings. It’s a really, really bad situation.

And because of that, along with obvious national security concerns, many Americans want to rush our military right back into Iraq. John McCain, as the always entertaining Jon Stewart reminds us, is one of those folks. But there’s a huge hole in that plan.

Groups like ISIS exist because of Western intervention in the Middle East. They are a direct result of Western imperialism. Al Qaeda formed in the late 1980s as a reaction to Russia’s occupation of Afghanistan — a move that subjected the Afghan people to extreme violence and poverty. It formed as a resistance movement, an answer to the injustices Afghanistan faced at the hands of European, imperialist oppressors.

And they only gained traction as the West continued to insert itself into a corner of the world where it ultimately didn’t belong. Violence and living conditions worsened for civilians. Coups were staged, leaders were deposed, and corrupt figureheads were set up in their place. (Remember Saddam Hussein? The U.S. and Great Britain put him there).

The political problems that plague the Middle East are largely our fault. But instead of taking responsibility for the consequences of misguided power-grabbing and oil pursuit, the U.S. likes to paint a different picture. A pretty racist one, in fact, where Iraqi is a confused, childlike nation, unable to govern itself without making a huge mess. And Americans? We’re painted as the concerned father figure, stepping in to calm the commotion.

But folks, it’s not true. This story is a lie.

The U.S. isn’t a soothing father figure. It’s more like an instigator. And the sexist, xenophobic ideology of groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda isn’t the product of an unsophisticated, backward, childlike nation. The ideology of our conservative leaders is chillingly similar, if more palatably phrased and with Jesus, not Allah, at its helm.

The white savior narrative that war hawks like John McCain are spewing was created by an elite group of politicians and corporate powerhouses who crave money, power, and oil. They don’t care what it costs.

But I hope that you do.

Let’s come up with a more innovative solution to warmongering in Iraq. A solution that doesn’t rely on lies, racism, and increased violence. A solution that creates real, positive change for the people living under ISIS’ tyranny.

Show the comments what you’ve got.

Featured image courtesy of [United States Forces Iraq via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post PLEASE STOP: How Warhawks Are Perpetuating Violence and Racism appeared first on Law Street.

Happy Hump Day, folks!

Have you had your mid-afternoon pickmeup yet? I fucking hope so, because I’m not easing you into this today. We’re just going to cut right to the chase.

We’re talking about rape, today, folks.

Prepare to be simultaneously infuriated and irrationally happy.

About two weeks ago in Calhoun, Ga, it was prom night. The teenagers of Calhoun High School were pumped to get fancy and get down. Let’s all picture the jubilation of Footloose, for a moment, shall we?

Awesome. But post-prom, shit started to get a bit less Kevin Bacon and a bit more Steubenville, Ohio. At an after party — predictably held at a secluded cabin in the woods — nearly 30 students got super drunk. Things quickly spun out of control.

After several hours of heavy drinking, an 18-year-old woman found herself in a room with four of her male classmates, where she was allegedly gang-raped. The victim reported being unable to remember exactly who raped her, only recalling that it was multiple men, and that foreign objects were inserted into her vagina. The victim suffered severe internal injuries from the assault, including substantial, traumatic, vaginal tearing.

Cue feelings of shock and appall.

What the fuck is going on here, people? What. The. Actual. Fuck.

This is not the first time I’ve written about rape here at The F Word. In fact, I’ve written about rape a depressing amount. We’ve talked about the infamous Steubenville rape case, the reasons your rapist probably won’t be facing any consequences, and the fact that lawmakers in Michigan are forcing women to take out rape insurance.

The world is filled with fucking rape. This is news to no one.

But let’s take a moment and think about why in fuck’s name this shit keeps happening. Why are men consistently and violently forcing themselves onto unwilling women?

Because they feel fucking entitled, that’s why.

Awesome attitude, dude.

Alcohol and drugs and partying and short skirts — contrary to what Fox News and its ilk will have you believe — do not cause rape. Rape culture causes rape. It’s a culture that privileges men and other masculine folks as the arbiters of power to be wielded over an inferior class of women and feminine-presenting folks. It’s a culture that says “boys will be boys,” “penises have a mind of their own,” “men can’t control themselves.”

It’s a culture that tells women to carry pepper spray, to pull their skirts down, not to go out at night alone, not to drink, not to date.

It’s a culture that tells women not to live their lives freely, so as to avoid violent assault, all while giving men free reign to do whatever the fuck they want, consent be damned. This is a culture that tells men they own the streets. They own the world. And they own women’s bodies.

This guy. This guy all over the fuckin’ place.

We all know that this rape in Calhoun is no isolated incident. But let’s reiterate just how not isolated it is.

1 out of every 6 women in the U.S. has been the victim of sexual assault.

That’s a lot of fucking women. And those are just the ones who are reporting their experiences and being counted — if we take silent victims into account, the numbers soar higher. Not to mention all the men who get raped, all the trans folks, all the genderqueers who aren’t being counted because statisticians aren’t sure where to fit them into the equation.

Rape is a hugely, wildly pervasive problem, and its victims are paying a lifetime price.

But the rapists themselves? Ninety-seven percent of them will face no jail time at all. No consequences. No accountability. Nothing.

This is beyond disappointing.

Now, it’s important to note that the vast majority of men and masculine-presenting people are not rapists. All you “Not All Men!” devil’s-advocate-conversation-derailers, please save your breath. We are fully aware that not all men are violent, rapist fucks.

And this Calhoun case is living, breathing proof of that. It stands out from other recent high-profile rape cases — like Steubenville — in that the authorities have taken the victim’s allegations seriously, are pressing substantial charges against the alleged perpetrators, and have not carried out a gross, slut-shaming, rape-apologist smear campaign against the victim.

This is the part where we can all get irrationally happy. Authority figures simply doing their jobs shouldn’t be cause for shocked celebration, but it’s undeniably rare that a rape case gets handled appropriately. Bravo, Calhoun law enforcement! Thank you for rising to the level of our depressingly low bar! (I mean that in the most sincere, not-sarcastic way possible, I promise.)

But amid our relief that Calhoun seems to be doing things right, we can’t forget about why these things keep happening.

Those four high school boys gang-raped their classmate for the same reason Michigan legislators are forcing women to buy rape insurance. That’s the same reason Daisy Coleman’s house was burned to the ground after she tried to report her own rape. It’s also the same reason Elliot Rodger murdered six people in Santa Barbara after penning a manifesto about what a crime it was that women had failed to offer him their vaginas on a silver platter.

It’s because we live in a society that doesn’t teach men not to rape. It doesn’t expect men to treat women or their bodies with kindness and respect. It makes excuses for violent behavior, shifts blame to victims, and props up an overarching culture in which men feel entitled to a woman’s sexuality and bodily autonomy.

Not all men are rapists, murderers, misogynists, slut-shamers, or victim-blamers. But all men live in a world where they’re mostly allowed to be. And women? All of us get to live in fear of meeting the same fate as Daisy Coleman, or running into an Elliot Rodger — and then being blamed for our own irresponsibility for putting ourselves in a position to be harmed in the first place. Don’t believe me? Just ask #YesAllWomen. This shit is real.

So folks, let’s raise this bar. Let’s create a world where it’s not exciting to meet a man who doesn’t feel entitled to your body, or a cop who will take your rape case seriously. Let’s fashion a society where all people — regardless of their gender — can move through the world without the fear of violence and domination. Let’s do it together.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York City. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Eric Parker via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post BREAKING: Cops in Georgia Are Taking a Rape Case Seriously appeared first on Law Street.

Happy graduation week, folks!

My office is right across the street from Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and I’ve been watching NYU’s Class of 2014 swarm the neighborhood all week. To all of our wonderful readers receiving diplomas — congratulations! You fuckin’ did it.

It’s been an eventful week, what with Michigan passing this craptastic rape insurance bill (excuse me while I barf all over my keyboard), and the backlash around Shailene Woodley’s not-a-feminist comment still swirling. Plus, the internet is filled with awesome commencement speeches. We’re looking at you, Sandra Bullock and Charlie Day.

Basically, this has been a week where we’re all looking ahead to the future. And so, we’re going to take a moment here and talk about the future of feminism.

SPOILER ALERT: It doesn’t just include the vagina-bearing likes of Shailene Woodley. Nope. It also includes men.

So, dudes of the world, here’s why feminism isn’t just for the ladies. It’s a fairly big deal for you too.

Let’s start by saying that, unless you’re a close-minded, neanderthal jerk, you believe in social, political, and economic equality between the sexes. If you DON’T believe in said equality — i.e., you’re a big fan of women being treated as inferior and subservient to men — then you are gigantic douchebag and I advise you to reform your troubled ways immediately.

Seriously, guys. We’re calling it like we see it. You’re not old-fashioned or traditional. You’re just a jerk. Get it together, would you please?

Thanks. Now, for the vast majority of you wonderful, well-intentioned, equality-minded men, listen up. I’ve met a lot of you who don’t actively identify as feminists. You’ve told me that it seems like a women’s club that you don’t really have a place in. Not to mention, you don’t entirely get it. Sure, ladies should be getting equal pay and all that, but we’re not the only ones who are suffering in this gender-biased society. Men get kind of a crap deal too.

Yes. Yes you do. And that’s why feminism needs you.

See, feminism isn’t just about securing safe and affordable access to abortion services, or raising a woman’s 77 cents to match a man’s dollar. Those are important aspects of the feminist cause, for sure, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

As a whole, feminism is about creating a more open and egalitarian society. As feminists, we’re fed up with gender roles that position women as sex objects and men as commodified breadwinners. We’re tired of values that expect women to cook and clean and men to pay all the bills. We’re sick of being told to “act like a lady” — to look pretty and keep our mouths and legs shut. We’re equally sick of being told to “be a man,” to be emotionless and aggressive to prove your masculinity.

Feminism is about achieving social, political, and economic equality for women — yes — because that’s something we still don’t have.

But it’s also about destroying the gender binary that’s currently ingrained in our society. It’s harmful to men, women, transfolks, genderqueers, and everyone in between. We’re all expected to play roles that don’t quite fit, to prove ourselves and our identities over and over again, to punish ourselves with shame when we fail to measure up.

We’re all left with a constant and nagging feeling of insecurity in our selves — in our worth as human beings — when we feel the need to qualify our desires, our actions, and our feelings with disclaimers like “no homo” and “man up.”

And all of us deserve to feel totally secure in our wants and needs, to feel completely comfortable in our skin, to be entirely at ease with our individuality.

Feminism wants that to happen. We’re working to make our relationships with each other less about power struggle and arbitrary expectations, and more about mutual respect and genuine human connection. And even more importantly, we’d like to make our relationships with ourselves less about shame and insecurity, and more about radical acceptance and self-love.

I feel like that’s a cause we can all get behind, can’t we?

So while you’re getting inspired by all the commencement speeches that are going viral this week, think about the future you want to help create. If it’s one where we break down this dysfunctional gender binary that’s holding us all back, then you’re a feminist.

Own it, menfolk. You’ll be making the world a better place.

And, bonus points – nothing’s sexier than a feminist man. Just ask Feminist Frank. (Seriously, feminist men, we love the shit out of you.)

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York City. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Toban Black via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Dear Men: Feminism Makes You Sexy appeared first on Law Street.

Loves, the conservaturds are at it again.

Conservative pundit and asshole extraordinaire Ann Coulter decided to use her considerable star power for the greater good this week. Harnessing the power of social media, she took to Twitter to show support for her fellow human beings, advocating an end to gender-based violence and oppression around the world.

LOL JUST KIDDING.

Did I have you going for a second there?

Probably not! Because unless you live in an actual cave, you know that Ann Coulter is probably the least positive person in the history of political pundits.

Thank goodness this lady is just a culture maker and not a legislator. That would make her even more horrifying than she already is (which is saying a lot).

So, since we’ve established that the woman infamous for condoning the murder of abortionists, reversing women’s suffrage, and “perfecting” Jews (I literally cannot) isn’t using her Twitter account to spread peace and light throughout the social media universe, let’s talk about what she IS using it for.

This jerk is using it to mock Malala Yousafzai’s Twitter campaign to #BringBackOurGirls.

#Malala stands in solidarity with Nigerians & people everywhere calling for action to #BringBackOurGirls pic.twitter.com/woAjreav0W

— Malala Fund (@MalalaFund) May 4, 2014

Last week, I wrote about the 300 girls in the Nigerian village of Chibok who were abducted from school, OF ALL PLACES, and are now being sold into sexual, marital slavery for a few dollars a pop by Boko Haram, an Islamist fundamentalist group.   That’s what Malala’s #BringBackOurGirls campaign is all about. It’s about raising awareness of a wildly, disgustingly awful human rights violation that’s happening in Nigeria right now. It’s about starting conversations around the world about gender-based violence and oppression. And of course, it’s about drawing attention to a grossly under-reported story that deserves way more attention than it’s currently receiving.   Basically, Malala wants women not to be abducted and sold into slavery. And when they are, she demands that it be stopped. Ann Coulter does the opposite. In response to Malala’s #BringBackOurGirls campaign, Ms. Coulter tweeted this:

My hashtag contribution to world affairs … pic.twitter.com/Wkb8ozYZFC — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) May 12, 2014

#BringBackOurCountry.

Ann Coulter, you officially win The Worst Person on Twitter Award. I literally cannot with you and your vomit-inducing shenanigans.

What country, exactly, Ms. Coulter, are you looking to bring back? One where its citizens don’t care when girls are targets for violence because they’re receiving an education? One where women are abducted, beaten, raped, sold like cattle — and no one bats an eye?

Because that’s all you’re advocating when you turn a call to bring abducted women home safely into a warped, twisted statement about how fucked up our country is. The United States may not look the way you want it to look — being all full of Jews and voting women and abortionists and whatnot — but this is not an appropriate way to express your distaste.

Not even a little bit.

Luckily, the legions of Twitter users are in agreement, and they’re restoring our collective faith in humanity. With a magical little tool called Photoshop, folks who DON’T think saving abducted Nigerian women is a cause to shit all over, taught Ann Coulter a lesson.

And it’s awesome.

Here are some of the best Ann Coulter-Photoshop-Takedowns. Scroll through and rejoice in the wonderfulness that can still exist in the world, right alongside the bile of people like Ann Coulter.

@CletisStump @Kalaax008 What Coulter does for a ‘living’. pic.twitter.com/pWz1LiDZnn

— ⒿⓄⓁⓉⒾⓃ ⒿⓄⒺ (@fullofbalogna) May 12, 2014

Wildly accurate.

Man, sometimes I’m shocked by the shit @AnnCoulter says for attention. pic.twitter.com/m3QnG2ZJhr — Atchka! (@atchka) May 12, 2014

Wouldn’t that be magical?

Thanks for calling Ann Coulter, and all of her conservaturd followers, on their bullshit, Internet. We love you. Keep fighting the good fight.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York City. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured Image Courtesy of [Gage Skidmore via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Ann Coulter Destroys Our Faith in Humanity, Sassy Twitter Users Restore It appeared first on Law Street.

Folks, how many of you are John Green fans? I hope every single one of you raised your hand. He’s basically perfection.

Not only does he write awesome books, but he also posts weekly vlogs on YouTube with his brother, Hank. The two of them cover everything from goofy details about their daily lives to politics and religion. And they do it HYSTERICALLY. Seriously, I never knew I could be so entertained while watching a video about the American healthcare system.

Anyway! One of John Green’s wonderful books, The Fault in Our Stars, has been made into a feature film. It’s hitting theaters next month and stars Shailene Woodley.

So much gorgeousness is happening here, you guys.

Shailene is pretty awesome, making some queer-ish, feminist-y comments about love being independent from gender, doubting our society’s obsession with marriage and monogamy, coming down on Twilight for promoting an unhealthy and abusive relationship dynamic, and advocating for more nuanced, kickass roles for women in movies.

She’s pretty rad.

But! Shailene was recently asked if she identifies as a feminist. And she said no. Cue collective exasperated sigh of disappointment.

Why is this apparently feminist star eschewing the feminist label? Because, it seems, she doesn’t actually understand what being a feminist means.

“No,” said Woodley, when asked if she considered herself a feminist, “because I love men.” She went on to say that feminism means giving undue power to women at the expense of men, an arrangement that wouldn’t be beneficial to anyone.

But, see, that’s not what feminism is. That’s not what it means. Not even a little bit. Feminists aren’t power hungry man-haters looking to depose men from their porcelain thrones of fragile masculinity. We’re not looking to climb over the men, flip the oppression coin, and unfairly win some sort of gender pissing contest where vagina-bearers come out on top.

Feminists are people who come in all shapes, sizes, and genders — some of them are men, go figure! — who believe in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. Just ask Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the TEDx talker who came up with this perfectly coined definition of feminism. This isn’t power grabbing. This isn’t renewed, rearranged sexism.

Feminism is a commitment to ending gender-based oppression. And that’s something that both men and women will benefit from.

Because, let’s be real. We live in a world where gender-based oppression is a huge fucking deal. There’s so much of it, in fact, that every week I’m swamped with potential stories to cover here on The F Word. My email inbox is consistently flooded with article recommendations from friends, family members, and coworkers, all alerting me to the latest crazy incident of racist, sexist, homophobic bullshit to hit the airwaves. There’s always too much to cover on any given day.

This week, for example, we’ve got Monica Lewinsky. Vanity Fair has debuted an exclusive essay by Lewinsky, breaking her decade-long silence regarding her past as the White House whore. “It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress,” she writes, going on to express her deep regret and remorse for her affair with former President Bill Clinton — which, she insists, was totally consensual.

But does consent really exist between an intern in her early 20s and her boss — a man who’s not only twice her age, but who’s also the President of the United States? The leader of the motherfucking free world asks you for a blow job, and what do you do? Report him to human resources?

I feel like the U.S. military’s Commander in Chief probably pulls rank on that one, no?

Yes, yes he does.

We live in a world where the man who abused his position of power to score sex from a hot, 20-something staffer, is now getting paid millions of dollars in speaking engagements. Meanwhile, his well-educated, exceptionally capable whore has been unable to land a full-time job ever, AT ALL, because of her “history,” a media sensation that’s transformed her from a person into a joke.

This is a world that needs feminism.

Then, we’ve got Emily Letts, an abortion counselor at a clinic in New Jersey who filmed her surgical abortion and posted it online, to show other women that “there is such a thing as a positive abortion story.”

The short video, featured below, is not graphic or violent, shows only the top half of Letts’ body, and focuses on her emotional and physical experience during the procedure. As a counselor, Letts wanted to share her experience to diffuse some of the frightening misinformation surrounding abortions, modeling one possible solution to a very personal, complicated situation.

Letts’ video and her accompanying essay for Cosmopolitan are helping women across the country come to safe, informed decisions about how to handle an unexpected pregnancy. They’re also helping to chip away at the deeply ingrained stigma our country holds against women who take control of their bodies and reproductive systems.

We live in a world where those are two goals that cause a huge chunk of the United States to respond with anger and vitriol, calling Letts a Godless Baby Slaughterer Witch from Hell. I give it about five minutes before death threats start rolling in.

This is a world that needs feminism.

And then, we’ve got 300 girls in the Nigerian village of Chibok who were abducted from school, OF ALL PLACES, and are now being sold into sexual, marital slavery for a few dollars a pop by Boko Haram, an Islamist fundamentalist group.

#Malala stands in solidarity with Nigerians & people everywhere calling for action to #BringBackOurGirls pic.twitter.com/woAjreav0W

— Malala Fund (@MalalaFund) May 4, 2014

These girls, who range in age from 9 to 15 years old, haven’t been found, which is SHOCKING considering how little media or political attention their abductions have warranted. (Please re-read that sentence and multiply the sarcasm factor by infinity.) And why were they abducted? Because Boko Haram is opposed to women in Nigeria receiving Western educations.

That’s right, folks. We live in a world where girls are violently denied educations and sold into slavery — all while making fewer headlines than Kimye.

This world needs feminism so badly that I have to come up with creative ways to squeeze multiple stories into a single blog post — and I never manage to cover them all. It needs feminism so badly that I had an entire post written about this racist, sexist,  douchebag extraordinaire from Princeton who’s not apologizing for his white privilege, and I SCRAPPED it, because there were too many other stories that were even more important to cover this week.

So, to Shailene Woodley, and to all the other people in the world who are hesitant or unwilling to adopt the feminist identity, please listen.

Feminism is not man-hating. Feminism is not power-grabbing. Feminism is not dangerous, destructive, or harmful.

Feminism is empathy. Feminism is self-love, and love for your fellow human beings. Feminism is working to end the oppression of all people — men, women, queers, people of color, poor people, disabled people — so that all of us can live happier, healthier lives.

Being a feminist means that you believe in social, political, and economic equality between the sexes. Being a feminist means you believe in ending oppression.

And sadly, this column is proof that there aren’t enough of us.

So, please, get next to feminism. Feminists are changing the world for the better. And we need you.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York City. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Mingle MediaTV via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post An Open Letter to Shailene Woodley: What Every Not-a-Feminist Needs to Hear appeared first on Law Street.

The NRA Convention happened last weekend, folks! And you know what that means.

LOTS of ridiculousness for us to talk about.

Specifically, the ridiculousness that Sarah Palin was spewing. When she addressed the cheering crowd of gun enthusiasts, she made a wildly offensive comment equating torture with Christian indoctrination.

“They obviously have information on plots to carry out jihad. Oh, but you can’t offend them. You can’t make them feel uncomfortable. Not even a smidgen. Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

Oh sure, Sarah, that’s great. Let’s torture people and call it baptism. Because that’s not problematic AT ALL.

A lot of people, conservatives included, are pretty scandalized by this latest sound bite from the Conservative Queen of Ridiculous Sound Bites. She’s talked nonsense about President Obama being a socialist, plotting to plunge the U.S. into a quagmire of evil Communism. She’s said some weird and totally untrue things about death panels being a part of the Affordable Care Act. Not to mention, she’s been unable to pinpoint any specific news publications that she reads, or to be completely in control of the English language — “refudiate” and “misunderestimate” are cases in point.

But! Despite the fact that we should all be totally used to Sarah Palin spewing nonsense, she really outdid herself this time.

Even Lucy is shocked.

Let’s start with the most glaring and obvious issue here — Palin is talking about TORTURE. This isn’t an enhanced interrogation method. This isn’t even fucking legal.

Waterboarding is torture.

And she’s talking about it pretty fucking brazenly. She’s blasé about it, really. Palin talks about torturing people with the same folksy, nonchalant charm that won her a spot on the presidential ticket back in 2008. She could be talking about her kid’s hockey game, for cryin’ out loud.

But she’s not. She’s talking about subjecting human beings to the experience of simulated drowning.

And that’s really disturbing. When a person can talk about torturing other people with such ease, it makes you wonder what they’re really capable of. And I’m not the only one who’s wondering.

The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf brings up an important point—what happens if the wrong Republican gets elected? Will the United States revert back to its Bush Era, barbaric ways? Will torture become the norm once again? What else will become the norm?

Potentially, a lot of scary things. Keep in mind, Palin is a self-professed, devout Christian. She’s a woman who claims to follow the gospel of Jesus Christ — a prophet who preached peace and love above all else. I mean, let’s be real. Dude was the original hippy, am I right?

Yup.

So if she can justify torture — even when she follows a religion that, at its core, preaches peace — what else can she justify?

For starters, she can justify a blatant disrespect for the religion that she claims to cling to so tightly. Her conflation of waterboarding with baptism has been received with a lot of insult and outrage by many in the Christian community. Rod Dreher, the editor of the American Conservative, even termed the comparison “sacrilegious.”

So what are we left with? Sarah Palin has proven herself time and time again to be a lightning rod for controversy. She says crazy things. She does weird shit like deviate from her political career to star on reality shows. She gets a lot of flak.

And some of that flak isn’t well deserved. There’s always been an element of misogyny to the criticism hurled at Palin. The world collectively freaked out when she was announced as John McCain’s running mate back in 2008 — and not because she was wildly unqualified — but because she was a woman, a former beauty queen, a mother of five children. How can she be a heartbeat away from the presidency, the country asked, but not always for the right reasons.

But now? We’re left with a woman who talks about violence with reckless abandon. Who preaches her own religious and political views dogmatically, without actually following them herself. Who panders to crowds of gun-enthusiasts who cheer her on when she talks about torture.

That shit’s dangerous. So what’ll happen if the wrong Republican gets elected?

It’s impossible to say — but one thing’s for sure. Nothing good happens when you give people with a penchant for violence and self-righteousness the keys to the kingdom.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Gage Skidmore via Wikipedia]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Can We Maybe Not Condone Torture, Sarah Palin? appeared first on Law Street.

Good afternoon folks! How many of you are David Choe fans?

He’s a pretty fascinating dude. A Korean-American hailing from Los Angeles, Choe is an artist, an author, a reality TV star, a podcast host, and he’s spent time in prison. He got his start as a graffiti artist in LA — an angsty, rebellious teenager if ever there was one. He dropped out of high school, spent a few years traveling the world as a hitchhiker, and then returned to spend a few years in formal art school.

Since then, he’s gone on to become a wildly successful and subversive artist. Facebook commissioned him to paint murals in their first Silicon Valley office, making him a millionaire when they paid him in stock options instead of cash. Now, Choe’s work graces every Facebook office, as well as the White House. He stars in a Vice show called “Thumbs Up!” that documents his life as he hitchhikes all over the place, and he hosts a podcast with porn star Asa Akira where they talk about sexy things. Plus — added bonus — he’s a ballin’ gambler who did jail time in Japan for punching a security guard. Truth.

Lovers of bad boys, rejoice. David Choe is kind of your dream. He’s artsy, he’s rebellious, he can’t deal with authority figures, and his entire career is like a giant middle-finger to the concept of respectable and gainful employment.

But don’t get too excited. Because dude doesn’t seem to understand the concept of enthusiastic consent.

In a recent podcast, Choe recounted an eyebrow-raising sexual experience to his cohost, Akira, that he says he had with a masseuse called “Rose.” The podcast went relatively unnoticed — WHY THAT IS I DON’T KNOW (throwing shade at you, patriarchal rape culture that doesn’t bat an eye at this shit) — until xoJane unearthed it and asked the Internet a giant WTF. Thank you, xoJane, for being awesome. You win the Internet this week.

According to Choe’s own account (which he has since stated was an extension of his art and not fact), he was getting a massage and started masturbating right there in front of Rose, without asking her or informing her of his intent to turn this massage into a sexual experience. Here’s how he described the incident:

“It’s dangerous and it’s super self-destructive. I’m at a place and there’s potential for a lawsuit… and she has given me no signs that she’s into me or that this is appropriate behavior. In my head I go, Do you care if I jerk off right now? and it sounds so creepy in my head that I go I can’t say that out loud … So I go back to the chill method of you never ask first, you just do it, get in trouble and then pay the price later.

…So then her hands get off my leg and she just stops … I go ‘Look I’m sorry I can’t help myself — can you just pretend like I’m not doing this and you continue with the massage?’ And she’s like ‘All right’ and she does … I’m like ‘Can I touch your butt?’ and I reach out and touch her butt and she pulls away. She doesn’t want me to touch her butt.”

OK dude, so you should stop it. When someone doesn’t want you to make sexual advances, you need to stop making them. Obviously. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

His cohost, Asa, picked up on that little detail, and clearly says to him in response to this awful story, “So, you raped her.”

He responds:

“With the rape stuff…I mean, I would have been in a lot of trouble right now if I put her hand on my dick and she’s like “F**king stop I’m gonna go call security.” That would have been a much different story. But the thrill of possibly going to jail, that’s what achieved the erection quest.”

So by his own account, this is a guy who describes getting off by pushing someone to do something she’s not comfortable doing. That’s the personification of rape culture, folks. It’s a culture where women’s bodies are viewed as objects, as property to be handled and exploited. Women don’t have to say yes for other people to feel entitled to us, and even when we say no, it’s often not enough.

Whether or not Choe is confessing to actual rape, he describes knowingly pushing Rose to do things she said no to. And that’s really, really not OK.

Folks, rape doesn’t always look the same. There are lots of different ways to rape someone, or to be raped. It doesn’t have to be a strange man in a dark alley. It doesn’t have to be someone who beats you. It doesn’t have to be someone who’s got a knife to your throat.

Sometimes rape is less dramatic. Sometimes it’s a partner who doesn’t take no for an answer. Sometimes it’s a person who takes advantage of you when you’re disempowered. And sometimes, it’s a random creep in a massage studio.

None of these things are, or ever will be, OK. No means no, David Choe. Fucking stop it.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [jm3 on Flickr via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post No Means No, David Choe appeared first on Law Street.

Good afternoon folks! Now that our collective excitement over the Blood Moon has subsided and the moon has returned to its normal, non-bloody state, we’re going to take some time to talk about everyone’s favorite things. Rush Limbaugh wants them to stop staring at him, and Microsoft wants them to keep you from getting fat. You know where I’m going with this.

We’re talking about boobs this morning.

High school student Megan Grassel is the world’s latest boob-centric entrepreneur, having recently opened a small business called Yellowberry, which allegedly sells non-sexual bras for young girls.

Megan got the idea for the lovely little company when she took her baby sister bra shopping. According to Megan, she was “appalled” by the selection of bras available for her sister’s age group. Filled with push-up padding and covered in sequins, she found the bra selection to be hypersexual and totally inappropriate for her tweenaged sister.

So, like any budding entrepreneur, Megan saw a business opportunity. She recognized a gap in the market — non-sexual bras for younger girls, according to her — and she decided to fill it. One uber-successful Kickstarter campaign later, Yellowberry was born. The company sells neon-colored cotton bras, with no padding or sequins, aimed at girls between 11 and 15 years old. At $42.95 a pop, the store has already sold out. Megan’s a one-woman business success.

Now, before anything else, let’s talk about how this is pretty awesome on a bunch of levels. Women-owned businesses are awesome. Products that are made by and for women are awesome. Megan’s entrepreneurial spirit, smarts, and business acumen are super impressive and I applaud her for it.

However.

Let’s talk about the reason why she started Yellowberry in the first place.

Megan was freaked out by the bras that existed in the market. She deemed padding and sequins too sexual. But what if you’re just a fan of sequin-covered, sparkly, happy things? What about sequins makes bras sexual? What about padding?

The fact that bras are used to cover and support breasts. The breasts themselves are what make bras sexual. Not the fact that they’re covered in sequins. Not the fact that they’re padded. Taken alone, those facts are just descriptors added onto a piece of cloth and (maybe) wire. But Megan and her thoughts on how breasts should and shouldn’t be presented are what sexualized those bras.

And that’s kind of an issue. While Megan’s busy being appalled at how inappropriate these padded, sequined bras are, she’s simultaneously demonizing young girls who might like to wear them.

There’s an element of slut-shaming here, and a fear around the concept of adolescent sexuality. If these bras are so disgustingly hypersexual, what does that say about the girl who chooses to sport it? Presumably, that she’s some kind of oversexed harlot — not just a girl who might think sequins are fun.

Clearly, glitter is the best.

Folks, I know what it’s like to be an oversexed young girl. I started growing boobs when I was in fourth grade. Everyone — from the kids in school right down to my own parents — couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that I was young and had breasts.

They were discussed at length. What I could wear because of them, what I couldn’t wear because of them, how I should stand, where I should go, who I should talk to. My breasts were simultaneously an asset and a huge threat. They made me cool. They made me slutty. They made me precocious and dangerous and fast.

So whenever anyone starts getting anxious about young girls and how overly sexual their breasts are, I get concerned.

What are we really saying to our teenaged girls when we shame them for wanting to wear padded, sequined bras? What message are we sending when a bra store called Yellowberry pops up, whose existence is a direct reaction to societal anxieties around adolescent breasts and sexuality?

We’re saying that young women, their bodies, and their sexualities are threatening. Their breasts need to be tamed. Their sexuality needs to be managed and contained.

So, Megan Grassel, I applaud your entrepreneurship and your colorful, no-frills bras. But I hope you’ll reevaluate your motivation for making them.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Ralf Roletschek via Wikipedia]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post How Feminist Is Your Bra? appeared first on Law Street.

Folks, women’s access to safe abortion services is circling the drain. Between 2011 and 2013, state lawmakers passed more restrictions on abortion than they in the last decade combined.

That’s right. In two years, more abortion restrictions were passed than in the previous ten. That’s some serious shit.

It’s looking like this is going to be a trend that continues into 2014, so let’s take a moment and remind all the anti-choicers out there what actually happens when you prevent women from accessing safe abortions. HINT: They do not get fewer abortions.

1. They seek unsafe abortions.

Cue gasps all around — what’s the first thing women who can’t access safe abortions do? They go find unsafe abortions. Women duck into back alley, sketch-tastic, unsterile abortion clinics for the privilege of having some hack rough up their insides. Often, that same hack will rape her.

Regardless of how much her insides are at risk for getting raped and destroyed, a woman who wants an abortion will still go get one, even if it’s illegal and unsafe. This is reality, conservaturds. Wrap your heads around it.

2. They buy abortion pills on the black market.

Can’t find a dirty sketchball to perform your abortion? No problem. There are plenty of safe, effective abortion pills you can take in the comfort of your own home.

Except! Prescriptions for these pills must be administered by an abortion provider — so if you can’t find one, you’re shit out of luck. Unless, of course, you make an appearance on the black market. Desperate and optionless women are buying these pills on the black market every day, but many of them are counterfeit, rendering them useless at best and harmful at worst. Not to mention, these abortion pills are a bit complicated to administer. Take them incorrectly, and you’ll find yourself in the emergency room.

Again, these risks are stopping no one. Abortions continue to happen.

3. They cross borders to get unsafe abortions.

Don’t have an abortion provider in your city, county, or state? Cross the border into a less anti-feminist state! Or, better yet, head to Mexico. Except abortions are really hard to access wherever you’re headed as well, most likely, and so there’s a good chance you’ll end up in an unsafe situation anyway.

And now, you’re further from home, still at risk for assault or procedure botching, and you’re out a whole bunch more money because traveling is expensive.

Once again, abortions continue to happen.

4. They deliberately harm themselves to induce a miscarriage.
Out come the coat hangers! Seriously, though, women will resort to deliberately getting punched in the stomach, beaten up, or thrown down the stairs in order to induce a miscarriage. Clearly, this is not a very safe or reliable way to self-abort. No one cares. It still happens.

5. They wind up unable to conceive later.

This detail is like a goody bag extra, because botched abortions are just the gift that keeps on giving! When women terminate pregnancies using any of the unsafe methods listed above, they often wind up with serious, permanent damage to their reproductive systems. That means chronic health issues, and often, the inability to conceive when they do actually want to have babies.

This is the definition of not having control over your own body — being forced to have a child when you don’t want to, facing injury or death if you choose to defy that directive, and being unable to bear children when you do want to as a consequential punishment.

This shit happened all the time before Roe v. Wade, and as more and more restrictions are placed on that landmark ruling, it’s continuing to happen with increasing frequency today.

To all the anti-choice agitators and conservative lawmakers who’d like to take away a woman’s right to choose, please note:

Denying women access to safe abortions DOES NOT reduce the number of abortions that happen. Those fetuses you’re so concerned about will still be aborted. All it does is put the women who carry them at greater risk for injury or death. Abortions will happen with or without your legal blessing, Right-wing legislators. Consider this your reality check.

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post 5 Things That Happen When Women Can’t Access Safe Abortions appeared first on Law Street.

Happy April Fool’s Day, folks! Guess what happened last night while you were sleeping?

The Affordable Care Act’s first open enrollment period ended, and the government reached its goal metrics. Signups on Healthcare.gov and 14 state-based exchanges cleared the 7 million mark — the minimum enrollment goal — and will continue to grow over the next few weeks as last-minute signups clear the system.

This is pretty exciting. Why? Because Obamacare is officially too big to easily dismantle. The Republicans, with all their blathering on about bullshit death panels and anti-Americanism, have lost this fight. Healthcare reform is a thing that happened. And it’s not un-happening anytime soon.

And that’s a huge deal. Medical care is insanely expensive in the U.S., as is quality health insurance. Those high price tags have locked tons of low-income Americans out of quality healthcare, leaving them with lower standards of living and shorter life expectancies.

Basically, the high cost of healthcare has turned a basic human need into a luxury for the rich. It’s established that some lives (ahem, rich folks) are more important than others. And that’s super fucked up.

So thanks, Obamacare, for taking a first step toward fixing that problem.

But! Let’s not get too excited. Obamacare is still full of problems. The ACA is NOT universal healthcare — not by a long shot, and it shows. Let’s investigate, shall we?

Sarah, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, is a recent beneficiary of the Affordable Care Act. She signed up for the Empire Catastrophic Guided Access Plan back in February. Under this plan, Sarah pays nearly $200.00 a month for the most basic of health insurance — her copays and deductible are high, making her policy little more than a guarantee that she won’t go completely bankrupt if she gets cancer tomorrow. (So we hope.)

Unsurprisingly, Sarah’s not super pumped about the state of her healthcare coverage. As a 20-something-year-old with mountains of student loan debt and a low-paying, entry-level job, she’s on a tight budget. And every month, $200 of that budget goes toward her health insurance — and that’s if she doesn’t actually try to use it.

So, why, if this plan was so lackluster, did Sarah choose it? Aside from the obvious factor of affordability (this plan is about as cheap as they come), Sarah wanted to make sure she could access birth control and STI screenings through her insurance.

“I signed up for this plan because, on the Planned Parenthood website, it listed Empire as an accepted insurer,” Sarah said. “But it turns out, for my plan, they are out of network, even though when I called they said I was covered.”

“Turns out STI screenings are not covered at all, so I have to not get tested ever, and I have to try to find a gynecologist who takes my insurance. I also no longer qualify for state assisted birth control at Planned Parenthood because I have health insurance that isn’t actually health insurance. I am literally worse off than when I was uninsured.”

So, thanks to Obamacare, Sarah is essentially paying more money for less access to the healthcare she needs. And that’s really not cool.

There have been a lot of GOP horror stories about the Affordable Care Act. This video is one of them.

Largely, these tales are vague, exaggerated, or entirely untrue. They’re pure propaganda for conservaturds who want to keep the healthcare industry as privatized and profitable as possible.

But then there are real people, like Sarah, who really aren’t making out too well under Obamacare. Stories like hers aren’t to denounce the ACA as a complete failure — even she conceded that the Affordable Care Act is a step in the right direction.

But Sarah is living proof that there are a lot more steps that need to be taken in that direction. Quality healthcare still isn’t truly accessible to countless American citizens. Obamacare is not universal healthcare. And that’s really what we need.

So, now that Obamacare has reached its enrollment goals, let’s keep pushing, shall we? Let’s make healthcare a thing that we can actually use.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Daniel Borman via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Obamacare Is Here to Stay! But It Still Kind of Sucks appeared first on Law Street.

Good morning, folks! Time for your weekly dosage of anti-feminist bullshit! On the menu today is Hobby Lobby, a for-profit corporation owned by a family of religious zealots that doesn’t want to cover your birth control.

Also, it doesn’t want any other employer-sponsored health insurance to cover your birth control either.

So, keep your legs closed?

I know, I know, conservatives bat this shit around all the goddamn time. They’re constantly challenging a woman’s right to choose, trying to flip or amend the shit out of Roe v. Wade to resurrect the age of the coat hanger, slash birth control coverage, nix preventive care exams, and pretty much destroy all the basic healthcare measures that are associated with vaginas.

And so far, they haven’t managed to deny all of us some modicum of control over our own bodies. Those of us who are lucky enough to live in a blue state with a decent level of economic privilege are still visiting the OB-GYN each year. But.

Hobby Lobby is making us really fucking nervous.

This obnoxious fuck of a company is suing the Department of Health and Human Services on the grounds that the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act infringes on their constitutional right to religious freedom. According to Hobby Lobby, since they’re owned by devout Christians, their health insurance benefits shouldn’t have to cover contraception for employees.

To make this even more awesome, Hobby Lobby is basing these claims on some crap-tastic pseudo-science about “abortifacients.” The company is already covering 80 percent of the mandatory contraceptives listed in the ACA, but is holding out on two forms of intrauterine contraception, and two forms of emergency birth control.

Contrary to the ridiculous claims they’re making about those devices, none of them are abortion pills. Which, for the record, are totally on the market and widely used. These just aren’t them.

Literally no one is a fan of this lawsuit.

For all the people who are in favor of women controlling their own bodies and sexual health, this is obviously some bullshit. Birth control and emergency contraception are basic tools that allow women to maintain their sexual health and control their destinies. Those are rights that shouldn’t be up for debate.

But what’s really surprising is who else isn’t a fan of this suit.

The entire business world.

That’s right! All the rich, conservative, white men who run the United States’ Fortune 500 companies have failed to file a single amicus brief in Hobby Lobby’s favor. They’re just as freaked out by this attempt at religious discrimination as feminists are.

Why? Because it would fuck shit up, business-wise.

Hobby Lobby’s case is built on the argument that a corporation isn’t separate from its owners. By their logic, since Hobby Lobby is owned by devout Christians, the company itself is also a devoutly Christian entity whose religious freedoms can be violated. This move conflates the business and its owners, making them one in the same.

And that’s really dangerous for business owners all across the country. The Chamber of Commerce and other organizations have filed a ton of amicus briefs opposing Hobby Lobby, citing how important it is to keep corporations separate from their owners.

This principle is called the “corporate veil,” and essentially, it protects its owners from liability. Since a corporation has a different set of rights and obligations than its owners, an owner can’t be held personally responsible for a company oversight, and vice versa.

But Hobby Lobby wants to have it both ways. They’d like to hang on to that liability protection, while simultaneously doing whatever the fuck they want.

So, at the end of the day, this lawsuit is a problem for everyone. It’s a problem for business owners who don’t want the corporate veil to get ripped to shreds. It’s a problem for women — specifically those employed at Hobby Lobby — who need their birth control to be covered under their health insurance. It’s also a problem for literally anyone whose behavior or existence violates someone’s religious beliefs.

If Hobby Lobby wins this suit, it would set a precedent that could make widespread discrimination totally legal. If the owner of a restaurant doesn’t like gay people, he or she can refuse to serve them. If a doctor doesn’t like abortion, he or she can refuse to prescribe birth control. If a landlord doesn’t like Jewish people, he or she could refuse to rent to them.

Virtually any kind of discrimination could be protected under a veil of religious freedom, making each individual person — and their company — a law book unto themselves.

This shit is ridiculous, am I right?

Religious conservatives, you do you. You be religious! You proselytize against birth control all you want. But stop trying to use your religious beliefs as an excuse to treat those of us who aren’t on your team like crap.

We’re seriously over it.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image Courtesy of [Annabelle Shemer via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Hobby Lobby Wants to Remove the Corporate Veil — and Your Birth Control Coverage appeared first on Law Street.

Twenty-something women of the world, are you married yet? Because according to Susan Patton, a.k.a. The Princeton Mom, you should be.

In her new book, Marry Smart: Advice for Finding THE ONE, Patton urges young, college attending women to spend their undergrad years husband hunting. According to her, finding a mate before graduation is imperative, because otherwise, your eggs will dry up in your ovaries and you’ll die alone with your seven cats. Or something like that.

Princeton Mom is all kinds of fascinating, and not just because she’s depressingly anti-feminist. Let’s run down the top five reasons why Susan Patton should be your new conservaturd celebrity obsession, mmkay?

1.) Lady is a tiger.

As a Princeton graduate, and a mother of two more, Patton is completely obsessed with orange and black. Her Upper East Side apartment is dripping with it — she’s got tiger tails hanging on the walls, orange and black craft projects strewn about, and she’s currently dreaming of a second wedding on the Princeton campus complete with orange roses.

If she wasn’t busy having New York Magazine features written about her and making appearances on the Today Show, I’d say Patton peaked during her college years. But maybe this tiger is just finding her stripes?

2.) Patton is recently divorced, which is totally a bummer.

She prefers not to talk about her former husband, although he “went to a college of almost no name recognition.” Ouch. Anyway, as it turns out, she frittered away her undergrad years at Princeton, you know, actually getting an education, and then wound up marrying whoever she happened to be dating at 31 in a race against the fertility clock.

I feel like it’s not a coincidence that that didn’t work out, no? Husband hunters, keep that in mind while you’re tracking down marriageable sperm donors. Marrying for the sake of your fertility timeline does not guarantee wedded bliss.

3.) The Princeton Mom is not COMPLETELY anti-feminist.

As a young woman, she eschewed immediate marriage and motherhood in favor of getting a top-notch education and developing her career. She even went so far as to legally emancipate herself from her “women don’t need to be educated” parents so she could attend Princeton.

Points, Princeton Mom. Feminist points.

4.) But don’t get too excited. She’s still pretty anti-feminist.

She doesn’t think date rape is a thing, and she thinks it’s a woman’s responsibility to keep herself out of situations where she might be violated. After all, we can’t expect men to act responsibly! Penises have a mind of their own, clearly. She totally freaked out Savannah Guthrie with this one.

Oh Mama Patton, I was rooting for you for a minute there.

5.) The Princeton Mom might be a tiger, but she’s also a cougar.

Embracing her newly found singledom, she’s dating multiple men at once, at least two of them Princeton grads. Free of the pressure of biology, she’s dating men who are fun and sexy — not potential sperm donors — and she’s having an awesome time doing it.

She just doesn’t really think YOU should be doing that, because, tick tock ladies. Those eggs of yours WILL NOT last forever.

So what do we make of the Princeton mom? Well, she’s a beacon of anti-feminist nonsense, the kind of self-help guru who sets women back a few generations.

She’s also kind of a badass. She’s unapologetic in her opinions, she’s going after it with all she’s got, and she’s feeling awesome about it.

So you do you, Princeton Mom! You be your fierce, tiger self.

The rest of you, don’t listen to her craze-tastic advice unless you’re inventing some kind of drinking game out of her TV appearances. In that case, please share.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Andrew_Writer via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post 5 Reasons Why Princeton Mom Is Your New Anti-Feminist She-ro appeared first on Law Street.

Hello loves! How many of you went to CPAC last week?

Hopefully none of you. But! A whole bunch of young people did — obviously as props to debunk the claim that the GOP is full of rich, white men. (I’m just kidding.) (Kind of not really.)

Anyway! As a result of this Millennial pilgrimage to the land of Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin, the NRCC took the opportunity to ask its youngins’ why they identified as conservatives. The results are laughable.

First of all — the most concrete piece of new information we’ve learned from this little exercise is that Republicans can’t count. While the NRCC claims to have asked 37 Millennials why they were fans of the Grand Old Party, there are 45 individuals pictured on their countdown. Likewise, the Independent Journal Review, which reposted the piece, claims 26 individuals in the headline, 37 individuals in the slug, and pictures only 33.

Learn your 1, 2, 3s here, people. What kind of nonsense is this?

No, we’re not giving you one more chance.

So, clearly, we’ve established that this little study is anything but scientific.  Also, not well produced. If the Republican question-askers and statisticians can’t even keep their numbers straight, shouldn’t your standard, run of the mill copy editor notice something’s up? You’d think so. You’d also be wrong.

Anyway, mathematical challenges aside, let’s let these young Republicans speak for themselves, shall we? Here are a few reasons why they’re counting themselves conservative this year.

That’s pretty vague. Courtesy of NRCC.org

Even vaguer. Courtesy of NRCC.org

Courtesy of NRCC.org

Really?

Am I the only one who’s noticing that something’s up here? None of these reasons are actually reasons. They’re just meaningless buzzwords.

You’re conservative because…taxes? Do you mean that you like how the Republican party has rigged the system so that gazillionaires and corporations get tax breaks, while YOU, lowly 20-something, are paying taxes through your nose? If that’s what you meant by, “I’m conservative because taxes,” then I guess you’re in the right place. A self-defeating one, mind you.

Courtesy of NRCC.org

And what about fiscal responsibility? These folks are on the tax train too — as in, they’d like to pay fewer of them. They’re all kinds of pissed off about having their tax dollars funneled into the social safety net, because no one wants to subsidize those lazy, mooching, poor people! The blasphemy!

I’m guessing they all have health insurance, and aren’t particularly worried about falling ill and going bankrupt. Also, they probably aren’t aware that the group who benefits most from the social safety net is, in fact, their grandparents.

Courtesy of NRCC.org

Then, of course, there are the Jobby McJobersons, who are conservatives because jobs. I’m guessing they want more of them? If so, maybe they should be a little more specific about the kinds of jobs they’re looking for.

Because among job creators in the GOP, new positions typically don’t pay a living wage or include benefits. Take Walmart, for example. Owned by the Waltons, an incredibly rich and incredibly conservative family, it’s the single largest employer in the country. Its employees also hold food drives for each other, because they don’t actually make enough money to buy food themselves.

Walmart holding canned food drive for its own underpaid employees http://t.co/SkUrh7tP53 pic.twitter.com/h9ZmJHfekZ

— Scott Keyes (@smkeyes) November 18, 2013

I feel like those aren’t the kinds of jobs that’ll pay off your student loans, young CPAC attendees.

There were a few young people who were more thoughtful in their responses. Take this girl, for example, who’s being really clear about how much she’d like to preserve her privilege as a white, cis-gender, straight, Christian woman, at the expense of queers, people of color, and poor folks.

Courtesy of NRCC.org

Then there’s this guy, who’s affiliated with the GOP because he’s disappointed in Obama’s performance as President. You know what, love? I totally agree with you. Obama hasn’t been able to create the hope and change he promised. A huge factor in that, though, is the unwillingness of Republicans to cooperate with him on literally anything.

Courtesy of NRCC.org

Now, I’m all for listening to young Republicans as the reflect on and explain why they identify as conservatives. But that’s not what’s happening here. These 20-somethings aren’t reflecting on much, and they aren’t explaining anything at all. They’re mindlessly spewing one-word, canned talking points.

And that’s not helping anybody. You need to improve your communication skills here, CPAC’ers! You should take a lesson from these awesome people, who are fabulous at explaining their political alignment. Notice how they all use full sentences and complete thoughts.

PS – Handsome person in the top right corner, give me a call sometime, mmkay? Courtesy of Tumblr.com

So, young Republicans, do me a favor. Get your fucking acts together. Think more critically about why you identify as conservative, and give us more than the same tired, one-word answers a million people used before you. You don’t need to understand a damn thing about life or politics to write “Jobs” on a piece of paper.

And we need you to understand things. Because you’re pretty close to taking over this show yourselves.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Gage Skidmore via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Young Conservatives Actually Have No Clue Why They’re Conservative appeared first on Law Street.

Loves, how many of you watched the Oscars on Sunday night?

I did, after a fair amount of effort finagling a live-stream feed onto my TV. Thanks for the complication, Time Warner!

Anyway, if you stayed up to watch the end — or if you’ve been on the internet in the last 48 hours — you’ll know that Matthew McConaughey won Best Actor. Moment of silence for Leonardo DiCaprio, who’s having nightmares right now.

This what Leonardo DiCaprio’s nightmares look like #Oscars pic.twitter.com/yhkAkgDxSP

— Joel Pavelski (@joelcifer) March 3, 2014

Anyway, conservatives are freaking out about McConaughey’s Oscar acceptance speech. In it, the first thank you he threw out into the void was to God, making him one of only four actors to mention the Almighty in an Oscar acceptance speech over the last 12 years.

“First off,” said McConaughey, “I want to thank God, because that’s who I look up to. He has graced my life with opportunities that I know are not of my hand or of any other human hand. He has shown me that it’s a scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates … When you’ve got God, you’ve got a friend, and that friend is you.”

D’aw. Conservatives are drooling over this show of Christian religiosity. Please note, no one gave half a shit about the other three God-thankers in recent Oscar history — because none of them were white, Texas boys with a charming Southern drawl.

Anyway! Here’s what the conserva-turds have to say about Matthew’s Godly mention.

Rick Perry tweeted out Monday morning:

Texas boy counting his blessings. http://t.co/O6fbEN4QrF

— Rick Perry (@GovernorPerry) March 3, 2014

Tea Party darling Michelle Malkin proclaimed via Twitter:

Silence a Hollywood liberal: Give thanks to God. http://t.co/FYOMiCoQFg

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) March 3, 2014

And of course, not to be left out, Fox News chimed in with an unusually straight-news style headline: “Matthew McConaughey one of few to thank God in Oscar acceptance speech.”

Folks, the conservative Right’s excitement over McConaughey’s God speech is interesting for a few reasons.

First of all — holy racism, Batman. I mentioned that there were three other Oscar winners who thanked God in their acceptance speeches in recent years. Those actors are Denzel Washington, Jennifer Hudson, and Forrest Whitaker. They’re all Black. And no conservative pundits cared even a little, tiny bit, when they mentioned God on Oscar night.

Some would argue that’s because African-Americans are statistically more likely to be devout Christians. When stereotypes abound about church-going, Gospel-singing Black folk, who’s really surprised when Black actors start talking about God? Clearly, no one.

But I’d say that’s not the real reason conservatives are so much more excited about Matthew McConaughey’s Godliness than Jennifer Hudson’s. What’s actually going on here?

Conservatives see Matthew McConaughey as one of them. And they’re all kinds of pumped that someone on their team is a visible member of the Hollywood glitterati.

After all, McConaughey’s wearing the uniform. He’s white, straight, cis-gendered, and charmingly Southern. He’d fit right in if he headed back to the Bible Belt—he’s even related to a Confederate soldier. He’s a perfect poster boy.

But it goes deeper than that. The most important aspect of McConaughey’s conservative appeal is his narcissism.

After he finished thanking God, Matthew launched into a weird diatribe about how he’s his own hero. It was kind of bizarre, and if you try really hard, you can squeeze some inspirational juice out of it along the lines of, “You’re your own toughest competition, be the best you can be!”

Except you’d have to try really, really hard. The clearest takeaway here is that Matthew McConaughey is really obsessed with himself. And he kind of always has been. Remember when he got married, and all he could talk about was how lucky his wife was to have him as her Prince Charming? Barf.

Conservatives are notorious for their narcissism. That’s exactly the trait that allows them to vilify poor people, single mothers, women, and abortion providers. It’s how they came up with that term, “personal responsibility,” and used it to dismantle the social safety net. It’s the reasoning behind their destructive opposition to basic human needs, like universal healthcare, affordable housing, and nutritious food.

Conservatives are conservative because their politics lack empathy. They’re unable to put themselves into someone else’s shoes. It’s easy to fight for a ban on abortion when you’ve never been faced with an unwanted pregnancy. It’s even easier to claim that universal healthcare is communism when you’ve never been denied access to medical care because of your inability to cough up the cash.

It’s fairly common for conservatives to switch teams when they’re faced with shitty situations. Take this guy for example, who worked on the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008. He went from a Republican staffer to an Obamacare activist — after he was diagnosed with cancer and denied health insurance.

Republicans often can’t see the harm their policies cause until they’re in the middle of their own self-inflicted crosshairs. Even then, if they switch teams, it’s primarily for self-preservation. Right-wing politics is all about narcissistic self-interest. I do not like this, their policies scream like a toddler throwing a tantrum. And it’s imperative that I get what I want.

This pretty much sums up Right-wing politics.

So, it makes sense for people like Michelle Malkin and Rick Perry to be excited about Matthew McConaughey’s Oscar speech. God talk aside, it was about as narcissistic as you can get. And that resonates with conservatives.

So, while your Internet is blowing up about the Godliness of McConaughey, please remember that his speech wasn’t reflective of Christian values like peace and charity. It’s no coincidence that conservatives are excited about it.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Denise Cross Photography via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Matthew McConaughey Is Narcissistic at the Oscars, Becomes Conservative Hero appeared first on Law Street.

How many of you remember Emi and Hannah, my super cute friends who live in Virginia? Last time we saw them, they were cautiously excited about the prospect of Va. striking down its gay marriage ban.

Well, they’re pretty happy right now. U.S. District Court Judge Arenda Wright Allen struck down the state’s prohibition on same-sex marriage just in time for Valentine’s Day. Yay!

Congratulatory baby goat kisses for Emi! Courtesy of Hannah R. Winsten.

I promised y’all (that one’s for you, Southern readers) that we’d check in with Emi and Hannah again as this case progressed, and I wasn’t about to disappoint you. Seriously — as soon as news about Judge Wright Allen’s decision dropped, I started getting social media requests for a follow-up story about these two lovebirds. Apparently everyone agrees with me that they’re the cutest.

So! I asked Emi and Hannah what their reaction to the news was, and it took over a week for them to respond! Don’t worry, though, they had a good reason. Here’s what Hami (celebrity couple name-merge suggestions?) told me:

“I think I’ve been avoiding sending you a ‘response to the news’ because I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop,” said Hannah. “With everything on hold as the opposition appeals, my pessimist side is waiting until something ‘real’ happens until it commits to any sort of celebration.”

Hannah and her cat are only mildly amused. Courtesy of Hannah R. Winsten.

LOL GUYS. Hami was totally right. Literally 15 hours ago, The Virginian Pilot reported that appeals have been filed. Le sigh.

Appeals were filed on behalf of Norfolk Circuit Court Clerk, George Schaefer, and State Registrar of Vital Records, Janet Rainey — two Virginia court clerks who don’t like to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. And, since Judge Wright Allen delayed implementation of her ruling until after all appeals have been heard, same-sex marriage still isn’t actually recognized in the state of Virginia. Thanks, guys.

But, for all the irritation and inconvenience this delay is causing, it’s also providing us with some serious entertainment value. The reasoning behind the opposition’s anti-gay-marriage stance is truly hilarious.

If Hami’s pig Alice wasn’t busy being so cute, she’d be laughing so hard right now. Courtesy of Hannah R. Winsten.

The lawyers trying to stem the tide of Southern gay weddings are citing Virginia’s 400-year tradition of heterosexual marriage as a reason for upholding the ban on same-sex marriages. They’re just not traditional enough to be allowed, apparently.

You know what else is in Virginia’s 400-year tradition? They’ve got an impressive history of blocking school integration in favor of racial segregation, stopping interracial marriage, and denying women the right to attend the Virginia Military Institute. And that’s not even mentioning the Native American genocide that essentially served as Virginia’s debutante ball.

Also, SLAVERY.

Hami’s cats are throwing some major shade for the obvious omission of SLAVERY. Courtesy of Hannah R. Winsten.

Let’s all take a moment and collectively laugh (to keep from crying) at Virginia’s ridiculous attempt at painting its traditional history as something to proudly preserve. Come on, guys, you’re better than that.

But maybe they’re not, because it actually gets worse. The super awesome attorneys representing Schaefer and Rainey are also arguing that marriage should only be granted to couples who can procreate. By this reasoning, tons of existing, straight marriages would be considered null and void. Couples who are infertile, who include a post-menopausal woman, or who just plain old don’t want to have kids would all be locked out of the marriage club.

This is just getting silly.

Almost as silly as Emi in a corn suit. Courtesy of Hannah R. Winsten.

Amid all this ridiculousness, it would be easy to get discouraged. But Emi and Hannah have it all in perspective.

“While this ruling could make life a lot simpler for Emi and me, it doesn’t mean that magically everything is fixed for queers in this country,” said Hannah. “I’ll be happy to have our marriage recognized and to get some of the very practical legal elements that go along with that, [but] this isn’t by any stretch of the imagination the final goal. Homophobia isn’t over any more than sexism is over or racism is over or classism is over.”

PREACH. Courtesy of Hannah R. Winsten.

Right on, lovebird. Marriage is just one piece in a giant and complex puzzle, in which queers, women, people of color, and poor people are systematically marginalized in the U.S. I’ve written a ton about why marriage is kind of a shitty deal, and about how fucked queers still are, even if marriage equality is achieved. Wedding bells don’t change the fact that we’re statistically more likely to be unemployed, impoverished, and incarcerated than our straight counterparts. These are still giant problems.

And non-queers, or super privileged queers, sometimes forget about that.

“I actually had one of my lovely, kind, straight friends make a comment along those lines,” said Hannah. “[T]hat once gay marriages are legal and recognized throughout the country, the ‘war’ will have been won.”

Nope. Courtesy of Hannah R. Winsten.

Not so, loves. The war will be far from over. Until queer kids have stopped dominating the homeless population, until trans women of color stop getting murdered, until gay-bashing stops being a thing the war won’t be over.

In the meantime, though, let’s all shop at Heart Moss Farm and laugh at Virginia’s ridiculousness to keep from crying, OK?

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

All images courtesy of [Hannah R. Winsten]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Our Favorite Gay Couple in Virginia Might Have a Legally Recognized Marriage Soon! appeared first on Law Street.

So, apparently Dexter might be a real thing.

This week, 19-year-old Miranda Barbour confessed to killing at least 22 people in Alaska, California, Texas, and North Carolina, all as a result of her involvement in an Alaskan satanic cult.

She was arrested in Sunbury, Pa., for the November homicide of a man she met through Craigslist. Allegedly, Miranda lured 42-year-old Troy LaFerrera into her Honda CR-V through a “companionship” ad on Craigslist. She agreed to have sex with him for $100, but wound up stabbing him 20 times instead.

Barbour’s described herself as akin to Dexter — a fictional, vigilante serial killer who murdered other criminals — because she only killed “bad” people, who “didn’t deserve to be here anymore.”

Folks, this story is crazy pants. If you thought the Amanda Knox or Jodie Arias cases were big, just wait for this one to gain some more traction. True insanity is about to descend upon the news-reading American population. And that’s because we’re fascinated with all that’s fucked up. We love a good serial killer. It’s literally the first thing you learn in journalism school — if it bleeds, it leads.

And this Miranda Barbour story is fucking hemorrhaging.

Here’s the inside scoop on her background. If you can, try to refrain from imagining the accompanying Lifetime movie that’s most definitely in pre-production as we speak. According to her own accounts, Miranda Barbour grew up in Alaska — the coldest, darkest, most mysterious state in this gigantic nation. AKA, the perfect setting for a truly fucked up story.

At age four, Miranda was molested by a family member. (Presumably, we’re supposed to consider this the root cause of all her later transgressions.) By age 13, she’d gotten her first taste of murder. Accompanying the leader of the satanic cult she would subsequently join, Miranda went to a dark alley to meet a man who owed the cult leader money.

Then, according to Miranda, “[H]e said to me that it was my turn to shoot him. I hate guns. I don’t use guns. I couldn’t do it, so he came behind me and he took his hands and put them on top of mine and we pulled the trigger. And then from there I just continued to kill.”

During her years in the cult, Miranda climbed to the top of the ranks, and even married another cult official, who was later murdered. At one point, she became pregnant, and the group drugged her, tied her to a bed, and performed an “in-house” abortion.

When she got pregnant for the second time, she decided to leave the cult — and Alaska — behind, moving to North Carolina.

“I wanted to start over and forget everything I did,” said Miranda.

Apparently, though, that didn’t really work out for her, seeing as she claims her killing streak continued after she left Alaska, dropping bodies across several states.

Her daughter is now a year and a half old, and is currently being held in protective custody. Miranda is allowed to visit.

Now, the details about the Satanic cult are interesting, for sure. This story reads like the juiciest of true crime novels. But, what’s really interesting about this story, is how completely batshit crazy it has the potential to get.

Here’s why: there is absolutely no corroborating evidence of Miranda’s involvement in a Satanic cult, or in any previous killings.

“Thorough investigation will likely demonstrate that this cult story is fiction,” said Peter Gilmore, the New York-based head of the Church of Satan, who confirmed that his church does not condone murder. Likewise, Monica Caison, the founder of a missing persons center in North Carolina, is skeptical about Miranda’s serial killer claims.

“That’s a lot of people to kill in such a short time, and being so young and never making a mistake, I’m hard pressed to believe that amount,” said Caison, referring to Miranda’s claim that she’d killed somewhere between 22 and 100 people over the last six years.

Not to mention, she doesn’t fit the profile. Women serial killers are typically older and don’t use knives, and serial killers in general are exponentially better at stashing bodies. Miranda’s latest Craigslist victim? Dumped in a backyard, with intact cell phone and identification, right in the same town that the murder took place.

That doesn’t look like the work of a pro.

But, despite the doubtful nature of her claims, Miranda’s story didn’t sound rehearsed. According to Francis Scarcella, the reporter who broke this story, she never hesitated once as she recounted her dark life into his audio recorder. Scarcella described her as meek, mild, and generally unintimidating.

But of course, “Looks can be deceiving,” as Barbour quickly pointed out, destroying the sexist assumptions that paint women — even serial killer women — as harmless victims or benign liars.

But what shocked Scarcella the most? When asked if she felt any remorse for her killings, Miranda replied with, “None.” And further, she unequivocally stated that if she was ever released from prison, she would kill again.

And therein lies the crazy. While Miranda’s story is perhaps implausible, her delivery is incredibly convincing. Whether or not her claims are true, she seems to believe them wholeheartedly, and she’s got the rest of us scratching our heads, trying to make sense of the nonsensical web she’s spun with her words.

That’s the hallmark of a true, psychopathic manipulator, and she’s got every one of us on the hook.

What do you think of the developing Miranda Barbour story?

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [The Bay Harbor Butcher via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post BREAKING: Real Life Lady Dexter Confesses to Between 22 & 100 Murders appeared first on Law Street.

Folks, what is going on with Woody Allen these days?

In case you’ve missed all the drama amid the #SochiFailympics, here’s a quick recap of what’s been happening. Woody Allen was given a lifetime achievement award at The Golden Globes last month, to which his ex, Mia Farrow, and her son, Ronan, responded with this:

Time to grab some icecream & switch over to #GIRLS

— mia farrow (@MiaFarrow) January 13, 2014

Missed the Woody Allen tribute – did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age 7 before or after Annie Hall?

— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) January 13, 2014

Some passive aggressive Twitter rage, I see! Understandable, considering Woody Allen allegedly molested Dylan Farrow, daughter and sister of the two subtweeting Farrows. Of course, the world exploded. Along with the responses of a handful of celebrities and everyone on Twitter, Dylan spoke out for herself.

Detailing the trauma of childhood sexual assault at the hands of a celebrity in an open letter published in the New York Times, Dylan wrote, “[I] imagine your seven-year-old daughter being led into an attic by Woody Allen. Imagine she spends a lifetime stricken with nausea at the mention of his name. Imagine a world that celebrates her tormenter…Woody Allen is a living testament to the way our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse.”

That’s some powerful, powerful shit. Not that it shut down any of the men’s rights, Woody Allen apologists for half a second.

First there was this op-ed, by Woody Allen’s BFF. Its nauseating smugness actually makes me want to barf. Then, there was Woody Allen’s own response, in which he minimizes and distorts his own douchebaggery to smear his ex Mia as a loony-tune woman scorned. On the same day, Vanity Fair published a list of fully fact-checked, indisputable truths about the highly contested case, and then, one day later, Dylan issued her own re-response.

Phew. It’s been a rough few weeks for the Farrows and the Allens and all of us in between. You think your own family feuds are intense? At least they don’t play out in the news, am I right?

THANK GOODNESS.

But despite the fact that I’m trying to keep this light, this Woody Allen/Dylan Farrow fiasco is no joke. This is some serious, serious shit. Especially because what really happened in that attic is so hotly contested.

Folks, a lot has been written about this case, and here’s what most of it comes down to — none of us were there. As third-party bystanders, all of our information is secondhand. So, we each have to choose what to believe, for ourselves.

You can choose to believe Woody and his story about a vengeful, manipulative ex-girlfriend who’s willing to psychologically abuse her children in order to get back at him.

Or, you can believe Dylan and her story about a creepy father who assaulted her and then proceeded to launch a smear campaign against his victim and her family.

I know which story I find more plausible.

But, these conflicting stories aside, we’re still left with some simple, disturbing facts. Even if nothing at all had happened between Dylan and Woody — even if there were no allegations — he still wound up in a romantic relationship with his girlfriend’s daughter. Woody was 56 and dating Mia Farrow when he got involved with Soon-Yi, the 19-year-old adopted sister of his children Ronan and Dylan.

That’s fucking creeptastic.

Despite the widespread reports that Woody and Soon-Yi enjoy a healthy, egalitarian marriage, Allen’s willingness to get involved with his girlfriend’s teenaged, adopted daughter speaks volumes about his character.

He’s a man who either has no sense of boundaries within a relationship, or doesn’t seriously concern himself with them. He’s a man with poor judgment and little impulse control. He’s a man who cares little for anything but his own selfish pursuit of happiness. He isn’t bothered by the disturbing, unequal power dynamic that’s present in a relationship between a 56-year-old cultural kingpin and a 19-year-old adoptee. And he doesn’t feel a mental and emotional gulf between himself and someone more than 30 years his junior — a gulf that should absolutely be present.

And he’s celebrated. Woody Allen is one of the most beloved culture creators of our generation — this man, who’s undeniably fucked up in ways that seriously harmed those closest to him. Meanwhile, Dylan — the victim here — has to live in the shadows, emotionally scarred, or risk being attacked, shamed, and smeared.

So, what does our cultural obsession with Woody Allen say about us? I’ll tell you.

It says that we don’t mind a creepy, emotionally stunted, hurtful, abusive man, so long as he’s rich and white and amusing. We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and immortalize him with laughs and admiration.

But the people he destroys along the way? They can pretty much go fuck themselves.

I’m not a fan of that. Are you?

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [ABC Films (eBay, Lester Glassner Collection) via Wikipedia]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Woody Allen: Dating Your Girlfriend’s Daughter is Kind of a Big Deal appeared first on Law Street.

This afternoon, publisher Elsevier Science won the R.R. Hawkins Award at the American Association of Publishers’ PROSE Awards, winning the top prize in the professional and scholarly publishing industry. Elsevier was honored for its work publishing the recent book, Alan Turing: His Work and Impact.

Folks, how many of you even know who Alan Turing is? Probably not a lot of you, unless you were serious math and science nerds during college.

So! I’ll catch you up. Born in 1912, Turing grew up in London and was one of those kids who’s just crazy smart. The kind of smart that makes you never want to read again, because OMG you could never measure up. He was such a talented math student that he skipped elementary calculus, and went straight to coming up with Einstein’s same ideas on his own by age 16.

Did you ever see Good Will Hunting? Alan Turing is basically Matt Damon. Yes. That guy.

But, since Turing didn’t endure childhood abuse and neglect like Will Hunting, he didn’t go on to become an under-achiever with anger problems. Instead, he turned out fabulously — he went on to become one of the most important mathematicians in history.

He came up with the idea to feed machines algorithms. He broke the German Enigma codes in World War II. He invented the CAPTCHA test. So, basically — that scene in The Social Network where the Facebook algorithm finds itself on the window of Zuck’s dorm room? That would be thanks to Turing. The Allied Powers defeating Hitler’s Nazi Germany in World War II? You can thank Turing for that, too. The computer you’re reading this post on right now? Also courtesy of Turing.

Considering none of us can remember how to survive without computers and the Internet, Alan Turing pretty much made our whole lives. So, it’s pretty weird that a guy this important isn’t actually way more famous than he is, right?

Right. But he’s not. Because he was gay.

Back when Turing was alive, homosexuality was a criminal offense in England. So, in 1952, when his home was burgled by an acquaintance of his lover, Turing found himself in some deep shit. During the investigation, he admitted to having a romantic and sexual relationship with his lover, and wound up being charged with a crime himself. Crap like this is why queer folks don’t trust the cops, you guys.

Anyway! Turing wound up being convicted of gross indecency, and in lieu of prison time, he was sentenced to chemical castration. For one year, Turing received injections of oestrogen, a synthetic female hormone. As a result, he became impotent and developed gynaecomastia — a fancy doctor word that means he started growing breasts. Not surprisingly, Turing lost his security access and his job.

Also unsurprisingly, Turing was not a happy guy during this whole ordeal. He was so unhappy, in fact, that he committed suicide just two years later. In 1954, Turing was found dead in his apartment, a half-eaten apple lying beside him. It’s suspected that he laced the apple with cyanide in a dark reenactment of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He was only 41.

Courtesy of Duncan Hill via Flickr.

In the years since his death, Turing’s legacy has been complicated. While his work lives on forever — providing the basis of all modern-day computer science — his name has been shrouded in shame-induced obscurity. His fame was revived in the early 2000s, when England batted around the idea of granting him a posthumous pardon for his “crimes,” something that didn’t officially happen until 2013.

So, when Elsevier published this book, celebrating Turing’s work and solidifying his place in history, it was a pretty big deal. They sent a message to the world that Alan Turing won’t be forgotten, despite his sexuality.

Courtesy of Bernt Rostad via Flickr.

Before now, Turing was something of a tragic figure. He was a ridiculously great thinker, an indispensable historical figure, a scientific visionary with one tragic flaw. He liked other men. And in this heteronormative, patriarchal, Puritanical, fucked up world, that was reason enough to banish him from the history books. To banish him from life, really. His final years on this planet were tortured ones, and his gross mistreatment at the hands of the law ultimately led to his suicide.

Turing wasn’t alone. Countless queers have been persecuted over the course of history, and we continue to face social and legal adversity today. In the United States, homosexuality was a criminal offense until 2003. That’s insane.

So, here’s the bottom line. It’s awesome that Elsevier published this book, and it’s super fabulous that the company was honored for it. You heard it here first.

But Turing’s not the only gay man who suffered at the hands of the law. He’s not the only queer person whose legacy was forced into obscurity. And he’s not the only queer whose life was cut tragically short.

So, let’s remember Alan Turing. But let’s not forget about the rest of our community—especially those of us who aren’t white, male, able-bodied, middle-class, and cisgender. We’re suffering too.

—

Featured image courtesy of [Tim Ellis via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post EXCLUSIVE: Alan Turing Honored at the PROSE Awards appeared first on Law Street.

So, how many of you caught the Grammy Awards this weekend?

If you missed it, you should totally check out the recap post I wrote yesterday. It was a pretty epic night, complete with a weird Taylor Swift head banging incident and Daft Punk robot love.

But! The highlight of this year’s Grammys was definitely, without a doubt, Beyoncé and Jay Z’s “Drunk in Love” duet. It was so sexy. How sexy?

Dying over here.

Ridiculous amounts of sexy.

This performance isn’t notable just because all of us felt a universal need to go take a cold shower after watching it. As Alyssa Rosenberg points out on Think Progress, it’s also got a political edge to it.

Folks, Mr. and Mrs. Carter are proving that marriage can be awesome.

Now, I’ve written before about how the institution of marriage can be super problematic. It’s historically rooted in the buying and selling of women — complete with name changes to indicate the changing hands of property owners — and while it’s a different animal now here in the U.S., it’s still a source of major oppression. Spousal abuse and domestic violence still run rampant, women are still disproportionately responsible for the second or third shift of child rearing and housekeeping, and of course, there’s that nasty beast called monogamy. It’s got a shit reputation for making people feel trapped and unfulfilled — assuming they’re even sticking to it.

So, yeah. Marriage can be a bum deal. Which is why divorce rates are depressingly high, marriage rates are tellingly low, and movies like Runaway Bride are so goddamn relatable.

And that’s a problem for the political Right. They’d like to sell marriage all day — the heterosexual, monogamous kind, at least. For the conservatives, marriage is the ideal. The goal we’re all working toward. The bitter end.

But wait — isn’t that the Left’s view as well? Honestly, pretty much. One night stands and extended bachelorhood might be glorified on TV (Barney Stinson, anyone?), but really, even How I Met Your Mother’s ultimate single guy tied the knot eventually. Politically, the Left is all about marriage as well.

I mean, really, who are we kidding? The movement for gay rights has been a movement for gay marriage rights. Even the queers, who are supposed to be little unicorns of unconventional-relationship-forming light, are obsessed with marriage these days. It’s just reality.

So, when Jay Z and Beyoncé — two ridiculously hot, successful people who just happen to be married to one another — take the stage at the Grammys and give the single sexiest performance ever in the history of the world, we all have to sit up and pay attention.

Because it’s like a collective light bulb just went off. Aha! This is what marriage can look like.

Over at Think Progress, Alyssa argued that the Carters’ performance could be a major asset for the Right, if mobilized correctly. Conservatives could sell marriage licenses faster than hotcakes if they hired Bey and Jay to be their spokesmodels.

But I’d like to take it one step further. Sure, the Carters could sell a traditional marriage ideal for the Right — except, they don’t fit into it themselves. The conservative marriage model is dreary and Puritanical. It takes a Calvinist attitude to relationships — it’s hard work, and not much play. It’s a commitment between partners and helpmates, not so much a joyful companionship.

And I’m sorry, but who really wants in on that? Not Beyoncé and Jay Z. Definitely not.

So, instead of serving as a sales pitch for the political Right, I think the Carters are offering a radical redefinition of marriage.

Here are two people who have actual fun together. Who respect each other. Who actively resist racist and sexist norms built into the marriage model. (Did you know that they both changed their names upon legalizing? Jay Z’s an awesome feminist husband and I love him.) These are two separate and independent people, and they’ve come together not because they need each other, but because they want one another.

This is a marriage that doesn’t look like work. It looks like fun.

So, with that, here’s the full video of Beyoncé and Jay Z totally owning the Grammys.

Now that’s a marriage I wouldn’t mind being in.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [idrewuk via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Beyoncé and Jay Z Did Some Feminist Marriage Queering at the Grammys appeared first on Law Street.

Good morning folks! Who’s enjoying this polar vortex 2.0? Not me!

To all of you in the Law Street D.C. office, is this really what you all do on a snow day? Inquiring minds want to know.

Thanks matthewstasoff.com!

Anyway! A bit south of D.C., exciting things are happening for the gays. At least, the gays who want to get married. Newly elected Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring is announcing that he finds the state’s ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. As a result, Virginia will ask a federal court to strike it down, alongside two same-sex couples.

Am I the only one who finds it a tad bit amusing that Virginia is going to court against itself? Anyway.

This is very exciting news! If the ban on same-sex marriage in Virginia is lifted, gay couples all across the state will gain access to the gazillion benefits afforded to legally married couples. Not to mention, they can stop navigating the legal minefield that results from having your marriage recognized by the federal government, but not by the state government. That shit’s a mess.

In order to win his case, Herring will base his argument on the Supreme Court’s 1967 ruling in Loving vs. Virginia, which struck down parallel laws banning interracial marriage. According to Herring, Loving didn’t just open doors for interracial couples, but for couples of all types. In his view, Loving found that couples have a fundamental right to marriage itself, and that right cannot be withheld based on a couple’s race, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

Pretty exciting stuff.

But I’m not just excited because, obviously, yay for civil rights and an end to marriage discrimination. (Also, let’s not forget that marriage is a pretty problematic institution all to itself. Grain of salt here, people.)

I’m also super pumped because this law affects two of my dear friends—Emilia Jones and Hannah Martin.

Aren’t they the cutest? They’re the cutest. Courtesy of Hannah R. Winsten.

I met Emi and Hannah back in 2010. We all went to NYU together, and we were all big lezzies. Naturally, we ran in the same circles.

Not really. I actually met Emi once at an LGBT club meeting in September 2009, and thought she seemed cool but was too shy to talk to her. (Socially awkward lesbian moment, over here.) The following semester, we wound up having two classes together and seeing each other literally every single day of the week, so we became fast friends.

Guys, Emi was awesome. She was my college bestie that year, and I was totally bummed when she graduated.

But! Emi’s life got all kinds of fabulous when she graduated from NYU. The state of New York legalized gay marriage in June 2011 — just in time for Gay Pride — and in July, she married her longtime lady love, Hannah.

They are so cute I can’t even handle it. Courtesy of Hannah R. Winsten.

Anyway, they got married, I babysat their awesome cat in Brooklyn during their honeymoon, and then a few months later, they randomly moved to a farm in Virginia.

When I say randomly, I mean RANDOMLY. It literally felt like they were here one day, and gone the next. I secretly wondered if they were running from the CIA or something. Probably not. Anyway, they run Heart Moss Farm now, and they’re super happy, and they’re super cute.

With their adorable dog, Zach. Courtesy of Hannah R. Winsten.

But! Being married in Virginia is complicated business, as Emi told me this morning.

“We recently re-filed our 2011 taxes — after my lawyer aunt who works for the IRS suggested it — when we were forced to file as married for NYC and NY state taxes but single federally. When we got our refund, it was A LOT of money,” Emi said. “If Va. doesn’t at least recognize gay marriage, we’ll have to file separate for Va. but joint federally, which essentially means you pay tons and tons of extra taxes. It is nasty business, especially when we are not making a lot as it is.”

So, basically, if Herring succeeds in his quest to get Virginia to recognize gay marriages, Emi and Hannah will be in a much better financial situation. And that’s awesome.

Courtesy of Hannah R. Winsten.

But there are other benefits to be had as well. Most of these run along the lines of basic respect for an individual’s safety and well being–like being allowed to visit each other and make decisions if one of them lands in the hospital. That shit’s a whole lot easier when there aren’t a bunch of contradictory, inconsistent laws arguing over whether you’re legally married or not.

So basically, we’re all rooting for Attorney General Herring over here, and also for Hannah and Emi. We’ll check back in with them once the ruling goes through.

In the mean time, all you Virginians should check out Heart Moss Farm’s pasture-raised chickens at your local farmer’s market. Yay for supporting queer businesses!

What do you think about Herring’s actions and Virginia’s gay marriage ban? Tell us in the comments!

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Hannah R. Winsten]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Look at This Adorable Couple Who Will Be Super Pumped if Virginia’s Gay Marriage Ban is Lifted appeared first on Law Street.

Good afternoon folks! How many of you got a snow day today? Lucky bitches.

Anyway! Guess what we’re commemorating this month? Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, yes—but something else. Something a bit less, serious.

The premier of The L Word! Who here remembers that show? Please tell me some of you.

Well, for those of you who live under a rock, The L Word was a Showtime series that followed the lives and loves of a group of lesbian friends living in Los Angeles. It was the first TV show to feature more than one significant lesbian character, and to this day it’s the only show that ever depicted semi-realistic, super-hot lesbian sex.

Who were you 10 years ago? I was an angsty, almost-teenager who dated dumb boys while secretly crushing on older girls. I was goth, or punk, or something, and I was eschewing my dreams of being a writer to halfheartedly pursue my dreams of being a rock star.

It was a weird time.

But 10 years ago, I didn’t have Showtime. I had never heard of The L Word. Netflix was barely a thing. And had my parents walked in on me watching the queer, soft-core porn that is The L Word’s claim to fame, they probably would have sent me away to an all-girls Catholic boarding school. (Kind of a weird disciplinary solution for a Jewish, budding dyke — but that was their go-to threat, nonetheless.)

I didn’t meet the cast of The L Word for another few years, when my first serious girlfriend and I binge-watched most of the series while she was recovering from surgery. Despite the show’s obvious problems — it was depressingly white-washed, hopelessly femme, and wildly unrealistic — I was totally hooked. It was the first time I’d ever seen anything remotely similar to my life up on the screen. And it was hot.

So here we are, a decade later, and everything’s different. I’m a grown-ass woman, with a job and an apartment and a life that’s complicated as fuck. The L Word’s long gone, and it’s been semi-replaced with Orange is the New Black — which is way queerer and more diverse, if slightly less X-rated. Queer characters are gracing the small screen left and right, from Modern Family to The Fosters. Things are good.

But are they really? Because life imitates art. And things are still pretty rough out here.

Poverty and homelessness are still a major problem for queer folks. We’re still met with devastating violence on the streets, and rejection from our families. We’re still faced with higher rates of unemployment, depression, and addiction. We’re still getting deported. We still don’t have health insurance.

Seriously. It’s rough out here.

And we’re not the only ones who feel it. Inequality is at an all-time high, leaving more people out in the cold than ever before. Things are difficult for most of us, regardless of sexuality. But for many, queerness makes it worse.

So, when I look back at The L Word and the world it premiered into 10 years ago, I like to think about how far we’ve come. It’s awesome that dykes on screen aren’t groundbreaking anymore. It’s fabulous that somewhere, someone, somehow, got the funding to represent us — even if it was a limited and problematic representation.

But it’s important to remember how far we have left to go. Just six months before The L Word hit Showtime, the Supreme Court issued a decision on the case Lawrence v. Texas, decriminalizing homosexuality in the United States.

That’s right.

Just six months before the gayest of gay girl shows premiered, queerness was criminal.

And today, a decade later, queers are still grossly underrepresented in the media, while we’re grossly over-represented in the prison population.

How much has really changed? It’s debatable, for sure.

So this month, head on over to Netflix and binge watch The L Word. Get hooked on the melodramatic awfulness and the inhumanly hot sex scenes.

But also remember that queerness is more than a glammed out TV show. And we still have a long-ass way to go.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [kyle rw via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The First Time Lesbians Were Legal (on TV) appeared first on Law Street.

Good morning loves! How many of you have been staying off the internet this week, thanks to my post on Tuesday? LOL none of you. Just kidding! If anything, you’re all hitting the interwebs harder than usual. This Pacific Standard piece is BLOWING UP. The number of response pieces it’s triggered is seriously impressive.

So! I’d say the theme of cyberspace this week is — women face crazy harassment online and it’s seriously a problem. Like, for serious.

So let’s ride that wave, shall we? Because some awesome, hysterical things are happening. Specifically, this.

A dude Reddit user named OKCThrowaway22221 (apparently Reddit is the place where our middle-school, AIM usernames live on?) decided to conduct a little experiment. He had this hypothesis that women totally have it easier in the world of online dating, so he made a fake profile as a lady, and decided to see what would happen.

This guy lasted TWO HOURS. That is all. That is how traumatizing the results of his little experiment were. SO BAD, that he had to quit after only two hours.

In his words, here’s what happened.

“Before I could even fill out my profile at all, I already had a message in my inbox from a guy. It wasn’t a mean message, but I found it odd that I would get a message already. So I sent him a friendly hello back and kind of joked that I hadn’t even finished my profile, how could he be interested.”

Yes, how COULD he be interested? Probably because he doesn’t give a shit what your profile says, champ. He thinks you’ve got a vagina and he wants to use it.

It gets worse. As OKCThrowaway22221 filled in the profile, the messages were literally coming in faster than he could keep up with them. Again, from guys who knew absolutely NOTHING about the person they were messaging, other than the fact that were was allegedly a vagina involved. It got old pretty quick.

“At first I thought it was fun…but as more and more messages came (either replies or new ones I had about 10 different guys message me within 2 hours) the nature of them continued to get more and more irritating. Guys were full-on spamming my inbox with multiple messages before I could reply to even one asking why I wasn’t responding and what was wrong. Guys would become hostile when I told them I wasn’t interested in NSA sex, or guys that had started normal and nice quickly turned the conversation into something explicitly sexual in nature. Seemingly nice dudes in quite esteemed careers asking to hook up in 24 hours and sending them naked pics of myself despite multiple times telling them that I didn’t want to.”

OKCThrowaway22221 found the whole situation pretty upsetting.

“I would be lying if I said it didn’t get to me. I thought it would be some fun thing… but within a 2 hour span it got me really down and I was feeling really uncomfortable with everything. I ended up deleting my profile at the end of 2 hours and kind of went about the rest of my night with a very bad taste in my mouth.”

OKCThrowaway22221 came away from his experiment with a different conclusion than he’d expected — that women actually have a harder time in the online dating world. Yep, it’s rough shit being harassed by gazillions of guys during all hours of the day. Emotional tolls are taken — and hopefully that’s all.

But our friend over at Reddit isn’t the only person who’s conducting online dating experiments. There’s also Cracked writer Alli Reed, who wanted to test her own hypothesis — that men will literally message any woman with a profile. Hoping she was wrong, she created a fake profile for The Worst Woman in the World, AKA AaronCarterFan. Here it is. Prepare to laugh your ass off/puke all over your laptop.

She’s the worst, am I right? No one would ever want to date her! Definitely not. But they did.  She got 150 messages in 24 hours.

So, Alli decided to add another approach to her experiment. With her reply messages, she’d have to convince these guys that she was, in fact, The Worst Woman in the World. After all, maybe these guys didn’t actually read the profile?

She bragged about bullying children, she boasted about the skill with which she could fake being pregnant to exhort money from unsuspecting suitors. She even asked one guy to let her pull out his teeth.

NO ONE WAS DETERRED. Everyone still wanted a piece of the diabolical AaronCarterFan.

Alli’s takeaway was seriously kindhearted. Here’s her advice to the douchenozzles who were interested in her evil creation.

“Men of the world: You are better than this. I know many of you would never message AaronCarterFan, but many of you would, and a whole bunch of you did. You’re better than that. There are women and men out there who are smart, and kind, and challenging, and honest, and a lot of other really positive adjectives. You don’t want someone who will pull out your teeth and then sue you for child support; you deserve someone who will make you want to be better than you are, and will want to be better because of you. You deserve happiness, and love, and adventure. Be brave. Don’t settle.”

She’s a really nice lady, am I right? I’d love to be her friend.

BUT. I’m calling bullshit on the idea that the most important thing we can take away from these two online dating experiments is that men are shallow and dumb and maybe have low self-esteem. This is true. Some men do struggle with these challenges. The struggle is real, and we feel your pain, guys. We really do.

But. We’re not talking about destructive relationship patterns or unfortunate, self-sabotaging behavior. We’re talking about internet harassment. So here’s the big takeaway, folks.

Drumroll, please.

Men objectify women to a disturbing degree. The reason they’ll message a woman whose online dating profile isn’t filled out yet is the same reason they’ll message a woman whose profile clearly shows that she’s The Worst Woman in the World.

They don’t care who you are. The fact that you are a person, with real thoughts and feelings, doesn’t matter to them. You’re really just a sex toy. The equivalent of a super awesome blow-up doll. An object.

This is you. Courtesy of Jes via Flickr.

Feminism in the U.S. has made a ton of major gains over the last century. We’ve earned the right to vote, the right to an education, the right to play sports, the right to hold jobs, and the right to own property. In some states, we even have the right to control our own bodies. Because of all these gains, we’re often told that feminism is done. It’s over. It’s served its purpose, its goals have been met, and we can all ride off into the gender equality sunset.

But that’s a load of shit, designed to keep women from continuing to fight the feminist fight. Society’s true colors come out on the Internet, where anonymity and a lack of accountability invite everyone to drop their inhibitions. You don’t have to pretend to be PC on OKCupid. You can be who you really are, and no one will be the wiser.

You can demand sex and naked photos from a woman you don’t know — and get supremely pissed when she says no. You can be your douchiest, most asshole-iest self.

So loves, do me a favor. Keep fighting the good fight. OKCThrowaway22221 and AaronCarterFan clearly prove that it’s not over.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [me and the sysop via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Ladies, the Men of OKCupid Think You’re a Blow-Up Doll appeared first on Law Street.

Last week, feminist writer Amanda Hess wrote a groundbreaking cover story for Pacific Standard Magazine about online harassment and its effect on women. Have you read it yet? You really should. It’s making major waves, and is quickly becoming required reading in the 21^st century feminist canon.

Thanks for sending this my way, Ashley! So much love directed at you right now.

To sum up the gist of this gloriously lengthy story, Hess describes her own experiences with online harassment, cites the experiences of a handful of other feminist writers, and lays down some disturbing statistics about how big a problem online harassment is for women.

According to Hess, despite the fact that women and men have been logging online in equal numbers since 2000, incidents of Internet harassment are disproportionately directed at women. Between 2000 and 2012, 3,787 people reported online harassment to the volunteer organization Working to Halt Online Abuse — and 72.5 percent of reporting victims were female.

In 2006, researchers at the University of Maryland decided to test this phenomenon, creating a bunch of fake online accounts and sending them off into chat rooms. The results of this little experiment? Accounts with feminine-sounding usernames received an average of 100 violent, threatening, and/or sexual messages each day. Masculine-sounding usernames received 3.7.

Now, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that no one is surprised by this bullshit. Offline, in the real, flesh-and-blood world, women are routinely harassed in every arena of our lives. At work, on the street, at home, in our beds, at our grandpa’s 90^th birthday party, at our cousin’s wedding — the list could go on.

And it’s no mystery why. In this patriarchal culture, women are considered inherently less than — less strong, less smart, less human. Less worthy of respect and equal treatment. Feminism has made its gains, for sure. We’re allowed to go to work and own property and forgo marriage and all kinds of awesome things.

But we’re still only paid an average of 77 cents to a man’s dollar. We still bear the brunt of household labor, in addition to our day jobs. We’re still saddled with the bulk of childcare responsibilities. We’re still raped and beaten and murdered in depressingly high numbers, every day. So, given the reality of our daily lives, it makes sense that the harassment would continue online.

You don’t have to look far to find concrete examples of this shit. This week, following the publication of Hess’ cover story, Pacific Standard Magazine is running a whole mess of personal stories, sent in by women who’ve experienced sexual harassment online. Go read them and throw up all over your keyboard. Or, head over to xoJane, to read one of the most epic accounts of dealing with online harassment’s magnum opus, revenge porn.

Or, for a more fun experience, ask your friends! I’m sure they have stories for you. One of my besties, who just recently deactivated her OkCupid account, gave me this little gem when I asked her if she had any nausea-inducing stories to share with me. (She had a zillion to choose from.)

“There was a guy who told me he wanted to eat my ass out in Bobst during finals. I responded with outrage. He became enraged and told me I was ugly and was very cruel. Then I calmly explained to him he was harassing me and that his responses were inappropriate and that there were real people on the other end of the profiles and I like to think he learned something.”

WARNING: Turning harassment into a teachable moment may not be something to try at home. Not for the faint of heart.

I even have my own Internet harassment stories. When I was in middle school, I briefly dated a handful of douchebags. (We’re using the term “dated” very loosely here. Think late night phone calls and hallway handholding.) I nixed each one from my life after a few months, but years later, when Facebook became all the rage in high school, they all managed to find their way back into my universe.

One tracked down my phone number through mutual friends and starting calling me, leaving voicemails, and basically being a huge pain in my ass. Another took it upon himself to send me a lengthy message about how he hoped I would die a slow, painful death as punishment for being a big, scary dyke.

Not fun, you guys. Not fun at all.

So, the moral of the story here? Internet harassment, like flesh-and-blood harassment, is a real thing. And the more we all start talking about it, the more likely it will be taken seriously.

So, what’s your Internet harassment story? Blow it up in the comments.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Devon Buchanan via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Internet Harassment Is a Major Problem for Women appeared first on Law Street.

Good morning folks! Did you all survive the polar vortex? It’s on its way out now, thank goodness.

But! If you’re a Fox News watcher or a conservative talk radio show listener, you might think that the polar vortex was just a magical fantasy, invented by the Left to promote a global warming agenda.

Seriously. That’s what Rush Limbaugh is telling his gazillion listeners.

What a douche. I can personally attest to the reality of the polar vortex. Walking to and from work this week has been physically painful. My wife begged me to take a sick day on Tuesday, because the news was warning that the temperatures outside could actually burn exposed flesh.

On my street, there are potholes and flower boxes two-feet deep, filled with water from last week’s snow and rain — and that water is frozen solid. These are mini skating rinks, people. Yesterday, I saw a guy break a sheet of ice out on the sidewalk (where the fuck did he get that?! Beats me, you guys), and all of the individual chunks of ice DID NOT MELT.

So now, there are just blocks of ice, chilling on the sidewalk, not melting. Not even softening. They could be glass, for all anyone knows. You could put an ice sculpture on my fire escape and it would remain completely intact. The polar vortex is not a political myth. I promise you.

This guy promises, too.

Also this guy.

Seriously, the polar vortex is a real thing. This is not up for debate, Rush, you ass hat.

And Al Roker — my all-time favorite weather man, who is never allowed to retire — agrees with me! He shut Rush down in the most awesome way ever. So now he’s even MORE my favorite, if that’s possible.

First, he started with this awesome tweet.

For all the doubters who say the media "created" the Polar Vortex: From the 1959 AMS Glossary of Meteorology pic.twitter.com/x2Nyw0jx3j

— Al Roker (@alroker) January 7, 2014

Then, he followed up with this even more awesome tweet.

Rush Limbaugh claims the Polar Vortex is a creation of a left-wing, liberal media conspiracy. It's Meteorology 101. No political agenda

— Al Roker (@alroker) January 7, 2014

And then, he told Rush to “stuff it” on the Today Show.

I fucking love you, Al Roker.

But, Al Roker-loving aside, why do we care about this? Here’s why: global warming is a real thing, people. Climate change is happening. The way that humans are using the Earth right now is dangerous. We need to get that shit under control.

And when douche-nozzles like Rush Limbaugh convince millions of people that global warming is some kind of big, ridiculous joke, it’s dangerous. He’s asking listeners to use and abuse the planet with reckless abandon. He’s telling them to fuck recycling, fuck sustainable resources, fuck clean energy sources — because who gives a shit? They’re not harming anyone.

But that’s a lie. And it allows the cycle of harm to continue. Which, obviously, is not a good thing.

But it’s more than that. When Rush Limbaugh tells his listeners to forget about climate change and to just carry on as if it’s not a real thing, what he’s really saying is, “Your actions have no consequences.”

That’s a sentiment that’s rampant among conservatives, even the semi-moderate ones that aren’t total Right-wing loony tunes. For all their talk about personal responsibility, they often fail to see how their own actions affect other people.

Like, when Republicans vote to make food stamps harder to access, they’re causing more people to go hungry. When they advocate for decreased access to safe abortions, they’re causing more women to subject themselves to unsafe procedures and unwanted pregnancies. When they fight to eliminate Obamacare (which is a watered down, disappointing substitute for universal healthcare, to be sure), they’re sentencing more people to suffer through illness and injury without medical attention. And when they pretend global warming isn’t real, they’re dooming species — including our own, someday — to extinction.

But, Right-wingers don’t really see it that way. They tend to look at how their actions affect themselves, personally — I don’t want an abortion, so who cares if I can’t access one? — while ignoring how their actions affect the wider world.

It’s narcissistic. And at the end of the day, it’s really harmful. The polar vortex is real, people. And so are a whole mess of other things the Right would like to ignore.

So, let’s put an end to this, shall we? We can start by joining StopRush, which is successfully pressuring advertisers to pull funding from Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. But that’s not enough. We’ve got to engage with one another, with our communities, and with the nation to encourage more empathy. More compassion. Less personal responsibility and more community responsibility.

So, whatdya think? Can we Flush Rush?

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Elipongo via Wikipedia]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post My Face is Frozen and Rush Limbaugh’s an Ass Hat appeared first on Law Street.

Good morning folks! How many appendages did you lose to frostbite on your way to work this morning? None? Good for you. I’m pretty sure the bottoms of my feet almost turned to actual ice yesterday, when I was evacuated from my burning office building.

Caption: Yes, I work here. And no, none of us crowded around the fire for warmth.

But! The polar vortex isn’t the only crazy thing happening this morning, unfortunately. More absurdity is happening out in Steubenville, Ohio, where convicted rapist Ma’lik Richmond was recently released from a juvenile detention facility.

In case you’ve already forgotten, Ma’lik was at the center of one of the most talked about rape cases of 2013. 16-year-old Ma’lik was a star player on Steubenville’s high school football team, Big Red, along with 17-year-old Trent Mays. The two boys were destined for big things — college ball, maybe the NFL — and they were all but worshiped in a town where football is described as a religion.

Then, one night, the two boys went to a party, where they met up with an extremely drunk young woman. A fellow high school student, this girl had allegedly been flirting with Mays via text message. Apparently, the two boys took her maybe-flirtatious text messages to mean that she was DTF, and they transported her from party to party with an all-male group of friends. Ridiculously drunk, the girl spent a fair amount of the night vomiting and lying around in an essentially comatose state. Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t remember most of the night’s events.

But cell phone cameras and social media accounts have pretty long memories. Almost instantly, photos, videos, text messages, and tweets documented the night she couldn’t remember. There were photos of Mays and Richmond holding her limp body by the arms and legs, while her head hung slack. There were photos of her lying naked, face down on the floor, in a home she’d never visited before. (Incidentally, that’s how she woke up the next morning.) There were videos of her being vaginally penetrated with Richmond and Mays’ hands.  And all of this happened while she was way, way too drunk to consent.

Ultimately, Mays and Richmond were convicted of rape and sentenced to serve time in a juvenile detention facility, where they would be “rehabilitated.” Feminists around the world rejoiced, just a tiny bit, that these young men were actually being held accountable. Because, as we know by the gazillion other rape cases that go nowhere — it’s depressingly common for accused rapists to suffer absolutely no consequences for their actions.

So, yay for that not happening! Right?

Sort of. Obviously, children being sent to prison is never something to cheer about. Furthermore, the media’s obvious sympathy for the rapists, and lack of empathy for the victim, was infuriating. Take this clip as an example — CNN spent six minutes lamenting the fact that promising, rapist lives were ruined, and barely mentioned how the victim’s life was affected.

So, the Steubenville rape case has been pretty maddening for everyone who doesn’t hate women. And the horror continues! When Ma’lik was released from juvenile detention this weekend — which isn’t necessarily surprising or irritating, honestly — he/his attorney/his attorney’s PR agency released a statement.

Oh, the agony of reading this statement.

You can read the full text here, but here’s the most important snippet:

“The past sixteen months have been extremely challenging for Ma’Lik and his extended family. At sixteen years old, Ma’Lik and his family endured hardness beyond imagination for any adult yet alone child. He has persevered the hardness and made the most of yet another unfortunate set of circumstances in his life.”

It goes on to ramble about how Ma’lik would like privacy from the media so he can be a normal teenager, hang out with his family, and move on with his life. It also makes ZERO MENTION of the victim. Not one time.

UGGGHHHHH

This is the worst non-apology ever.

Why? Let’s start with simple mechanics. Whoever wrote this train wreck of a press release can’t write to save their goddamn lives. “Hardness?” He persevered against “hardness?” I can’t. I cannot. “Hardness” is not a word that is acceptable to use, basically ever. Just for future reference. Also, SO MANY COMMAS ARE MISSING OMGGGG.

But let’s not get too carried away — obviously the content is what’s most important here. The fact that Ma’lik and everyone around him is so focused on whining about how hard his life has been as a result of this rape is seriously deranged. How difficult do you think the victim’s life has been?  What kind of “hardness” (I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist) has she had to persevere against? A whole fuck of a lot, I’m betting.

It’s clear that Ma’lik — or at least the people who are speaking for him — has gone through his “rehabilitation” process without actually taking responsibility for his actions. He’s emerged without apologizing for the immeasurable harm he inflicted on his victim. He’s still solely focused on how this whole ordeal affects him.

Folks, I don’t know about you, but I’m totally sick of this rape culture that pours sympathy on rapists while blaming, shaming, and ignoring victims.

That’s some seriously anti-feminist, anti-woman, pro-violence douche-y-ness.

So let’s put a stop to that, shall we? Thanks a ton.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of  [marsmettnn tallahaassee via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Steubenville Rapist is Released and Issues Grammatically Incorrect Non-Apology appeared first on Law Street.

Happy New Year, folks! Welcome to 2014.

This is going to be one hell of a year — and it’s already kicked off with a bang. Not a fun, happy, feminist bang, but a bang nonetheless.

During her final moments of 2013, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor signed a temporary stay on the enforcement of the contraceptive coverage requirements in the Affordable Care Act. What does that mean? Basically, she just made it that much harder for women across the country to access birth control.

Not your finest moment, Justice Sotomayor. Courtesy of the Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States, Steve Petteway source via Wikipedia.

Here’s how it went down. As of December 30, 2013, the Affordable Care Act requires employer-sponsored health insurance to cover birth control. So, basically, if you get health insurance on your day job’s dime, you legally cannot be prevented from using it to snag some birth control pills. Awesome.

But! As always, some folks were pretty pissed off about this. Namely, Christian folks. A whole slew of Christian-values nonprofits and businesses objected to this piece of the ACA, claiming it infringed on their religious freedom. The logic here, is that if Christian values include not supporting contraception or abortion, a Christian employer shouldn’t have to subsidize those services for its employees.

Fair enough, churchgoers. The government can’t force you to support — financially or otherwise — actions that are forbidden by your religion. That’s what religious freedom is all about, right? Getting to practice your faith freely, without anyone telling you it’s not allowed?

Yes! Absolutely. But, there’s another side to the freedom of religion coin. While the government can’t prevent anyone from freely practicing their faith, it also can’t push any particular faith on its citizens. So, while the government can’t stop Catholics from attending church on Sundays, it also can’t force Jews to celebrate Christmas. The street runs both ways.

And this is where things get tricky. While Christian organizations have a fair point — being legally forced to subsidize contraception if they’re religiously opposed to it is majorly problematic — they’re also forgetting the other side of the coin. They’re right in asserting that they can’t be forced to do anything that interferes with their religious beliefs, but they can’t, in turn, force their religious beliefs on anyone else.

And that’s the tragic flaw in their anti-Obamacare logic. If Christian businesses were given their way — and allowed to forego contraceptive coverage for their employees — they would be forcing workers to live by a set of Christian standards, unless they paid a steep price tag. What happens when the employees of a Christian company aren’t Christian themselves? What happens when they’re Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, or Atheist? Can those employees be forced to live by Christian values?

Absolutely not. Now you’re infringing on their religious freedom.

And here lies the central problem. Forcing Christian businesses to pay for contraceptive coverage might be infringing on their religious freedom — but allowing them to not pay for it might infringe on workers’ religious freedom.

It’s a lose-lose situation.

But! As per a compromise cooked up by the Department of Health and Human Services, there seemed to be a solution. Under this plan, Christian companies and nonprofits had to sign a form stating their religious affiliation, and instead of paying for contraceptive coverage themselves, the insurers paid for it, and were reimbursed.

Yay solutions!

Awesome! Way to use your problem solving skills, people. This way, religiously opposed employers don’t have to pay for contraception, but employees can still access those services if they choose.

But, this wasn’t good enough for many a Christian employer. Signing a form was, apparently, too much to ask. So lawsuits poured in. And Justice Sotomayor was sympathetic.

So, with the hourglass running down on 2013, she signed a mandate preventing this piece of the law being enforced. What does that mean? Religious employers can deny workers contraceptive coverage. For folks working at Christian institutions, birth control will only be an option if they can afford to pay a whole ton of money out of pocket. Which really means, birth control won’t be an option at all.

The Obama administration has until tomorrow to respond. From there, we’ll all just have to wait around for the Supreme Court to make a final decision sometime this summer, after it’s had a chance to sift through all of the case filings. And, mind you, things aren’t looking too good on that front, considering this problem was brought about by one of the most feministy of Justices. If Sotomayor is making it hard for women to access birth control, who the fuck is going to make it any easier?

We’re looking at you, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The tricky business of religious freedom has been a constant roadblock for women and feminism. What do you think about this latest Obamacare battle?

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Parenting Patch via Wikipedia]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Happy New Year! Your Birth Control’s No Longer Covered appeared first on Law Street.

Happy New Year’s Eve, lovelies!

Folks, I can’t wrap my head around this 2014 business. I literally feel like 2013 didn’t happen. A year has never passed so quickly in my entire life. (Don’t I say that every year? Whatever.) Anyway! In honor of this super awesome day — a day that marks fresh starts, new beginnings, and exciting adventures — I thought we should talk about resolutions.

That’s right. New Year’s Resolutions. And not those bullshit ones about losing weight and juicing half your food and spending more time on Skype with your long distance friends. No one ever sticks to those. I’m talking about some resolutions we can really believe in, à la Miranda Hobbes.

Buzzfeed did a fabulous post last week about how the red-headed attorney  was the most empowering of the four Sex and the City characters, and I’d have to agree. If she was a real person, I’m pretty sure she’d be a fan of The F Word, am I right?

So! Without further ado, let’s be more like Miranda this year, mmkay?

Resolution #1: Don’t be afraid to tell someone to fuck off. Ever. Embrace that power gladly.

HBO / Via loveforlabels.eu

Miranda may have been the queen of no-fuss breakups, but this resolution doesn’t just apply to romantic relationships. Republican douchebags preventing you from accessing a safe abortion? Tell ’em to go fuck themselves. Obamacare failing to provide you with real health insurance? Tell ’em to fuck that. Say it loud and say it proud, folks. Because that’s the only way we’re going to make anything better.

Resolution #2: Fuck up the patriarchy and its traditional gender roles.

Thanks HBO!

Loves, Miranda may have been a totally femme straight lady, but she rocked a suit and tie like nobody’s business. She also earned more money than any of her boyfriends, failed to romanticize marriage and motherhood, and even embraced a lesbian identity (albeit, a fake one) in order to make partner at her law firm.

Remember when Miranda bought that ginormous apartment all by herself? Or when she told all of her friends to STFU about their man problems and focus the conversation on something more substantive?

Miranda subverted all the patriarchal expectations surrounding gender — namely, that women should be quiet, submissive, and dependent on a man. And you know what? She was fucking awesome at it.

Let’s resolve to be equally awesome at toppling the patriarchy.

Resolution #3: Don’t apologize for your sexuality.

HBO / Via tumblr.com

Anybody remember the scene we’re referencing here? It’s epic.

Miranda’s been going through a dry spell, and one day, as she’s walking down the street, a group of rowdy construction workers starts catcalling her. Like any good feminist, Miranda got pissed about the street harassment that follows women fucking everywhere. But, she took a unique and super badass approach to handling it. She walked right up to her catcallers and asked them if they were actually interested in fucking her. Because she was horny, and had no time for silly games. Be prepared to make good on your offer — or STFU.

Not surprisingly, her harassers were totally intimidated and basically tried to curl up into little balls and disappear right there in the middle of the street. What can we learn from Miranda here? Don’t be ashamed of your sexuality. Know your needs and seek to have them met, unapologetically. Get it, grrrl.

Resolution #4: Don’t second guess yourself. Call bullshit when you see it — and stand up for yourself.

HBO / Via tumblr.com

While the three other ladies of SATC bitched about how to keep a man, Miranda told them how it is, plain and simple. As a feminine presenting person, you’re often expected to metaphorically — and sometimes, literally — bow down to your partner if you want your relationship to stay intact.

Well, loves, Miranda says fuck that. And I do too.

Let’s all resolve to stay empowered as individuals this year. Let’s be the best people we can be, independently. And if somebody doesn’t like that — whether it’s your partner, your boss, your professor, or the entire Republican party — fuck ’em. Life’s too short.

See folks? Isn’t Miranda awesome? I told you.

Are you with me on these resolutions for 2014? What would you add to the list? Blow it up in the comments!

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [John Gilbert Leavitt via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post New Year’s Resolution: Fuck Shit Up with Miranda Hobbes appeared first on Law Street.

Merry Christmas Eve, folks!

Today, I’ve got ridiculousness upon ridiculousness. And it’s infuriating.

Salon reported today, via Raw Story and NBC News, on Rachel Bradshaw-Bean, a young woman from Texas who was raped in the band room at Henderson High School back in 2010, when she was just 17 years old. This is the first time Rachel has spoken out to the media about her experience – and she’s telling an awful story.

In an interview with NBC, Rachel recounted how in 2010, when she initially reported the rape, her school told her to “work it out.”

Are you kidding? Go kiss and make up with your rapist, sweetheart, no big deal.

I can’t.

News of the assault traveled to a school vice principal the following day, and Rachel was sent to a health clinic for examination. The clinic confirmed that her injuries were consistent with her report.

Despite the fact that medical professionals confirmed Rachel had experienced a rape, the Texas police informed her and her parents that no charges would be filed.

NO CHARGES WOULD BE FILED.

As in, you got raped, darling, but no one really cares. Get over it.

WTF?! This is the actual worst.

Except it’s not! Because things got worse for Rachel. Her high school opted not to carry out its own, independent investigation — which is required by law under Title IX. Instead, they decided to ship Rachel and her attacker off to a disciplinary school for 45 days with charges of “public lewdness.”

That’s right. Public fucking lewdness. How dare you get raped — how indecent of you!

So, Rachel’s mom tried to transfer her daughter to a different school. You know, where maybe she wouldn’t get treated like a criminal as punishment for being the victim of a sexual assault. And guess what? That didn’t pan out. Since Rachel was technically suspended from her original school, no other school would take her in. Ridiculous.

Seriously so bad.

So, Rachel and her family went to the ACLU, where they were told that, sadly, their situation was far from unusual. According to the ACLU, school officials often don’t understand the laws, so they don’t put much stock in following them.

The Department of Education does, though. A year after Rachel’s ordeal, it ruled that Henderson High School had violated Title IX by failing to investigate the attack, and by retaliating against the victim with her exile to a disciplinary school. As a result, the school was given a 13-point plan for Title IX compliance, mandatory staff training around rape and sexual assault, and was ordered to pay for Rachel’s counseling.

I’m glad that at least there were some consequences for this shit hole of a case.

There are so many issues here. Let’s start with the fundamental lack of empathy or concern for Rachel. WTF. This is misogyny at its finest. Misogyny, if you’re rusty on your Women’s Studies vocab, is defined as having a hatred for women. And that’s all I can really explain this as. Hatred of women. Because how else do you understand such heartless behavior? Here’s a person who was violently attacked. She’s in physical pain, she’s mentally and emotionally traumatized — this is a terrible thing that’s happened. People should respond with some empathy, am I right? There should be a collective desire to help the victim heal, and to teach the perpetrator never to cause this type of harm again.

That’s what should have happened. But it didn’t. Instead, Rachel was treated with carelessness at best and outright contempt at worst. Why would you treat a victim that way? It’s disgusting.

Seriously gross.

Moving right along, let’s tackle this issue of telling women to get over it. I’m so, so, so very sick of this sentiment. And I hear it way too often.

When someone is hurting, and they’re told to get over it, do you know what they’re hearing? They’re hearing that they don’t matter. That their feelings, and experiences, and their pain doesn’t matter. They’re being dismissed, denied, and ignored. And when that happens, a fundamental lack of trust forms in the space where healing should have started. Because, how do you feel safe in a world where you fundamentally don’t matter?

You don’t.

That’s where we’re at right now, people. And we’ve been here for a long time. Every time a woman like Rachel gets brushed aside, women everywhere are being reminded that we don’t matter. Not really. Not in this moment, not in this society.

So, for Christmas, let’s change that, shall we? Let’s use all those warm, fuzzy feelings of love and goodwill, and let’s start transferring them to all the people who need it most. Some of those people will be like Rachel. And some of them will be in totally different, but equally awful, circumstances.

Either way, let’s spread the love this year. We could all use a little extra.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [The Untrained Eye via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post All I Want For Christmas: Stop Telling Rape Victims to Get Over it appeared first on Law Street.

Happy Thursday, folks! You’re almost there. Breathe with me. Friday’s coming.

In the meantime, let’s get to our biweekly session of bitching about the GOP, shall we? Today, we’re talking about school lunches. And poor kids. And how Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia is a gigantic asshole.

Here’s what happened. Across the nation, kids from families whose income levels are below 130 percent of the poverty line can receive free school lunches. Kids from families with income levels between 130 and 185 percent of the federal poverty line are eligible for reduced lunch prices. This is news to no one.

Trust me on this. My awesome wife teaches in Newark, one of the poorest cities in New Jersey. Literally all of the kids at her school get free lunch. Free lunch for low income kids is nothing new.

Said no one.

Anyway! Rep. Kingston decided to make news out of something that’s not new — a common talent for many GOP rainmakers. This week, he went on the record saying that poor kids should NOT get free lunch — oh no! The blasphemy!

Instead, he made the following suggestions:

“Why don’t we have the kids pay a dime, pay a nickel to instill in them that there is, in fact, no such thing as a free lunch? Or maybe sweep the floor of the cafeteria — and yes, I understand that that would be an administrative problem, and I understand that it would probably lose you money. But think what we would gain as a society in getting people — getting the myth out of their head that there is such a thing as a free lunch.”

Oh my gosh I CAN’T. I cannot. What are you doing, Rep. Kingston? Really.

Friends is on my level today.

Let’s start with the first and most obvious issue with your solution to a non-problem: children are not possessors of money. They don’t work. That’s what being a child means. So, really, they all get free lunches. Every single one of them. Even the richest of rich kids are getting a free lunch. Because it’s not their money that paid for it. It’s their parents’ money.

Take me for example. I was a solidly middle-class child. My parents, being the health nuts that they are, were not big fans of the idea of me eating mystery meat in my elementary school cafeteria. So, every day, they dutifully packed me a brown bag lunch. I got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread and a handful of cookies, virtually every single day. For me, that lunch was free.

I didn’t pay for it. I didn’t even know that food cost money. Or that when my parents went to work, they were paid in money. I kind of just thought working was a thing that grownups had to do — the same way kids had to go to school — and all of the other stuff like food and housing was just magically bestowed upon people who followed the rules.

Baby me did not understand how much this leather jacket probably cost my big sister.

Clearly, I was a naïve child.

But! There was a kernel of truth in my naivety. For me, food really didn’t cost money. It just appeared in my brown bag every day, as if by magic. Nowadays, as a precariously middle-class adult who has to purchase food before it lands in my brown bag (I’m still packing a whole wheat PB&J for work, I’ll admit it), I’m fully aware that food was free when I was a kid.

I’m even more aware of it when my now gray-haired parents take me out for lunch.

My reaction whenever my parents invite me out to dinner.

Anyway! All children get free lunch. They aren’t working the night-shift to pay for their sandwiches. So, your argument is already inherently flawed, Rep. Kingston.

Moving right along. What is this obsession with punishing poor people for being poor? Seriously. The GOP is fixated on it. When you suggest forcing children to sweep the floors in order to earn their lunch, you’re talking about child labor. That’s bad enough, but when you’re only suggesting the poor kids participate, you’re talking about a caste system.

You’re talking about a world where rich kids learn early on that only certain people sweep floors. Namely, not them. You’re teaching them that someone else will always clean up after them. Someone else will always have to beg for their scraps.

Then, you wind up with kids like this boy, who killed 4 people because of pathological rich kid syndrome.

And, you’re teaching the poor kids that they’re the ones who need to beg for those scraps. Because of the social standing of their family — which they have zero control over — poor kids will understand themselves to be inherently less than. That’s a traumatic and debilitating lesson to learn at such a formative age.

Finally, there’s the looming issue at hand — the solution that Rep. Kingston is obviously hinting at, but isn’t explicitly articulating.

He’s saying that it would be better if these kids didn’t get a free school lunch at all. If we HAVE to give it to them, at least make them work for it, he’s saying. But really, his best case scenario is equally expensive lunches for all.

Folks, this is a classic case of a Republican who lacks empathy. It’s an alarmingly common quality among headline-making GOP’ers.

Where my wife teaches, all of the students qualify for free lunch. Every single one of them. These kids are poor. They don’t have the luxury to grow up naïve like I did. They know food costs money because they don’t have any of it. As in, neither food nor money.

For many of her kids, lunch is the only meal they eat. They hardly eat at all on weekends. Why? Because they’re poor. They can’t afford food. And the little food they do have at home, they give to their baby brothers and sisters.

My wife’s students are good kids. They’re smart and loving and talented, and hysterically funny. And they deserve to fucking eat.

So, Rep. Kingston? Shut the fuck up.

Stop talking about child labor, and a (not really) new caste system, and the idea that poor kids shouldn’t be fed lunch on the school’s dime. Stop talking out of your ass, and start feeding some children.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Philippe Put via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post GOP to Hungry Kids: You Don’t Work Hard Enough appeared first on Law Street.

Good afternoon, lovelies! How many of you are having a snow day today? Lucky bastards.

Well, while you’re lounging around on your couch, sipping hot cocoa in your pajamas, let me just ask you one thing: did you remember to recharge your bra this morning? Seriously bitches. This is a real thing.

Microsoft came out with a snazzy little tech gadget for ladies — a bra that prevents women from getting fat.

Apparently, the battery-powered boob-sling is equipped with removable sensors that monitor heart and skin activity. Based on those readings, the bra is supposed to be able to know what emotional state a woman is in. Why? To predict when she’s likely to start stress-eating.

When it predicts an impending ice cream binge, the bra sends an alert to your smart phone, which then shames the shit out of you and tells you NOT TO GO TO THE FRIDGE. Leave the kitchen now, and nobody gets hurt.

Folks, I can’t. Could this be any more blatantly sexist?

First of all, let’s stop with the paternalism, mmkay? I don’t need an electronic bra and a smart phone app to tell me when I’m feeling stressed and I want a cookie.

I am fully aware that I’m stressed and I want the cookie. (Or all of the cookies, but whatever.) Contrary to popular belief, women do actually have these things called brains. So, no, we don’t need third-party technology to explain our thoughts and emotions to us. We’re fully capable of recognizing them on our own.

Second of all, why is it so important for women to police their eating habits? I don’t see any electronic boxer briefs for the boys, telling them to quit it with the brownies already.

I’ll tell you why. Because the imperative for women to be always thin, all the time, is a product of sexist bullshit. As Naomi Wolf put it so clearly back in 1991 with her bestseller, The Beauty Myth, our society isn’t obsessed with tiny waistlines because it’s a sign of female beauty — rather, it’s a sign of female obedience.

Do as you’re told, ladies.

Because, what do we to women who are successful, who have some kind of power in the world? We fixate on their bodies to knock them down a few pegs. You made a hit album, but are you thin? You were elected Senator, but are you thin? You cured cancer, but are you thin? It’s a constant refrain that gets echoed every time a woman does anything worth noting. Because if she’s not thin, she clearly isn’t worthy of any praise, public attention, or social clout.

And it doesn’t stop there. It’s in our homes, in our everyday lives. The obsession with female thinness isn’t constrained by the public eye. Water cooler chat revolves around what diet all of us are on this week. A visit with the in-laws turns into a calorie-saving recipe swap.

This is my personal favorite way to keep off the pounds. SLAP THE CALORIES OFF THE PASTA. Fucking genius.

The fixation on eliminating excess body fat is all-consuming. We’re never allowed to step away from it. Women are even encouraged to lose weight while they sleep. Can’t we just, you know, SLEEP while we sleep? This is crazy.

Now, all you feminist skeptics — it’s true that men face scrutiny about their bodies. It’s true that people of all genders are pressured to aspire to impossible physical ideals.

Literally impossible. If JLaw isn’t even up to snuff, what hope is there for the rest of us Earthlings?

But. A fat man is not a worthless man. A guy with a beer gut can still get promoted, get laid, and largely be left in peace. But a woman with a belly? Apparently, she’s not even worthy of life. Actual life. As in, not being dead.

Think I’m exaggerating? Ask Caitlin Seida. A photo of her merely existing in her not-a-size-two body went viral, inspiring internet trolls to post comments like the following: “What a waste of space;” “Heifers like her should be put down;” and advising her to commit suicide in order to “spare everyone’s eyes.”

The lovely Caitlin Seida, having an awesome time on Halloween. I think she makes an epic Lara Croft, don’t you?

This is a real thing. In our culture, fat men are regularly given a free pass. But fat women? They’re told that they should die. If that’s not a patriarchal lesson in lady obedience training, I don’t know what is.

This is why Microsoft designed a bra that would keep women from overeating, but failed to invent male-targeted boxer briefs to do the same thing. Because in 2013, a woman’s worth is still very much tied up in how skinny — and submissive — she is.

Well, guess what Microsoft? We’re over it. We’re not all a size two. Sometimes we’re going to reach for the brownies. And that’s OK. We don’t need your engineers to invent apps to mansplain away our will to eat.

And besides, you’re so unoriginal. Is an electronic boob carrier the only thing you can come up with to target tech to women? Because if it is, I think you need to hire some better creative talent. (Don’t try to poach from Twitter, though — the tweeting bra they’re developing proves they’re not doing any better.)

So what do you think, folks? Would you wear a bra that told you to stop eating? Let’s start an open thread about our boobs. (Rush Limbaugh says thank you.)

—

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Tweet her @HannahRWinsten.

Featured image courtesy of [Gerard Stolk via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post This Fat-Shaming Bra Is Really Sexist and Terrible appeared first on Law Street.

Good afternoon, folks! Are you ready for the weekend? I am. I’ll be organizing a march on Rush Limbaugh’s recording studio. Everyone who participates has to wear eyes over their boobs!

Anyway! Rush isn’t the only conservative doofus who has no idea how to relate to women. Apparently, a senior House Republican strategist is training the GOP on how to talk to women voters. It isn’t going well.

The unnamed strategist doesn’t seem to be hopping on the, “Tell your breasts to stop staring at my eyes!” bandwagon. Yay! But he is advising conservative, non-uterus laden politicians to be more sensitive. Yup. Apparently the gender gap in pro-GOP votes is because women have too many feelings. Cue the tiny violins.

This senior strategist, who’s remaining anonymous — probably because his strategy is terrible — is urging his trainees to refer to themselves as husbands and fathers. He’s advising them to make blanket, disapproving statements about rape. And he’s telling them to connect with women on an emotional level.

So, basically, he’s telling Republican politicians that women are a big glob of emotional basket cases, making hysterical, irrational decisions not to vote for them. Appeal to those sobbing nut jobs! Win back those votes!

Are you kidding me?

You’re all idiots.

This guy is probably the worst strategist on the planet. Which isn’t really a bad thing, because less votes for the Republicans! Yay! But seriously, what is going on here?

First of all, if you’re trying to appeal to a group of people by first assuming that they’re crazy, you’re not going anywhere fast. People—not just women—respond well to positive reinforcement and respect. They don’t really appreciate being treated like loony tunes. It’s condescending, insulting, and all around not fun.

So, if you want women to like you, maybe start by assuming that they’re smart? Capable of sound decisionmaking? Worthy of respect? These are the kinds of assumptions that lead to positive interactions between people—and in the Republican case—more votes.

Second, the conservative assumption that women are too sensitive to vote correctly isn’t just patronizing. It’s downright sexist. The image of the emotionally unstable woman is a gendered stereotype as old and tired as you feel after a night of super fun debauchery.

But actually. Ever heard of hysteria? It used to be a common medical diagnosis. Women would be deemed “hysterical” if they were plagued by excessive emotions. And, conveniently, since the cause of illness was a disturbance of the womb, only women could be hysterical.

So, basically, a man consumed with violent rage is just angry. But a woman in the same state is physically and mentally ill. Great! Just drop me off at the nearest insane asylum, would you dear?

Anyway! This whole “women are hysterical” crap is seriously old. Like, YAWN you’re so unoriginal I’m actually being bored back to sleep, kind of old. It’s 2013, people. Can’t you at least get a little creative with your gross and depressing sexism?

Apparently not. Appealing to women’s emotions is the foundation of the new Republican strategy to snag lady voters. And guess what? Not only does it prove that the Right still hasn’t managed to stop being sexist—it also shows that they can’t manage to come up with any new and creative solutions to old problems. Probably not the most qualified people to be running a country, am I right?

NOPE.

Finally, and perhaps most amusingly, the anonymous Republican strategist is advising his trainees to identify themselves first and foremost as husbands and fathers, and to broadly denounce rape. (You know it’s bad when you have to explain that rape is not something to be taken lightly.)

This shit cracks me up. For ages, women have been identified and valued primarily because of their relationships to other people. A woman is always someone’s wife, mother, sister, or daughter first. Is she also a business executive? A writer? A surgeon? Much less important. That comes second.

And that’s irritating as fuck! Women should be valued on their own terms, as individuals with societal contributions to make—not just as caretakers and companions. But no one’s telling the Republicans that. No conservatives are looking to subvert the sexism that assumes women are most useful when they’re behind the scenes. Nope. Instead, they’ve just decided to half-assedly stoop to a woman’s level on the campaign trail. Identify as a father first, a Congressman second. Meanwhile, we all know who’s more likely to be at home, potty training that father’s children. (Hint: Not him.)

So, ladies, the next time you want your elected official to vote against abortion restrictions, food stamp cuts, or affordable healthcare, start crying. Throw a tantrum. Get hysterical. Accuse your legislator of being insensitive.

Because apparently they’re being trained to respond to that.

–

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Hermann Kaser via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post You Should Vote Republican Because You’re a Basket Case appeared first on Law Street.

Good morning folks! Are you staying warm? Because it’s snowing here in New York.  And I’m totally wishing I never got out of bed.

But not just because of the weather or the sidewalk slush that always seems to work its way into my boots. Nope. Today, Rush Limbaugh is kind of making me want to burrow a hole in my blankets. This man is the bane of every feminist’s existence.

He’s also a source of never ending material and entertainment, though. So there’s that.

Anyway! Your (least) favorite conservative talk show host got pretty frisky yesterday. On his barf-tastic radio show, he discussed a recent study by the University of Nebraska that found that the male gaze objectifies women. And you know what he did? He responded by totally objectifying women.

First of all, this study must have been conducted by Captain Obvious. Of course the male gaze objectifies women! This is about as newsworthy as the fact that the sky is blue.  No one is gasping with shock. So next time you set aside some money to conduct a study, University of Nebraska, maybe focus on producing some new knowledge? I feel like that would be more useful.

Anyway! Mr. Limbaugh, ever the conservative, God-fearing gentleman, responded to this study’s findings by encouraging men to get a little more creative with their objectification. He actually told his listeners to walk up to women and say, “Would you please ask your breasts to stop staring at my eyes?”

UGH. How charming.

First of all, Rush’s reaction was just plain weird. Like honestly. I’d expect the king of chauvinism to refute the Nebraska study as ridiculous. To claim that men aren’t objectifying women — women are just being too damned sensitive! Blast this sinful nation and its obsession with political correctness.

But he didn’t deny anything. He wasn’t outraged by the study’s conclusion that men are, in fact, kind of douche-y when it comes to how they relate to women. Nope. Instead, he jumped on the douchebag train enthusiastically. In short, he didn’t deny being a jerk. He just encouraged men to be bigger jerks.

Second of all, let’s talk about the intensely bizarre personification of breasts.

Rush Limbaugh wants women’s breasts to stop staring at him? Like they have eyes and a mind of their own? This is literally one of the weirdest things I’ve ever heard. Hate to break it to you, Rush, but breasts are just that. Breasts. They’re useless lumps of fat attached haphazardly to a person’s chest. And women aren’t the only ones who have them.

They aren’t staring at you any more than a woman’s arm is staring at you. Or her actual face, for that matter. Don’t flatter yourself. Degradation and disrespect isn’t exactly the kind of thing that gets our pupils dilated and our hearts racing.

Regardless of whether or not you’re delusional enough to think that women’s breasts are turning their proverbial heads every time you walk by, why are you so down with objectification in the first place, Mr. Limbaugh? Because here’s what objectification means.

It means that you don’t think women are people. You think we’re less than people, we’re sub-human, we’re objects. Like, we’re on par with your desk and your chair. We’re here to be used and abused and thrown away when you’re finished with us.

That’s what objectification means.

It doesn’t even have to be that intense. It can be more subtle, yet just as insulting. Just as disturbing. Maybe you don’t think we’re on par with chairs. (I think you probably do.) Maybe you aren’t interested in using, abusing, and tossing us aside. (I think you probably are.) But when you’re in a woman’s presence, and all you can think about is her lady bits, you’re assuming she’s an object. Maybe not a desk, maybe not a chair. More like a living, breathing, blow-up doll.

You’re looking at a woman, and you’re seeing nothing but a sex toy. A place to put your dick. And you know what, Rush? That’s a really big problem.

Rush Limbaugh is one of the most listened-to talk radio hosts in the country. He’s one of the most highly paid media professionals in the industry. He holds real influence. And it’s influencers like him that prompt Michigan legislators to propose rape insurance. Abortion restrictions. Lower wages. Victim blaming. Slut shaming. Rape culture.

Men like Rush Limbaugh shape our culture, our society, and our laws. It’s no wonder that everything is such a mess. So let’s Flush Rush, shall we? #StopRush #MyBoobsAreNotStaringAtYou

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Ginny via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Rush Limbaugh Wants Your Boobs to Stop Staring at Him appeared first on Law Street.

Happy almost Friday, folks! This week is almost over. THANK GOODNESS. Coming back after a holiday is rough, am I right?

If you have a uterus and you live in Michigan, your week has been especially rough. Shit is getting REAL over there in the Mid-West. Lawmakers in the Great Lakes State are currently debating a bill that would require women to buy rape insurance.

That’s right. Rape insurance.

I tell you, this shit just gets more ridiculous every week I write about it. It’s actually insane.

Here’s how it’s going down. Lawmakers in Michigan don’t want health insurance to cover abortion. Why? They’re not fans of a woman’s right to choose, and so, while they can’t completely outlaw abortion, they can use insurance technicalities to restrict women’s options.

What happens when insurance doesn’t cover abortions? Women either have babies that they don’t want or are unable to carry, or they pay a hefty price to terminate. Obviously, not ideal. So! While Wolverine legislators were batting around this nifty little bill, the same question came up that always comes up when we start talking about restricting women’s access to abortions.

“But what about cases of rape and incest?!” Because, empathy. For like, five seconds.

The legislators of Michigan had an answer ready and waiting. Make women buy additional insurance to cover the possibility of needing an abortion in the future.

This little tidbit prompted Republican Gov. Rick Snyder to veto the bill last year when it was first introduced. He wasn’t too keen on legislation that required women to pay for abortions out of pocket, unless of course, they had paid extra for that separate insurance rider. “I don’t believe it is appropriate to tell a woman who becomes pregnant due to a rape that she needed to select elective insurance coverage,” Snyder said when he rejected the bill last winter.

Well, duh. Obviously.

That would be like telling a man who had a heart attack that he couldn’t have life-saving surgery, because he didn’t plan ahead and book an operating room beforehand. Or like telling a cancer patient that she can’t receive treatment because she hadn’t reserved a chemo supply ahead of time. Plan ahead, people, be prepared! For all of the possible things that could happen to you ever! (Because that’s possible.)

Folks, let’s get one thing straight. No one plans to get an abortion. Needing one is definitely not a desirable situation to be in. Really, abortions are a last resort. An emergency measure, taken after something has unintentionally gone wrong. Maybe she got raped. Maybe the condom broke. Maybe she forgot to take her birth control pill that day. Maybe she just discovered that the baby won’t survive the pregnancy or infanthood.

Whatever the situation, abortions are last ditch efforts to rectify a bad situation that wasn’t planned for. So asking women to plan for unplanned emergencies — and be monetarily penalized either way — makes absolutely no sense.

It’s about as logical as this guy.

But, alas, the anti-choicers think it does make sense, and they’ve got a rage-inducing argument as to why that is. One prominent advocate of the bill claimed that rape is like a car accident, and it was totally fine to make women pay for extra insurance in order to prepare for it.

This is so incredibly gross on so many levels.

First of all, we’re comparing women’s bodies to cars right now. To cars. Inanimate objects that can be damaged, fixed, or replaced. One car is much like another—it gets you from A to B. Women’s bodies are not like cars. They are not replaceable. Their value doesn’t depreciate after a traumatic event. They are not interchangeable. They are not for you to use.

Actually, women’s bodies are attached to living, breathing, human beings. They happen to have vaginas. But they also have lives, passions, emotions, and agency. And when you liken their bodies being raped to a car being crashed, you ignore the human involved in the trauma. You assume she’s an object, instead of a subject.

Stop that right now.

Second of all, expecting women to prepare themselves for rape is absurd and cruel.

Preparation assumes the inevitable. You prepare for a car accident—if we’re going to follow through with this terrible example—because being involved in one, someday, is more or less inevitable. People are stupid. Let a bunch of idiots operate heavy machinery near each other, and things are bound to go wrong eventually. Better prepare yourself for the asshole who forgot to use his blinker and caused a pileup on the freeway.

But rape? That shouldn’t be inevitable. Rape doesn’t happen because of human error. Rape isn’t something that idiots do. Rape happens when one person makes a conscious decision to violate another person. Consent isn’t given. Accidents aren’t made. This isn’t an “oops I didn’t mean to get sexually violent with you, my bad,” kind of situation.

Not at all.

When we treat rape like it is inevitable, we give rapists a free pass. We’re sending them the message that, hey, you’re only human! People make mistakes. No big deal. But it is a big deal. And it wasn’t a mistake. This isn’t like forgetting to use your blinker, or running a red light. This is violence and coercion. And there’s always another option.

So, to all the anti-choicers of Michigan, I have a question for you: If a man was shot, and he had to pay out of pocket to have the bullet removed because he hadn’t planned ahead with elective murder insurance, how would you feel about that?

Probably like this kid.

Not so good, I’m guessing. Because it’s ridiculous to ask a man to prepare himself for the possibility that one day, he might be a homicide victim. No one expects to be on the receiving end of that kind of violence.

So stop asking women to do the same. We don’t need to prepare for our impending rape. We shouldn’t be waiting expectantly, insurance policy in hand, to be the victims of sexual violence. And we sure as hell aren’t cool with legislators putting a price tag on our uteruses.

So, stop it, OK? Just stop it.

Stop restricting our access to safe abortions. Stop legislating our bodies. Stop objectifying us. And stop being so cavalier when it comes to rape.

Do you think the GOP can handle that, folks? Discuss!

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [American Life League via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post LADIES: Michigan Says You Need Rape Insurance appeared first on Law Street.

Good morning, lovelies. Did you all survive Thanksgiving? How many of you are still battling tryptophan-induced comas?

I know I am!

But all the Thanksgiving gluttony in the world couldn’t hold me back from you all. Nope. And I’ve got some worrying news to open your re-entrance into the world of normal portion sizes and stuffing withdrawal.

2016 is going to be a bitch.

Why? Well, because of a little “nuclear” reactor that was detonated just in time for my turkey to come out of the oven.

It did not look like this.

One week before Thanksgiving, Senator Harry Reid rallied together enough votes in the Senate to eliminate the minority party’s ability to filibuster executive branch nominees and any judgeship below the Supreme Court. What does that mean? Sen. Reid and the majority of his fellow Senators told the GOP to shut the fuck up and stop throwing tantrums already. Who can get anything done with these filibuster-happy, crazy people running around, making medically inadvisable speeches for gazillions of hours?

But actually. Filibustering hinders productivity. FACT.

Also fact: filibustering is sometimes necessary. If the majority party is set on passing some super fucked up legislation, the opposing side has to have some way to stand up and call bullshit. But here’s the problem with these two indisputable facts. Since President Obama was first elected in 2008, the Republicans have been abusing the filibuster.

Literally abusing it. Like, if the filibuster were a person, the GOP would be collectively doing time for assault and battery right now. So, Sen. Reid took the initiative. He got his fellow Senators together, and they stood up to the obnoxious, filibuster-abusing Republicans. And now they can’t filibuster anymore. Yay!

Except that the filibuster ban goes both ways. So, if the Republicans regain control of the Senate in the upcoming 2016 elections, we are in for a SHIT TON of trouble. Now, when I say we, who am I referring to exactly?

Women, queers, people of color, poor people, immigrants, scientists, people who believe in the separation of Church and State, people who believe in reality. A lot of us, shall we say.

How come? Well that’s not hard to figure out. The Christian Right has made it abundantly clear that they’re out for blood. In a perfect world, they’d like to slash women’s access to safe abortions, slash access to healthcare for everyone but the obscenely wealthy, while turning a blind eye to racism, sexism, classism, global warming, and everything else that they’d like to pretend doesn’t exist. They’re also down for warmongering, merging Church and State, and basically turning the U.S. into an even bigger shit show than it already is.

We’re talking about a tyrannical theocracy.

As a lesbian, feminist writer who earns a portion of her living criticizing the government, I would really appreciate this not happening. I don’t want to live in a tyrannical theocracy. No thank you! But, with the demise of the ability to filibuster, come 2016, we could potentially go there.

Now, before we get too crazy, let’s look at the facts for a second. Sen. Reid’s “nuclear” decision didn’t ban all filibusters, everywhere, all the time. Only the ones that revolve around presidential nominees for executive or non-Supreme Court judicial positions. There’s still plenty of room to filibuster on both sides. For example, Ted Cruz’s filibuster of the Affordable Care Act would still be admissible. However, without the ability to filibuster presidential nominees, Congress’s majority party can potentially stack the courts with judges that align with their platform.

If 2016 brings a Republican majority, that means court-stacking à la Justice Antonin Scalia. This is the same guy who claimed that the separation of Church and State is a myth. That’s not a happy prospect. Justices like Hon. Scalia would strip women, queers, people of color, poor people, immigrants, and non-Christians of their rights in a hot second, given the opportunity. And most of the folks on that list don’t have a ton of legal rights to begin with. As my immigrant, Polish, Jewish grandmother would say, oy vey.

But, since we have checks and balances, this is not the end of the world, right? The courts don’t rule the land with an iron fist. The judicial branch is just one arm in a complex tree of government. We’ve still got the legislative branch and the executive branch to even everything out.

Well, sort of. If the legislative and judicial branches are in each other’s pockets, there won’t be much checking or balancing going on there. The same can be said of the executive branch, which will also be up for grabs come 2016. Imagine a Christian Right president, elected alongside a conservative congressional majority, who will both work together to nominate conservative judiciaries.

It’s one possible outcome of 2016 elections, and it’s one where the whole checks and balances thing kind of becomes moot. Not to mention, even in a less-extreme situation, a highly conservative court hinders the legislative and executive branches’ abilities to make lasting reforms.

So, what have we learned about 2016?

Basically, that Sen. Reid’s decision to go nuclear prior to Turkey Day this year could have some serious consequences if the next election swings Right. So let’s jump on that Lefty-loosey bandwagon, mmkay? Keep those neocons at bay!

Featured image courtesy of [Center for American Progress Action Fund via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Will We Live in a Tyrannical Theocracy by 2016? appeared first on Law Street.

Good morning, loves! Happy turkey week!

Thanksgiving is my all-time favorite holiday. I am a Thanksgiving super-fan. So, unsurprisingly, I’m having a super fabulous week because I’m just so EXCITED!

But the impending day of butter-soaked tryptophan isn’t the only reason I’m pumped this morning. I’m also pumped because Texas did something right.

Shocking, right? Rick Perry runs the Lone Star state. That’s never promising, especially not for women.  But! Apparently we’ve got some super-awesome Texans who are not fans of abusing and oppressing vagina-laden people.

YAY.

Here’s what happened: Over the weekend, a 19 year old woman accused 40-year-old police officer Jackie Len Neal of handcuffing and raping her while he was on duty.

According to her account of the events, Officer Neal pulled her over on the grounds that the car she was driving had been reported stolen. She produced a sales slip, proving ownership of the car, but Officer Neal wasn’t satisfied. He asked her to get out of the car so that he could pat her down.

The woman protested, asking for a female officer to perform the pat down, but Officer Neal ignored her. Instead, he groped her, put her in handcuffs, and then took her to the backseat of his patrol car and raped her. Then, he told her to keep the whole encounter a secret. Conveniently, the police car’s security cameras were not working properly.

What happened to this 19-year-old woman is terrible. This is the kind of shit I worry about when I think about getting pulled over. (Luckily, I’ve never been pulled over before—all-star driver over here.)

So, obviously, the actual rape is not why I’m pumped about Texas this morning. I’m excited because the San Antonio Police Department is handling it really well.

Cue gasps all around.

When the victim reported this crime, do you know what the SAPD did?

They ARRESTED Officer Neal.

There was no victim blaming or slut shaming. There was no ridiculing. There was no sweeping this incident under the rug.

Nope. Instead, Police Chief William McManus went on record to praise the victim for coming forward, to urge other victims to do the same, and to denounce Officer Neal’s awful behavior.

“There is no such thing as consensual sex on duty,” said McManus. “I feel silly even saying that we won’t tolerate it. Of course we won’t tolerate it. There is no gray area. This is a criminal offense.”

TEXAS FOR THE WIN!

Loves, here’s why this whole case is so exciting. Texas is a blood-red state, run by a far Right, uber-religious, Tea Party governor, who’s famous for enacting draconian legislation that screws everyone who’s not rich, white, straight, and male.

But actually.

This is the same state that, in 2011, tried to rewrite K-12 history textbooks to refer to slavery as the “Atlantic triangular trade,” demonize Social Security, valorize witch hunter Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and omit Pres. Thomas Jefferson and Pres. Obama from the record entirely.

Just a few days ago, the Guardian reported that the Texas Board of Education was trying to amend biology books to teach creationism and deny climate change. They’ve also, apparently, started referring to slaves as “unpaid interns” who were compensated not with money, but with “valuable career experience…and ample networking opportunities.”

Not to mention, just last week, Texas got the go ahead to start enforcing a law that would seriously restrict women’s access to safe abortions in the state. Its passage has caused abortion clinics to close left and right, and will deny 20,000 women access to abortion altogether, with many more facing delays and increased risks.

All things considered, Texas has a bad reputation when it comes to women. Really, really bad. That’s certainly not to say that all Texans are woman haters, or that Texas itself is an awful place to be.

But it is to say that, when it comes to the Texans who make the rules, they overwhelmingly support legislation that’s radically Right-wing and anti-feminist.

So this week, when a 19 year old woman accused a police officer of raping her, I had low expectations.

I assumed the police department would laugh in her face. They’d protect their own. They’d sweep the whole thing under the rug, telling her she must have wanted it, she must have enjoyed it, she doesn’t have any proof anyway, she shouldn’t have been driving alone.

Similar things have happened in states with less conservative reputations. Hell, it’s happened in the bluest of blue states. It happens fucking everywhere. This is why rape is so under reported.

But then, I got a pleasant surprise. The SAPD didn’t do any of those things.

Instead, they held the rapist responsible, while treating the victim (publicly, at least) with compassion and respect.

This is how rape cases should be handled.

So, you see, this isn’t just an awesome week for turkey. It’s also an awesome week for women, for rape victims, and (weirdly), for Texas.

Congratulatory back slaps all around! Let’s keep this up, law enforcement, mmkay?

—

Featured image courtesy of [Jack via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Texas Handles Rape Case Without Slut Shaming, Cue Applause appeared first on Law Street.

Folks, this Friday marks the 50^th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

How is that possible?

That same year, the term “Beatlemania” was coined, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, and the Berlin Wall was opened for the first time. My mom was about 10 years old when all of these things happened. My dad was five or six. That was HALF A CENTURY ago.

This is completely insane!

I know I’m not the only one who has absolutely no concept of time. So let’s all just take a moment and be mind-boggled by its passage, mmkay?

Moving right along! This week, to commemorate JFK’s tragic death, the History channel has essentially been live Tweeting the final days of his life, half a century later. It’s like they’re making up for the fact that Twitter didn’t exist back then.

Kennedy is meeting with members of the Inter-American Committee Symposium, including representatives from Mexico, Argentina and Chile #JFK50

— HISTORY (@HISTORY) November 20, 2013

Aside from being slightly weird, this JFK-centric Twitter feed is a really interesting way to commemorate the late president. The History channel is really making sure that he’s at the forefront of everyone’s minds. Well, everyone who’s on Twitter at least, which is basically everyone, right?

Anyway! While we’ve all spent this past week following JFK’s every move on Twitter, fretting about the details of his presidency, his personal life, and the many conspiracy theories surrounding his death, there’s one very important detail we’ve collectively forgotten.

Jackie.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy—later Jackie Kennedy Onassis, when she remarried—was arguably the most iconic First Lady in history. She was blue-blooded, young, and stylish. She was absolutely gorgeous. And she was incredibly smart, fluent in four languages. She also lived through a horribly traumatic experience, and went on to not just survive, but flourish. Jackie Kennedy was super inspirational, and she’s getting shafted a little bit, with all of this JFK memorialization. So let’s take a few moments and focus on her, shall we?

Courtesy of Sacheverelle via Flickr.

Let’s start with her tenure as First Lady. A huge lover of art and history, Jackie was underwhelmed when she first moved into the White House. Claiming that there was nothing of historical relevance in the house, she immediately made it her mission to restore the presidential palace.

So basically, the presidential grandeur we all see when we get inside photos of the White House? That sense that each piece of furniture, each painting, each plate in the china cabinet, was touched by the presidents of America past? That’s all thanks to Jackie. She turned the White House into a veritable museum.

But her time in the White House wasn’t simply an interior designer’s dream. It was also something of a nightmare. Being married to JFK was famously challenging—he was quite the playboy, and he suffered from a ton of physical ailments. Basically, this was a guy who couldn’t keep it in his pants, but also couldn’t always take those pants off by himself. Jackie wasn’t just a woman scorned, a wife disrespected by a philandering husband. She was also his primary caretaker. And that’s a hard job for anyone. But caring for someone who very often treats you like crap? That’s a whole ton harder.

Things only got worse when the couple entered the White House. The stress of the job exacerbated JFK’s ailments, and he slept around more to blow off the extra steam. He took a shit ton of drugs while he was in office, just to function like a semi-healthy human being, and he fucked  A LOT of women. Like, a lot. Like, this guy couldn’t remember how many or what all of their names were.

Meanwhile, here’s Jackie, cultivating a public image of Presidential perfection and familial bliss. Given the circumstances, that is a HARD job. Let’s give her some extra credit.

Then, the unthinkable happened. Literally, the unthinkable. Because who imagines, ever in their wildest dreams, that they’ll be sitting next to their significant other in a car while he/she/ze gets gunned down? If that’s not traumatic, I don’t know what is.

And even in the face of this awful event, Jackie was still on. She never for a second sunk down into grief. She didn’t fall into a crumpled heap, wailing because of her loss. She didn’t get hysterical or catatonic. Either of those reactions—and the spectrum that runs between them—would have been acceptable behavior for a person who had just lost her partner in such a violent, terrifying way.

But no. Instead of drowning in emotion like a regular human being, Jackie remained poised. Graceful. Calculated. She wasted no time in arranging every detail of JFK’s funeral, which was modeled after Lincoln’s. She carefully planned every move to set him up as a legend.

She stood beside Lyndon B. Johnson, as he was sworn into the presidency, while still wearing that blood-spattered pink suit. She led JFK’s funeral procession, instructing her young son to salute his father good-bye at just the right moment. She literally wrote JFK’s entry in the history books, giving an interview where she referred to his tenure in the White House as Camelot, editing the piece herself as it was phoned into LIFE Magazine.

If any of you watch Scandal, Jackie was Mellie to JFK’s Fitz. She was the political genius behind the whole administration, propping up her flawed, frail husband throughout his entire presidency. She is the PR powerhouse who shaped his legacy.

She is the reason that JFK is memorialized the way he is. Can you name the anniversary of Pres. James Garfield’s assassination? Pres. William McKinley’s?

No. I bet you can’t. Because they weren’t married to Jackie.

So this year, as we commemorate the loss of a man cut down in his prime, or a President whose potential was cut short—let’s be sure to remember his wife.

Because she’s the only reason any of us care to memorialize him at all.

—

Featured image courtesy of [Gerard Stolk via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post 50 Years Later, Jackie Kennedy Deserves All the Credit appeared first on Law Street.

How was your weekend, loves? Mine was fabulous!

But Obamacare’s weekend was kind of rough.

On Sunday, The Daily Kos reported that the frustrating, glitchy, failure-face of a website that is Healthcare.gov is such a mess, in part, because of coordinated conservative hackattacks.

That’s right. You heard me correctly.

Conservatives are hacking into Healthcare.gov to prevent it from working correctly.

Specifically, hackers have been launching DDoS attacks—an acronym that stands for Distributed Denial of Service—against the site, which function to make a network unavailable to users.

Sound familiar? I think so! How many gazillions of stories have you heard about uninsured, Obamacare-enthused folks getting kicked off the site, denied access to sign up for their government-sponsored health benefits?

Probably a lot.

These cons are SERIOUSLY getting on my nerves.

And that’s not all. In addition to these hackattacks—which are being launched with a tool called “Destroy Obama Care,” no joke—conservative lawmakers are encouraging insurance companies to fraudulently screw over their customers, and blame Obamacare for the ridiculousness.

For example, in Florida, douchebag extraordinaire Governor Rick Scott required insurance companies to blame Obamacare for any canceled plans, even if their reasons for canceling those plans had NOTHING AT ALL to do with Obamacare.

Lie, he said. It will be profitable, he said.

But actually. Because let’s be real here. Insurance companies make a lot of money for doing very, very little. They make healthcare prohibitively expensive. They’ve made medicine less about saving lives, and more about making money.

I mean really. The U.S. is the only country in the world where Breaking Bad makes any goddamn sense.

So when conservative lawmakers freak out about how horrible Obamacare will be, they’re really just lamenting the oncoming fall of big business. Of insane wealth disparities. Of that line in the sand that separates the haves from the have-nots.

Because what LOGICAL reason exists to vehemently defend the existence of companies that make healthcare INACCESSIBLE to the vast majority of Americans?

Seriously. Let’s look at a hypothetical example, shall we?

Mom gets breast cancer. It’s fairly advanced, but not untreatable.

She doesn’t have health insurance, because it’s way too expensive. She made a choice between paying for her monthly groceries, and electricity, and heat, and part of her mortgage payment—OR paying for health insurance. Years ago, she chose the former.

So now, here we are. Breast cancer. It wasn’t caught earlier because Mom lives in a state where women’s health funding has been slashed. Her local women’s clinic closed down. (Thanks Republicans.) She hasn’t had a mammogram in years. Preventive care wasn’t readily available to her.

Now that she has her diagnosis, Mom faces a choice. She can get treatment for her breast cancer, but she’ll go bankrupt paying for it. Or, she can forgo treatment, continue scraping by for now, and wait for the inevitable.

This is a bullshit choice.

The reality for Americans without insurance is completely absurd. They live in a wealthy, developed nation, where there are clean hospitals, abundant medicine, and well-equipped doctors. Quality medical treatment is right here. It’s there for the taking.

But it’ll cost you your house. And your groceries. And the clothes on your back. Actually, if you take advantage of all those lifesaving facilities, you’ll likely wind up bankrupt and homeless.

So really, for these Americans—for this fictional, hypothetical working mom with breast cancer—what’s the point of being American? What’s the point of living in the United States? She might as well live in a struggling, rural nation that has very few hospitals, and very little medicine. Her access to those facilities would be roughly the same.

And that’s completely insane. It makes no sense that uninsured people in the United States must choose between two life-destroying options: forgo treatment and wait for death, or go into total financial ruin.

I really wish I was, Chelsea.

The only reason anyone should forgo medical treatment is if treatment does not exist. You can’t go to the hospital for chemotherapy if there is no hospital, if there is no chemo.

But we do have hospitals. We do have chemo. And so, people should be able to use them. While also keeping a roof over their heads and food in their mouths.

This is not a difficult argument to make. This is just common sense.

But conservatives are abandoning that logic. They’ve made it their mission to defend a system that clearly isn’t working. They’re defending a healthcare system that bankrupts people. They’re defending insurance companies that lie and swindle their customers. They’re encouraging those insurance companies to act fraudulently.

This is stupid, am I right?

So lovelies, let’s try and put an end to this madness, mmkay? Obamacare is not ideal, but it’s a step in the right direction. It’s a step toward affordable and accessible healthcare for all. So let’s get behind it.

—

Featured image courtesy of [LaDawna Howard via Flickr]

[Featured image courtesy of the LA Times]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Conservatives Are Deliberately Hacking Healthcare.Gov appeared first on Law Street.

SPECIAL REPORT from The F Word! PEN America liked me so much on Tuesday that they invited me to cover another event last night. So all you Law Street readers get to listen to the melodious sound of my voice an extra time this week. Lucky you.

Anyway! Together with independent researchers at the FDR Group, PEN published a report this week titled Chilling Effects, which found that writers in the U.S. are self-censoring in response to reports of widespread NSA surveillance. Thanks for scaring the crap out of all of us, Edward Snowden!

According to the report, 85% of surveyed writers are actively worrying about government surveillance, and are watching what they say as a result. Twenty-eight percent have reigned in or eliminated their use of social media, 24% have purposely avoided discussing certain topics via phone or email, and 16% have avoided writing or speaking about sensitive subjects. PEN writers report taking surveillance for granted—they simply assume they’re being monitored—and they’re choosing their words wisely so as to avoid harm.

Thanks PEN America!

Folks, this is what censorship looks like.

And it’s real. As a follow-up to Chilling Effects’ publication, PEN hosted a panel discussion last night in conjunction with the ACLU and the Fordham University School of Law. It was, to put it mildly, chilling.

The panel consisted of four men, all of whom had varying levels of expertise on the NSA and government surveillance. They each addressed the audience with separate, 15-minute presentations. If you want to hear them speak for themselves, you can view the live feed here.

Join us live! http://t.co/6fuvleyjLc #WTHarm pic.twitter.com/ATjoqF3uhg

— PENamerican (@PENamerican) November 15, 2013

But really, who needs to watch an hour and a half video when you’ve got me to recap it for you?

The panelists gave us an incredible look into the world of surveillance, from a historical overview of the NSA’s beginnings, right down to their personal experiences with harassment and persecution. According to James Bamford—the only guy who wore a business suit—the NSA got its start in a Manhattan townhouse back in the 1920s. As a top-secret government agency created to assist the World War I effort, this pre-NSA got a copy of every telegram that went in or out of the country.

That’s a lot of paper.

Fast forward to present day and the NSA isn’t just courting the phone or telegram companies—they’ve got software providers in their back pocket. Not to mention, the technological realities of cloud computing and social media mean the NSA doesn’t really have to ask. As fellow panelist and tech-guru Bruce Schneier remarked last night, “We are all leaving digital footprints throughout our lives,” and they’re anyone’s to follow.

Bruce Schneier – aging hippie extraordinaire. Courtesy of Terry Robinson via Flickr.

So what really happens when the NSA follows our tracks? Ariel Dorfman, a Chilean-American playwright and novelist, knows firsthand—he lived in Chile during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Dorfman went into exile abroad shortly after Pinochet took office, but was allowed to return in 1983, before the regime’s fall. His poignant description of the Chile he came back to illustrated the fears he had for the future of the U.S.

“People had learned to suspect everyone and everything,” he said, describing friends who had once been open and outspoken as having transformed into guarded strangers. “Chile had become synonymous with silence.”

Indeed, when Dorfman had to dictate a dissenting op-ed over the phone, he was plagued with fear. He described experiencing a panic attack, worrying that the Chilean secret police would arrest and harm his family after eavesdropping on his conversation.

Ariel Dorfman — total bad ass. Courtesy of Robin Kirk via Flickr.

Thankfully, those fears never came true, but American journalist Glenn Greenwald hasn’t been so lucky.  Greenwald is the (in)famous reporter who broke the Edward Snowden leaks, and he spoke on the panel via Skype—an irony he made note of, as the video-calling software is owned by Microsoft, one of the NSA’s most loyal information suppliers.

But there were no other options. A resident of Rio de Janeiro, Greenwald can’t return to the U.S. for fear of being arrested for his NSA coverage. In fact, he’s not travelling at all—and for good reason. This past August, Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, was detained for nine hours by officials at Heathrow Airport in London. They ultimately let him go, but confiscated his electronics first, claiming to be concerned that he was involved in terrorism and espionage.

Essentially, Greenwald and Dorfman are living proof of the fact that government surveillance is scary as shit. And that’s not just because of dystopian what-if scenarios, where all of us paranoiacs predict a turn towards the terror of Pinochet’s Chile.

It’s because, as Greenwald put it, if you want to challenge the powers that be, “the ability to communicate in private is an absolute prerequisite of that.” Without it, we’re incapable of engaging in dissent.

“The minute you know you’re being watched, the less free you become,” Greenwald said.

He’s right, and the crowd agreed. One audience member, J.L. White, stood up to suggest that we seriously consider impeaching President Obama. And after exacerbating the war in Afghanistan, using drones to kill American citizens, and pumping up the NSA’s surveillance efforts, no one in the room disagreed with her.

“What Bush did, Obama put on steroids,” said Bamford, validating White’s point.

But it’s not a hopeless situation. Dorfman expressed optimism, even as he sees alarming parallels between the Obama administration and Pinochet’s.

“They’re going to screw it up,” he said, reminding us that despite all of the surveillance, the government has still been wrong about important events. No one saw the Arab Spring coming, or the Boston Marathon bombing. At the end of the day, our wardens are laughably incompetent.

And while they blunder about, trying to consolidate all the minutiae of our digital lives into something useful, there are tons of people fighting back.

Ben Doernberg is one of them. Another Brooklyn resident, Ben quit his full-time job to organize for Restore the Fourth, a national coalition of grassroots activists agitating against government surveillance. I approached him after the panel, as he stood near the exit, recruiting people to join him in the good fight.

“I just want people to not fall into the trap of just learning more is all you have to do,” he said of the night’s event. “You have to actually do something.”

Will we? It’s hard to tell. With writers self-censoring, journalists and whistleblowers living in exile, and civilians cowering under the fear of terrorism, it’s easy to see how the surveillance state could continue growing.

But Ariel Dorfman, always looking on the bright side, sees hope.

“Fear is contagious, but so is courage,” he said, urging everyone in the room to take a stand.

So what will you do? Tell us in the comments! (Just remember, the government’s watching.)

—

Featured image courtesy of [Truthout.org via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post YOU’RE BEING WATCHED RIGHT NOW: Here’s What To Do About It appeared first on Law Street.

Last night, my lovely editors here at Law Street sent me to cover PEN America’s “Talking Transitions” event. Go, they said. It will be interesting, they said.

Fuck yeah it was!

Basically, a whole bunch of writers gathered in a super-fancy tent at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Canal Street, and addressed Mayor-Elect de Blasio town hall style. One by one, they got up on stage, and read approximately three-minute speeches about how they’d like to see him differentiate his administration from Bloomberg’s.

Yes, every single person read their speech. Writers, am I right? We could all use a serious public speaking class.

Anyway! There were about 20 or so speakers, addressing an audience of maybe a hundred. And there were tons of professional photographers trolling about, not to mention an incredibly expensive looking video camera set up in the back. Very official. I’m hoping the videotape will ultimately be sent to Mayor de Blasio, since he—shocker!—was not in attendance last night.

No show. Courtesy of Jon Mannion via Flickr.

So why should all you legal junkies care about a bunch of writers gathering to bitch about Bloomberg? Like, don’t we all do that in our apartments every night, sans fancy cameras?

Yes. Yes, we do. But here’s why you should care.

PEN America is a surprisingly influential group of people. Its member list is huge, and includes people like Toni Morrison, David Sedaris, and (really?) Molly Ringwald. This is an organization with clout, and it’s got a little army of writers whose words literally have power to influence public policy.

Also, most of the speakers were politically focused and highly self-aware. Last night wasn’t about flowers and poetry, it was about policy.

Let’s get into that, shall we?

First of all—a quick note about the speakers. Being who I am, I took a little tally as they each graced the stage, and discovered that, while the majority were women (represent!), all but two of them were white. Only four people of color spoke in total last night. We can do better than that, can’t we? Also, every single speaker was normatively gendered. No queerness anywhere in sight.

PEN, you’re fabulous, but please step up your diversity efforts, mmkay?

Moving right along! Issues of affordable housing, gentrification, and unethical (actually racist, let’s just be real here) policing were all major themes throughout the night.

Sergio de la Pava, a public defender by day and an award-winning novelist by night, made the excellent point that, while actual crime rates have never been lower, New York City’s arrest rate has gone up by 20 percent.

Which is a fact that makes absolutely no sense. Except for the fact that different zip codes are policed differently— unjustly funneling poor people, queer people, and people of color into poverty, substance abuse, and the prison industrial complex, regardless of whether or not they’re actually criminals.

So really, while de la Pava was up there talking about crime rates, he was really talking about racism.

“It’s of little use if New York City is the most diverse city in the world,” he said, “if its prison population is monochromatic.”

Got it, de Blasio? End the racism of the Bloomberg era. End it now.

Affordable housing and gentrification were big talking points last night as well, introduced by none other than super-rich philanthropist George Soros. He claimed, accurately, that New York is a city “where decent housing can’t be found for less than two thousand dollars,” and that’s not the kind of environment that breeds creativity, innovation, or community.

Or really, anything other than a gated community of asinine gazillionaires who are in love with the status-quo.

George Soros, philanthropist extraordinaire. Courtesy of Niccolo Caranti via Flickr.

But last night’s speakers didn’t stop at telling de Blasio what needed to change. They also told him how to do it.

Masha Hamilton, a novelist who just came back from spending the last 16 months as the Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, told de Blasio exactly what to do.

Put a poet on his communications team. A street artist on the Housing Authority.

“Let's get a poet on the mayor's communications team…a street artist on the Housing Authority…”-Masha Hamilton #PENspeakout @TalkNYC2013

— PEN Membership (@PENmembership) November 12, 2013

Why? Because according to Hamilton, artists are innovators. “It’s part of their job description to help us dream up new solutions,” she said.

It’s the creative community—that is currently getting crowded out of this overpriced, over-policed city—that can save New York City from itself. Or, more specifically, from corrupt, elitist assholes like lame duck Mayor Bloomberg.

So, what do you think de Blasio should do to improve New York City? Do you want a street artist on the Housing Authority?

Blow it up in the comments!

—

Featured image courtesy of [Tom Roeleveld via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post How Creatives Can Save New York appeared first on Law Street.

So, this Monday was Veterans Day. For those of you who don’t really know what that means—other than a day off from school or work—Veterans Day is a day set aside to honor all of the brave men and women who served in the United States Armed Forces.

So, that grandfather you have who served in World War II? Your uncle who fought in Vietnam? Give them a hug today.

But you know who else deserves some extra appreciation today? Your aunt who did two tours in Afghanistan.

These days, the face of Veterans Day is seriously changing—and for the better. With the ban on women in combat positions lifted last January, more and more women are getting the recognition they deserve for their military service.

Because guess what, lovelies? Women were serving in combat positions long before the ban was lifted almost a year ago.

Captain Vernice Armour is a perfect example. In August of 2004, she was flying an AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter for the 11^th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Iraq. One of the missiles she fired saved an entire squad of Marines, one of whom she met by coincidence later. He thanked her for saving his life.

The first black woman to serve as a combat pilot. Such a bad ass! Courtesy of GS Kansas Heartland via Flickr.

Captain Armour is just one of thousands of women who have served in military combat positions. But while their participation was technically banned, they didn’t have access to the same honors and benefits as their male counterparts.

The approximately 200,000 positions officially deemed as “combat” offer higher pay and more opportunities for promotion. With women categorically shut out of those roles, the chances of rising up through the ranks of power—or the pay grade—were slim to none. But since that ban has been lifted, more opportunities are opening up for women soldiers.

And that’s fantastic for a whole bunch of reasons! Let’s get into those, shall we?

Alright! First of all, giving women official access to combat positions means that they’ll receive credit for the dangerous work they’re doing. Under the ban, while women were shut out of these jobs on paper, there were still plenty of them doing the work in real life.

But, since it was technically illegal, many of them were doing it without recognition. That’s just not OK, am I right? If you’re running the same risk of getting blown up as the guy next to you, you deserve to be honored on the same level when you get home.

But credit is just the beginning. Letting women into combat has the potential to change military culture as we know it, and that’s a huge deal.

Currently, the rate of sexual assault in the military is outrageous. The documentary The Invisible War points out that women soldiers are more likely to be raped by one of their comrades than they are to be killed by enemy fire.

So, women in the military are statistically safer with the enemy than they are with their own fellow soldiers. That is totally unacceptable. And we haven’t even looked at incidents of male-on-male rape within the military.

Sadly, male soldiers—of all nationalities—are often encouraged to engage in sexual warfare, creating an oppressive rape culture. It’s a strategy that doesn’t stop at killing the enemy. It goes on to violate it, emasculate it, and destroy its very soul. It’s a depressingly effective way to win wars, when used in conjunction with the technology of combat.

Don’t believe me? Read Grace Cho’s Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War. In it, she tells the story of the mass rapes that occurred in Korea at the hands of multiple invading armies, the U.S. being just one of them. These massacres gave rise to the booming prostitution economy that surrounds any foreign military base—where war ravaged women turn to support themselves and their children. Cho’s mother was one of those women. Her father was, likely, a kindly client.

But why is this rape culture so prevalent among military men? With women largely excluded for many generations, the armed forces have had the room to grow into a hypermasculine, old boys’ club.

The military has made itself into a place where men can gather to be their most savagely masculine—to revel in the knowledge that they have the brawn, they have the power, and they will stop at nothing to prove their superiority.

Allowing women to enter this space has the potential to change all that.

YAY!

As more women gain access to the pathways that lead to military promotion, the more women will ultimately occupy high-ranking leadership roles. With women increasingly ruling the roost, the gendered power dynamics of the whole organization can start to transform.

Perhaps more GI rape victims will report their attacks, feeling more comfortable confiding in a female superior. Maybe those superiors will be less inclined to sweep sexual assaults between soldiers under the rug. And maybe with the threat of real consequences, rates of sexual assault will ultimately decline.

Maybe female generals will discourage soldiers from engaging in sexual warfare. Maybe they won’t be as keen to turn a blind eye when it does occur.

But most importantly, maybe having some women in charge will change this sexist idea that men have the power. That men are the protectors. That men call the shots.

Because, as more male soldiers report to female commanders, their views about women will have to start changing.

The old boys mentality that women are frail, hysterical baby-makers, whose uteruses must be protected at all cost, will start to crack. The presence of female military officials will force male soldiers to view women in a new light—less as passive, walking wombs, and more as intelligent, powerful individuals, with skills and smarts capable of outpacing their own.

So this Veterans Day—the first one we’ll celebrate without the ban on women in combat—give some extra love to all the women soldiers out there. They’re an underappreciated lot.

—

Featured image courtesy of [US Air Force via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Veterans Day Reminder: Women Are Fighters, Not Fetus Factories appeared first on Law Street.

Well, Election Day has come and gone, and things are looking (un)surprisingly bright for the tri-state area.

Folks, I live in Hoboken, New Jersey, and I commute into New York City almost every day. That means I was pretty invested in both the New Jersey gubernatorial race and the New York mayoral race. So now that the results are in, let’s chat about them, mmkay?

Republican Chris Christie won reelection in New Jersey last night, with Democrat Bill de Blasio winning the mayoral seat in New York. No one was even a little bit surprised—to the point where Politico reported Christie’s victory hours before polls even closed.

Now, we all know I’m no fan of the Republicans. Christie’s conservatism irks me, and I’ve called him a douche many, many times over the course of his first term. Especially when it comes to his education policy, which actually drives me insane.

But seriously. Dude’s always railing against teachers, cutting public school budgets, and pushing charter schools. These are policies that kill fair labor laws, devalue an incredibly important job (educating the next generation, NO BIG DEAL), and exacerbate socio-economic inequality. Don’t believe me? Los Angeles has more charter schools than any other district in the country—let them tell you how much they suck.

So, obviously, I’m not Christie’s biggest fan. But, he’s the frontrunner for the GOP’s 2016 Presidential bid, and I’m weirdly happy about that. Why? A surprising side effect of my Post Traumatic Sandy Disorder is a much more positive vision of Gov. Christie.

While I was totally freaking out about the apocalyptic flooding outside my apartment, Christie was consistently calm and attentive. He made regular TV appearances, updating residents on the situation while we waited for the storm to make landfall. After disaster struck, he came and visited Hoboken—as well as many other affected New Jersey towns—to assess the damage and address his constituents.

Many have claimed that Christie used the storm as a publicity stunt, pumping up his approval ratings without giving enough material aid to affected residents. That may be true. But, he also proved himself to be a calm and effective leader who could successfully navigate an emergency situation. He made a lot of people, myself included, feel safe under terrible circumstances.

And that’s a really big deal. Since Sandy, he’s arguably toned down his conservatism—choosing not to fight against the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage, for example—establishing himself as a centrist politician who’s more concerned about being realistic and representative than pushing his own agenda.

Now, I’m not a huge fan of Republicans—but that’s one I can potentially get behind.

Across the Hudson, New York has taken a very different turn. Bill de Blasio will be the first Democratic City mayor in over 20 years—and he’s not just any Democrat. He ran on a seriously liberal platform, and trotted out his biracial family as proof that he could follow through on his promises.

When his afro-bearing son, Dante, told cameras that his dad opposed stop-and-frisk, New Yorkers believed him. Why? Because de Blasio’s strong ties to people of color—his entire immediate family—must mean that he’s personally invested in ending a policy that targets and harasses them. This isn’t hypothetical for him—it’s sitting in his living room.

De Blasio’s platform also included a plan to raise taxes in an effort to decrease the city’s wealth gap, which has grown to epic proportions. YAY!  Will he be able to deliver on that noble goal? Only time will tell, but the awesome factor of the First Lady is indicative of good things.

Bill’s wife, Chirlane McCray, is a black feminist, a writer, a marketing maven, and used to identify as a lesbian. Since marrying Bill, she’s gotten queerer, explaining (why does this still need to be explained?!) that sexuality is fluid. She’s also a former member of the Combahee River Collective—one of the most important black, lesbian, feminist organizations of the 1970s and 80s.

Seriously, people. I read about the Combahee River Collective when I was a Gender & Sexuality Studies major at NYU. Hardly anyone outside the department had ever heard of it, mainly because feminist history is terribly whitewashed. Gloria Steinem gets the glory over Audre Lorde every time.

So, the fact that a former member is set to move into Gracie Mansion (unless the family opts to stay in Brooklyn, which would be super rad) is a huge deal. Like, absolutely huge.

With McCray by his side, Bill de Blasio’s mayoral victory is more than just a change of pace for New York City. It could be revolutionary.

So Tuesday’s election went pretty well, I’d say. Gov. Christie’s a pretty acceptable conservative, and Mayor de Blasio’s a super exciting liberal.

The tri-state area is going places, people.

—

Featured image courtesy of [Bill de Blasio via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Decision 2013: I’ll See Your Christie, and Raise You de Blasio appeared first on Law Street.

Happy November, folks! Has everyone ditched their spooky, jack-o-lantern-themed front door decorations for some good, old-fashioned hand turkeys? Yes? AWESOME.

Feels good to start fresh, am I right? Post-Halloween, fall takes on a whole new aura.

And the Senate seems to agree! They’re not swapping out their seasonal front door decorations (or are they?), but they are introducing a new piece of legislation! Yay!

Well, sort of, at least. The Senate’s about to vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, affectionately termed ENDA by those of us who talk about this shit all day. It’s not actually a new piece of legislation, since it was first introduced in 1994, and passed in 1998, under President Clinton. But after this vote, it might have some important new provisions.

Specifically, this week’s vote is about adding protections that would benefit the LGBT community, so that all of us non-breeders don’t have to worry about getting unceremoniously fired. That would be good, right?

Absolutely! Except here’s the problem—this new and improved version of ENDA doesn’t have great prospects in the House. A bunch of Congress-people down there are planning to vote against it.

We’re looking at you, Boehner. You are just not a likeable guy these days, my man.

He’s publicly opposed the bill, sending one of his henchmen (I mean, spokespeople! Freudian slip, my bad), Michael Steel, to tell the press, “The speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs.”

So, passing a bill that will prevent people from getting fired will magically make jobs disappear? Oh, Boehner, you silly goose. You’ve got it backwards! When people don’t get fired, they get to keep their jobs, meaning less unemployment and a better economy for everyone. But you knew that, right?

Right.

Also, frivolous litigation? So, when people sue their employers for wrongful termination, you would consider that to be frivolous? Interesting.

I think what Speaker Boehner is getting at here, is the idea that adding the LGBT community to ENDA is unnecessary. According to him, us queers don’t have a problem with employment discrimination, and if we do, there’s other legislation that can handle it for us.

By that line of reasoning, if we get more laws protecting our employment prospects, queers would pretty much be unfire-able. Every time one of us faces termination—no matter how warranted—we’ll threaten our employer with a discrimination lawsuit, and wind up either suing people left and right, or never being unemployed again.

Ah, if only life were that simple, Boehner. Here’s the reality for queers in the workforce.

Thanks Upworthy!

In the 29 red states on this map, it’s completely legal to fire someone from their job because of their sexual orientation.

Literally. No exaggerations, no equivocations. For real.

In the 29 red states, if your boss does not approve of who you like to fuck in your spare time, he or she can fire your ass, no questions asked.

That is a major problem.

And it’s worse for trans or gender-non-conforming people. There are 33 states where it’s totally legal to fire someone based on their gender identity.

Seriously. And, up to 43 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have experienced harassment or discrimination at work because of their sexual orientation. Ninety percent of trans folks have had these experiences.

Is it just me, or are those some extremely depressing numbers?

For starters, it sucks being harassed or discriminated against at work. And that’s putting it lightly. We all spend the majority of our lives at work—imagine spending that time getting treated like shit by your boss and/or coworkers, just because of who you are? That shit’s soul crushing.

And that’s if you’re lucky enough to have a job at all. At least in this bummer-town scenario, you’re earning a paycheck.

But what happens when the abuse gets to be so bad that you’re forced to quit? Or when your boss decides that having a fabulous, queermo, rainbow butterfly on his payroll isn’t acceptable, and fires your ass?

Then you’ve got no way to pay your rent. No wonder queers face higher rates of poverty and unemployment.

So, Speaker Boehner, here’s the thing.

Adding sexual orientation and gender identity to ENDA, as two reasons that are NOT legal grounds for firing someone, is a good thing. At the end of the day, it translates to less unemployment, less poverty, and generally, less douche-iness.

So let’s get it done, Congress! Add us queers to your list of legally protected citizens who can’t be discriminated against in the workplace.

Then, maybe next week I won’t write a follow-up piece about how you’re all assholes.

—

Featured image courtesy of [Philippa Willitts via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Congress, Make it Stop: You Can Still Get Fired for Being Gay appeared first on Law Street.

Lovelies, Halloween is upon us. Yay! If you’re a hippy dippy, wannabe Pagan goddess like me, you’re super pumped for the veil between the living and the dead to be at its thinnest — heightening the potential spiritual connectedness across different planes of being.

OR. If you’re just an awesome, stressed out person who’s working hard and looking for an excuse to party hard on a Thursday night, you’re probably equally as excited.

Because Halloween is arguably the best party night of the year. Why? Because it’s the one night of the year that everyone can wear the most fabulous costumes EVER. Dressing up as someone other than yourself means you can let loose, free your inhibitions, and revel in the freedom of character playing for a little while. AKA — partying on a Thursday night just got a zillion times better.

Just make sure that your costume isn’t a racist abomination to humanity, OK? Here are some tips to make sure your costume is fun and also not offensive.

Sheesh, I love Franchesca Ramsey, don’t you? I’d let her tell me what to wear any day.

But unfortunately, this week, Chesca’s not the only person who’s doling out fashion advice. Clifford Chance, a gigantic, international law firm, recently distributed a memo titled, “Presentation Tips for Women.” Cue barfs all around.

Seriously though. This memo makes me want to march right over to Clifford Chance’s New York office, roll up a stack of the memos, and beat its author over the head with my new paper weapon. Ya know, like how your mom used to smack your dog on the butt with last month’s copy of Food & Wine for peeing on your kitchen floor again? (Was it just my mom who did that? Moving on.)

Anyway! This memo had a bunch of super handy tips for its vagina-laden employees. Among them were gems like, “Stand up,” “Don’t wave your arms,” “Practice hard words,” don’t giggle, squirm, or pepper your sentences with awkward interludes of “um,” “uh,” “like,” and “OK.”

Because every presentation I’ve ever seen delivered by a woman involved her sitting on the floor, flailing her arms about, while stuttering over multi-syllabic words. Honestly.

This is how women give presentations never.

And it just gets worse. Clifford Chance went on to advise its lady lawyers not to “dress like a mortician,” to choose business suits over nightclub attire, not to show any cleavage, and to keep your knees together, so no one can see your hoo-ha up that skirt.

Again, because every woman I’ve seen giving a presentation shows up looking like Morticia Adams in a push-up bra, flashing her party-favor panties for the entire audience to see.

The last, and possibly most ridiculous, piece of advice in this infuriating memo, was to advise the women of Clifford Chance to “Think Lauren Bacall, not Marilyn Monroe.”

I can’t. I can’t even. There’s just so much here.

Let’s start by remembering that we’re talking about LAWYERS here. Women who graduated from law school. And managed to pass the Bar Exam. And survive the undoubtedly rigorous interview process to get hired at Clifford Chance in the first place.

Something tells me these are women who know how to get dressed in the morning, am I right?

Something also tells me that these are women with fairly advanced literacy skills. Like, I’m sure they can read and write pretty damn well. Once again, they graduated from LAW SCHOOL. So, advising them to “practice hard words” before a presentation is a bit like asking a professional writer to practice stringing sentences together with some Hooked on Phonics.

Chelsea Handler knows what’s up.

And this crap about cleavage? I’m sorry, are breasts not work appropriate attire? No? OK then, I’ll just take them off and leave them at home, along with my detachable Kim Kardashian hair extensions and stick-on nails.

Seriously, this practice of regulating and shaming women’s bodies through a dress code has got to stop. A garment that exposes cleavage on one woman might by full-coverage for the next. What we’re talking about here isn’t clothing, it’s bodies, and which ones are and are not professionally acceptable.

Because this memo isn’t advising against certain necklines — in this case, specifically low-cut ones. It’s not worried about what kind of dress or top you’re wearing. Instead, it’s worried about how you’re filling it out. And that’s bullshit. Boobs are boobs, they’re not going anywhere, and they take up physical space beneath your clothing.

And if you’ve got human cranium-sized ones, like I do, they are consistently challenging to clothe and carry around. I spend more than enough time and money trying to figure out how to keep my boobs acceptably covered up without having to worry about my boss writing a memo about how distracting and unprofessional they are. So to the memo-writing busybodies of Clifford Chance, I advise you to get over it, and let your boob-bearing lawyers do their jobs in peace.

Finally, this crap about Lauren Bacall versus Marilyn Monroe? I actually feel like I’m watching the rivalry between Vivian Kensington and Elle Woods play out on Legally Blonde. This shit is ridiculous.

Elle Woods is outraged.

Not only is this comparison completely silly — we’re talking about unattainably beautiful movie stars from over half a century ago here, and neither of them exactly dressed in law firm-friendly business suits — but it’s also implicitly racist.

Clifford Chance’s ideal woman is inescapably white. If the firm expects its women to emulate Lauren Bacall — a stupid, objectifying expectation to begin with — what are its lawyers of color supposed to do? Bleach their skin and straighten their hair? What about its lady lawyers who are queer and don’t present their gender as feminine? (On second thought, those women probably just don’t get hired.)

The point is, Clifford Chance’s “Presentation Tips for Women” aren’t just sexist, they’re racist, heteronormative, objectifying, and condescending to boot. And sadly, they aren’t atypical of the corporate culture of many white-collar workplaces. Clifford Chance just had the gall to put it into writing.

So this Halloween, maybe dress up as a Clifford Chance lawyer who’s breaking all the rules. Or, just go toilet paper their office. Either way.

—

Featured image courtesy of [Wikipedia]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post It Gets Worse: Clifford Chance Gives Style Tips to Its Lady Lawyers appeared first on Law Street.

Folks, today marks the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy.

Last year, on October 28^th, I walked to a nearby pub called Onieals to grab dinner for me and my wife (then fiancée). Onieals has the best burgers in Hoboken, and I figured it would be our last opportunity to eat meat for awhile.

The storm was supposed to roll in that night. As I walked the three blocks to pick up our order, it was dark, cold, and cloudy, the wind biting sharply against my sweater. The streets were eerily empty. Back at home, we had stocked up on cases of bottled water and plenty of non-perishable food. The whole town waited with baited breath for the worst.

Finally made it to the grocery store to stock up. No more bread. Who needs bread anyway? Too many carbs. #Sandy pic.twitter.com/lF8iJPBG

— Casper Andreas (@CasperAndreas1) October 28, 2012

As it turns out, the storm didn’t hit until the next day. From morning until night on the 29^th, my wife and I watched the local news, our heat cranked up, making the most of our final electricity-filled hours. We watched as the storm submerged Atlantic City, working its way up the coast. Rain pelted our windows. The lights stayed on.

Until they didn’t. Around 9 p.m., I took a peek out of our bedroom window, hearing screams from outside. The streets were empty. All was well.

Then, ten minutes later, when the screams got louder, I looked again. All of a sudden, there was three feet of water in the street, and rising. Our car was floating. Our apartment building—and all the buildings around us—became an island in a sea of gasoline-tinged floodwaters. The lights went out. My wife and I huddled in bed, trying to block out the screams of thousands of car alarms blaring outside. It sounded like the end of the world.

Morning came, and the water was higher. Firemen paddled through the streets on inflatable boats, looking for people to rescue. I called out to them from our open window, asking if there were any evacuation orders. No, they told me, stay where you are. It took my wife and I days just to get out of our third-floor apartment—the flood waters filled the first floor of our building, along with an array of garbage it had washed in, blocking our exit.

Taken by yours truly, from our apartment window.

On day three, the waters in our neighborhood had drained. Stir crazy, we went outside to survey our destroyed car. We took a walk through the town, detouring around the areas that still hadn’t drained. Every basement and ground floor apartment in town was destroyed. Every car was totaled. Abandoned ambulances floated in the middle of flooded streets, signaling failed rescue attempts.

Once again, taken by yours truly.

FEMA set up camp downtown, and volunteers from around the world gathered to help. Wealthier residents, who paid to live on higher ground, offered their newly recovered electricity to the public, stringing power strips out of their front windows. They served hot food and drinks while strangers—including us—charged their phones at their front doors.

My wife and I had no power for 8 days. We lost our car. Our apartment was so cold, we spent most of our time huddled together, napping under mountains of blankets, trying to ignore the visibility of our breath. When the heat came back on, we both nearly cried for joy.

That was a year ago, and we were pretty lucky. Tons of other Hoboken residents lost everything. Our families in southern New Jersey lost a lot of things too. And those epic photos you’ve seen of the destroyed boardwalks along the Jersey Shore? That’s where we grew up. Things still aren’t quite the same.

Since the storm, I like to joke that we’ve all come down with PTSD—Post Traumatic Sandy Disorder. Nowadays, we all sleep with a flashlight on the nightstand, with an extra tank of gas in the garage, with a zillion spare batteries in the fridge. The sound of car alarms still makes me want to hide under the covers. And the word hurricane strikes a new kind of fear into our hearts.

But the fact is, while we were all deeply affected by Hurricane Sandy, memorializations of tragedies like these tend to gloss over the realities of wealth inequality and marginalization. I’ve stumbled across countless stories detailing the destruction of the storm, and the resilience of communities who are rebuilding and bouncing back. But that ability to bounce back isn’t the same for everyone.

I’ve written before about how women, queers, and people of color are more likely to struggle with poverty. So, let’s take a wild guess as to who was hit hardest by a storm like this, and who would have the most difficulty recovering afterwards?

In Hoboken, it was easy to see. This city is basically a tiny microcosm—it’s an incredibly small town geographically, but it’s filled to the brim with people, spatially divided by race and socioeconomic class.

The projects and low-income housing options are located in the lowest section of town—that means that the poorest people experienced the worst flooding, and went without power for the longest period of time. By contrast, there’s a whole other neighborhood that’s filled with multimillion-dollar condos—unsurprisingly, their elevated position meant they experienced the least flooding, and lost power for all of (maybe) 24 hours.

Not to mention, early childhood education programs and local emergency healthcare—all crucial services for the economically disadvantaged—were completely destroyed in the storm. These facilities were closed unceremoniously, and no alternatives were provided. Many of them have only just reopened, if they’ve managed to do so at all. Add that to the reality that many of the folks affected by these closings could have easily lost their cars, homes, and jobs in the storm, and you’ve got a situation that’s overwhelmingly difficult to get out of.

A destroyed Hoboken basement apartment, next door to our building.

My wife and I were lucky. We lost plenty, but neither of our jobs were destroyed in the storm, we had good insurance coverage, and a healthy savings account. We had the economic resources and infrastructure to rebuild our lives post-Sandy, and these days, things are pretty much back to normal.

But we’re white, college-educated, working to middle-class women. We have a certain level of privilege that tipped the scales in our favor. Not everyone has that. And as a result, not everyone could bounce back from this storm as well as we did.

So this Halloween season, while you’re reading all of these post-Sandy retrospectives in the news, think critically about who the storm affected and how. Is there something you can do to help those who haven’t been able to bounce back—and who, likely, haven’t been featured in the upbeat, restore the shore narrative?

Because when economic disadvantage is a problem before a tragedy like this happens, it’s not always so easy to pick up the pieces afterwards.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Images courtesy of [Hannah R. Winsten]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Post Traumatic Sandy Disorder – One Year Later appeared first on Law Street.

Last week, the government reopened and raised the debt ceiling. YAY! We don’t all have to worry about getting flushed down the proverbial economic toilet.

At least not for another three months, when Congress has decided to do this all again.

It’s like a quarterly, let’s-freak-everyone-the-fuck-out party.

Awesome. (Not really.)

Anyway! Now that the government has reopened for a little while, some of the nation’s most influential businessmen are speaking out about it. And you know what they’re saying?

Who the hell cares?!

No, but that’s really what they’re saying.

In a recent interview with Jason Calacanis, former Facebook employee and venture-capitalist millionaire Chamath Palihapitiya claimed that the government was pretty much useless—so who gives a crap if it shuts down? According to him, corporations hold the real power in the U.S. these days.

“Companies are transcending power now,” said Palihapitiya. “We are becoming the eminent vehicles for change and influence, and capital structures that matter. If companies shut down, the stock market would collapse. If the government shuts down, nothing happens and we all move on, because it just doesn’t matter.”

This is interesting, folks.

Palihapitiya’s words are both frighteningly true and laughably false, all at the same time.

On the one hand, it’s true that for many of us, life continued as usual, despite the government shutdown. For example, as I interviewed folks last week for a book I’m writing about conservatism in present-day America, many of them had almost zero knowledge about the government shutdown.

Why not?

Because they were busy, and hadn’t been paying much attention to the news. Oh, and because it must not really matter anyway, if the only way they could know about the shutdown was by devoting a portion of their day to catching up with CNN (or Fox News, unfortunately). Their daily lives weren’t affected at all.

But, if Facebook—or some other multi-billion dollar corporation—had suddenly gone belly-up, these folks would know about it. Absolutely. Remember the financial crash of 2008? When the economy flounders, so does everyone else in the United States.

Corporations, whether or not they’re functioning properly, make people pay attention. But a white, domed building filled with a bunch of bickering Congress people? Not so much.

But that doesn’t mean that the government doesn’t matter, as Palihapitiya claims. This government shutdown was relatively short-term, and had it remained closed for a longer period of time, many more people would have felt the burn.

Nonetheless, tons of people were seriously affected. Boatloads of government employees were furloughed without pay, and millions of people who receive some form of government assistance were left out in the cold.

So, when Jason Calacanis tweets about how little the government shutdown matters—echoing the same sentiments as his interview subject, Palihapitiya—we can just grit our teeth and laugh at the skewed viewpoint of the über-rich.

Is the shutdown proving to many that the government really doesn’t do that much for them? Have you been impacted personally yet? Just asking. (@Jason)

Because honestly, Jason, lots of people were personally impacted by the government shutdown. But they were probably women, or poor, or of color, or all of the above. And you’re none of those things. Your crass assumption that, just because you haven’t been affected then clearly no one has, is hilariously out of touch.

Except it’s not that hilarious, because, let’s face it—you have a ton of power.

While Jason and Palihapitiya might be wrong about the government being inconsequential, they’re right about one thing. Big money corporations matter A LOT. They have the power to make or break our economy, and by extension, to make or break all of our lives. If the economy tanks, we’re all going down with it. At least, those of us who aren’t rich enough to charter a private jet out the mess.

And the lower down we are on the socio-economic ladder, the further we’ll fall if the economy goes to shit. Poor people, women, people of color, queer people, disabled people—the list can go on—will be hit the hardest by a major economic stumble.

So, it’s not really that funny when venture capitalist millionaires prove themselves to be incredibly out of touch. Because they have the power to make or break our economy and our livelihoods. They need to be at least mildly aware of what it’s like down here, in order to keep what’s going on up there from destroying us all.

So, Mark Zuckerberg and friends? Please check your privilege. While you earn your billions, we still need to pay our rent.

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Featured image courtesy of [Victoria Pickering via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post How Facebook Pays Your Rent appeared first on Law Street.

Wednesday night, the Republican Party was given an interesting task.

Stop being so judgmental.

That’s what former GOP politician Tom Ridge told the Log Cabin Republicans when he spoke at their Spirit of Lincoln dinner this week.

Folks, this is a pretty interesting development, so let’s delve into this story a little bit, mmkay?

Let’s start with the characters. First, we’ve got the sensible, yet colorful, Log Cabin Republicans. Picture an entire room filled with variations of Will and Grace’s two leading men. Jack McFarland and Will Truman ALL THE WAY. Get it, girl.

Then, we’ve got the esteemed Tom Ridge—a former Congressman, Pennsylvania Governor, and Secretary of Homeland Security. He’s a pretty stand-up guy, and back in the ’90s he signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law in Pennsylvania.

He arrived at the Spirit of Lincoln dinner a bit apprehensively—he doesn’t have a great track record with the LGBT community. Now is his time to prove himself. Now is his time to shine. As he prepares for the big moment, he wonders if he should open his speech with a musical number? Maybe sprinkle his speech with some Bette Midler or Cher references?

Nah, he decides. Let’s keep it professional. He goes in for the kill, rocking a nice suit and a well-prepared speech. Let’s revamp this disgraced party, he thinks to himself, determined to cobble together a conservatism that doesn’t reek of Ted Cruz and Boehner/boner jokes.

So Ridge gets up there, and delivers a message that could redefine conservatism.

He tells the Republican Party to stop being so judgmental. Stop ignoring the separation of church and state and attempting to govern based on your church’s teachings. Stop discriminating against the gays. Stop being a bunch of unreasonable, out-of-touch assholes who throw tantrums and shut down governments.

Basically, Ridge told the GOP to cut the Tea Party crap and get it together.

But, that’s actually not as revolutionary as it sounds.

See, Ridge is no progressive. And he doesn’t think the American people are either. (He’s probably right about that one.)

In a statement to Buzzfeed prior to the address, he said, “I truly believe Americans are more conservative than liberal, but I also think they may be conservative, but they are far more practical than ideological and I know, particularly among young people, they are far more tolerant than judgmental.”

What does that mean? It means that Ridge sees LGBT discrimination as a simple issue of tolerance. For him, queer folks’ marginalization isn’t the product of systemic oppression, but rather, of ideological bullies. If we’d all just be nice to each other, he urges, we could fold the LGBT community into the conservative movement, instead of shutting them out.

And really, nothing could be better—or more practical—for the GOP than adding a new chunk of the population to its camp. Not only would welcoming queermos into the fold increase their voting block, but it would also give them some diversity street cred. And that counts for a lot these days, when the Democratic Party is credited as being the political home for everyone who’s not a straight, white, grey-haired man.

It’s important to note that Ridge’s urging to focus on practicality and tolerance, so as to include gays in the conservative platform, doesn’t seek to fundamentally change conservatism itself. That’s a big deal.

It’s also not surprising. I’ve written before about how the Republican agenda is all about conserving privilege for a particular group of people—specifically, straight, white, middle-to-upper class folks. And Ridge is one of them. He’s a straight, white, man, who earns boatloads of money serving as a board member for a few Fortune 500 companies.

So, it makes sense that Ridge isn’t interested in fundamentally changing the conservative platform. It works for him. Conservatism has done nothing but bolster his privilege, and consequently, his earning power. Really, he’s just interested in making that platform more palatable to a greater number of people. In this case, it’s the gays.

And that’s why his speech didn’t say anything about making sure women, queers, and people of color are able to earn a living wage. He didn’t mention making access to quality, affordable healthcare for all people a priority. He didn’t talk about ameliorating the United States’ ridiculous wealth disparity.

These are all problems that disproportionately affect women, people of color, and members of the LGBT community. These are also problems that are exacerbated by conservative policies. And as Ridge stood in front of an LGBT political group, he made no mention of any of them.

And this is exactly why his speech is so fascinating.

It’s relatively revolutionary, because, finally, a high profile Republican is trying to make the party more open and inclusive. Finally, someone on the Right is agitating for a less divided, and more effective, government.

And in the age of the Tea Party, that’s a really big, exciting development.

But at the same time, Ridge’s speech is also sorely disappointing. It’s another example of a conservative politician who’s out of touch, who can’t see past his privilege, who’s only interested in surface level changes. Most queers have nothing to gain by being welcomed into the GOP’s fold, and everything to lose from conservative economic policies that increase the wealth disparity.

So the bottom line? Ridge’s speech was pretty complex–it simultaneously invites positive, political change, while continuing to bolster policies that create inequality.

Ultimately, it’s refreshing to hear a Republican tell his party to stop being a bunch of assholes. But unfortunately, this particular call-to-action is too superficial to get excited about.

—

Featured image courtesy of [Hubert K via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Tom Ridge Tells GOP: Tolerate the Gays, Don’t Make Their Lives Better appeared first on Law Street.

It’s been a busy few days for rape culture, folks.

This past weekend, the Kansas City Star published a long and revealing feature detailing the story of the Colemans—a family who moved to Maryville, MO following a personal tragedy, only to be driven away months later when their daughter, Daisy, accused a prominent football player of rape. Their house has since been burned to the ground.

That’s right. The rape victim and her family were driven out of town—not the rapist. Despite an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the rape accusations, all of the charges were dropped, and Daisy’s attacker got off scot-free. He’s currently studying at the University of Central Missouri.

The story went viral. News outlets across the country jumped on it, Anonymous picked it up on Twitter, sparking the hashtag movements #OpMaryville and #Justice4Daisy, and a demonstration is scheduled to happen on October 22 at 10 a.m. outside of the Maryville Courthouse. (Are you in Missouri? You should go.)

But, as awful as this story is, it’s not the first time a similar case has hit the Twittersphere. It’s been less than a year since the infamous Steubenville case—and while Maryville headlines have only just appeared, the actual rape occurred earlier in 2012 than Steubenville.

So let’s take a few minutes, and forget about the government shutdown and the debt-ceiling crisis. Let’s take a minute and redirect our focus. Because every time a political brouhaha like this happens, we all tend to get obsessed with the crazies who are throwing a tantrum in the capitol—and we forget that there are a hell of a lot more of them wreaking havoc right here, in our daily lives.

So what happened in Maryville, and why do we care? You should really read that Kansas City Star article—it’s incredibly well written. But, if you don’t have time to read nearly 5,000 words, here’s a quick summary.

Melinda Coleman lived in Albany, NY with her husband and four children. They had three boys and one girl, named Daisy. Then, tragically, Dad died in a car accident. Looking for a fresh start, Melinda moved with the children to Maryville, MO at the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year. At first, everything went well.

Then, one night, Daisy and a childhood friend from Albany went to a party with a group of older boys—senior year football players, to be exact. Once there, they were both raped, while some of the boys took videos. Afterwards, they were returned home, where Daisy was left out in the front yard, drunk and literally freezing, overnight.

There was plenty of evidence to support the rape charges—depositions from the two girls and a number of partygoers, rape kits, and confiscated iPhone videos. But Matthew Barnett, Daisy’s accused, was a Maryville fixture. He was popular, star of the football team, and his grandfather was a former representative in the state legislature.

Simply put, the Barnetts were one of a few key families in Maryville—influential and untouchable—and the Colemans were recent transplants, outsiders. Add that to the frighteningly commonplace practice of victim blaming in sexual assault cases, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for charge-dropping.

And that’s exactly what happened. All of the charges were dropped, allowing Barnett to go on living his life, while Daisy and her family were left to deal with the horror of their own. Melinda was unceremoniously fired from her job. Daisy and her siblings were tormented, harassed, and threatened with physical violence. Ultimately, Melinda decided to move the family back to Albany.

In a not-so-convincing coincidence, their house—empty and up for sale—burned down shortly after. The charred remains have yet to be cleaned up.

But why do we care? This kind of bullshit happens all the time. How is this any different?

It’s not. And that’s exactly why it’s so important.

1 out of every 6 women in the U.S. has been a victim of attempted or completed rape. Every 2 seconds, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. Victims of sexual assault are more likely to suffer from depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, to abuse drugs and alcohol, and to contemplate suicide. And that’s only accounting for the victims themselves—their families and loved ones can be severely affected as well.

Sexual assault is a very, very big problem, devastating the lives of millions of people in this country alone.

But 97 percent of rapists will never spend a day in jail. Matthew Barnett is just one of millions.

To say that this is unacceptable would be the understatement of the year. As a nation that likes to pat itself on the back as the leader of the free world and the harbinger of human rights, this is incredibly disheartening.

After all, if the land of the free and the home of the brave doesn’t take this shit seriously, then who the hell does? Virtually no one, that’s who.

How does our legal system only hold 3 percent of rapists accountable for their actions? How is this the kind of reality that our justice system supports and creates?

I’ll tell you how.

Patriarchy. That’s how.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, patriarchy is basically the opposite of feminism.

If we accept Rebecca West’s statement that feminism is the radical notion that women are people, then we can understand patriarchy as the douche-y notion that women are not people.

Or at least, not people who are valued as highly as men.

Patriarchy is what’s at work when women get paid 77 cents to a man’s dollar, or when men offer us their seat on the subway, because ugh my weak lady legs can’t support my body for three stops.

Patriarchy is what’s at work when the Supreme Court can rule in favor of a woman’s right to choose, and more than 40 years later, Roe v. Wade is still legally imperiled by gazillions of restrictions across the nation.

Patriarchy is what’s happening when women work a double, triple, or quadruple shift, and no one raises an eyebrow. It’s what’s happening when the Hate Crime Statistics Act doesn’t include gender-based crimes, because violence against women is so commonplace that to track those numbers would be way too hard, so let’s not even bother trying.

And—say it with me now—patriarchy is what’s happening when a 14-year-old girl named Daisy can get raped, on videotape, by a 17 year-old-boy, and her attacker does not go to jail. Instead, she’s verbally abused, run out of town, and her house gets burnt to the ground. Meanwhile, her rapist happily attends college and writes disgusting Tweets about women and their sexuality.

Gross.

This shit is awful, and it’s got to be changed.

So come on, good lawyer folks. Get on that.

—

Featured image courtesy of [Mike via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Why Your Rapist (Probably) Isn’t Going to Jail appeared first on Law Street.

Don’t get pregnant in Nebraska, ladies. Back in January 2011, Republican State Senator Lydia Brasch introduced legislative bill 690. The bill mandated that if a woman under the age of 18 wanted to abort a pregnancy, she must receive written permission from a parent or guardian. Otherwise, no abortion procedure for you, sweetheart. Good luck with that!

LB 690 was a wild success in the Nebraska legislature. It passed by a landslide in May 2011, and was signed into law the very same day. These kinds of bills are called “parental consent” bills by the anti-abortion lobby. But for those of us who believe in Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose?

This is just a straight-up, anti-abortion bill.

Why? After all, abortion is still legal in Nebraska, even after LB 690’s passage. No big deal, right? Wrong. Anonymous 5, a 16-year-old Nebraskan ward of the state who was denied her right to an abortion this week, can personally tell you that it’s a very, very big deal.

At a hearing back in July, Anonymous 5’s parents were stripped of their parental rights because they had been abusive and neglectful of their three children. Anonymous 5 and her two younger siblings were placed in foster care, under the legal protection of the state. At this same hearing, Anonymous 5 informed the judge that she was 10 weeks pregnant, and wanted to get an abortion.

She was, to put it lightly, in a pickle. She needed written parental consent, but legally, she no longer had any parents. What to do? Her only option was to ask a judge for permission to circumvent LB 690—something young girls are supposed to be allowed to do, in cases of medical emergency or abuse.

But that really didn’t work out for her. This week, the Nebraska court made a final decision on her abortion request, ruling that she had not sufficiently proved that she had been a victim of abuse, and—most importantly—she had not proved herself to be mature enough to decide that she wanted an abortion.

That’s right, folks. The Nebraska court ruled that a 16-year-old girl was not mature enough to have an abortion. But, she’s mature enough to become a mother!

Because that makes a lot of sense.

Especially considering that Anonymous 5 had some really good reasons for not wanting to give birth to a child. Besides the obvious factors—she’s a high school student without the financial or emotional resources to be, in her words, the kind of “mom [she] would like to be right now”—a very religious foster family is currently housing her and her two young siblings. Anonymous 5 expressed concern that she would lose her foster placement if her foster parents found out about the pregnancy.

Meaning that, in this case, adoption is not a viable option. The mere act of carrying this child to term could cause Anonymous 5 and her siblings to wind up homeless. And haven’t they already been through enough, after growing up in an abusive, neglectful household?

You’d think so, but the Nebraska judge didn’t agree. He denied Anonymous 5 the right to make this deeply personal choice by herself, and instead, decided for her, ruling that she would not be allowed to receive an abortion in the state of Nebraska.

So, what does this mean for LB 690, and other parental consent bills like it?

It means that they have the power to deny young women access to abortions. That’s a really big problem. But perhaps more importantly, these bills take the right of bodily decision-making away from young women, and hand it over to someone else.

And that’s just not OK. Every person, regardless of gender, needs to be able to choose what happens to his or her (or zir!) body. How would you like it if someone else had the power to decide what hairstyle you should wear, or how provocative your clothes should be, or what you could eat, or when you could sleep?

You’d hate it. You’d get angry and frustrated. You’d feel powerless. And these feelings would be in response to relatively trivial kinds of control.

I mean, seriously, everyone freaked out when Mayor Bloomberg tried to control how big our sodas could be.

So, can you imagine how powerless you’d feel if someone else forced you to grow a child inside your abdomen for nine months, after which, you’d have to literally tear your body apart trying to expel it? And then, you’d either have to raise it for the next 18 years, or make the heart wrenching decision to hand that responsibility off to someone else?

That’s not trivial. That’s a life-altering kind of control. It’s too important to be placed in someone else’s hands.

Walter White, for the win.

Only the person who’s pregnant can make that call. It’s a deeply personal decision, and one that she’ll have to live with forever. Simply put, women need to be in control of their own bodies.

And the fact that, in 2013, this concept still hasn’t sunken in is horrifying. How far have we really come from the days when women’s bodies were bought and sold by men through marriage—when women were nothing more than property?

Not far, apparently, when a man in Nebraska has the power to decide what’s going to happen inside of Anonymous 5’s body.

So, whaddya say, folks? Can we stop controlling and policing women’s bodies, so that no one else ever has to go through what Anonymous 5 did this week?

I really hope so.

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Featured image courtesy of [Rudy Eng via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post If You Got Mad About the Big Gulp Ban, Get Mad About This appeared first on Law Street.

This Wednesday, October 11, will be the 25^th Annual National Coming Out Day. Yay! A day devoted to all of us queers coming out of the closet and running around with reckless, rainbow abandon is super awesome, right?

I remember the first time I was actually out on National Coming Out Day. I was 17, and it was my senior year in high school. I had been coming out, bit by bit, for the last three years, and I was finally at a point in my life where literally everyone who knew me, knew that I was gay. I was also the president of my high school’s Gay Straight Alliance, which made it pretty much impossible to deny that I wasn’t a huge lezzer. So there was that.

Anyway! To honor the special occasion, me and all of my lovely, wonderful fellow GSA members wore purple that day—a sign of queer solidarity—and organized a bake sale. All of the proceeds went to the Matthew Shepard Foundation.

Now, there are tons of LGBT nonprofits we could have donated to. But we chose this particular one because, in October of 1998, Matthew Shepard was brutally attacked in Laramie, Wyoming. He died just in time for National Coming Out Day, making his organization an especially fitting one to benefit from our bake sale that year.

But what exactly is Matthew Shepard’s story, and how has he affected the LGBT community today? That’s a pretty complicated subject, so let’s settle into our rainbow-pride Snuggies and dive right in, mmkay?

In case you don’t already know the story, Matthew Shepard was a 21-year-old college student in Laramie, Wyoming. One night in October, two men abducted him from a local bar and drove him out into the rural, Wyoming night. They beat, robbed, and tortured him, leaving him tied to a fence to die. The next morning, a cyclist rode by, initially mistaking him for a scarecrow. Matthew was rushed to the hospital, but his injuries were too severe and he never woke up. He died on October 12, 1998.

The Matthew Shepard Foundation, which does lots of great work, was a direct result of Matt’s death. His mom, Judy Shepard, founded it with the goal of making the world a better and more accepting place, where people like Matthew won’t be harmed.

On that front, Matt’s legacy has affected us queers in a good way. He’s given us an organization that travels the country, spreading the noble message that it’s OK to be gay. He’s given us a poster child—unequivocal proof that it’s hard, and sometimes dangerous, to be queer. Perhaps most importantly, he’s given this country a vocabulary to talk about sexuality and violence. Those are all great things.

But. There have also been some not-so-great ramifications.

In 2009, the federal government passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. It was meant to expand upon already existent hate-crime laws to include crimes motivated by gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. It was (and still is) a pretty big deal. Judy Shepard campaigned fiercely for its passage.

Now, at first glance, this little piece of legislation sounds awesome. It means that members of the LGBT community deserve to be valued and protected under the law. It sends a message to homophobic douchebags who want to hurt us—you won’t get off easy.

But, that’s just at first glance. Looking beneath the surface, the Shepard Byrd Act does more than just make prison sentences lengthier for gay bashers. It also funnels a whole lot more money towards state and local law enforcement agencies, and expands the policing power of the federal government.

In short, it makes the U.S.’ police state more powerful.

And you know who gets hurt the most by the U.S. police state? Queer people of color.

Since the 1980s, surveillance and policing in the U.S. have grown exponentially, with incarceration becoming the preferred method of dealing with economically and socially marginalized communities. Over these last 30 years, the U.S.’s federal prison population has risen by 790 percent, while crime rates have remained relatively stable. No other country in the world incarcerates more of its citizens than the U.S., and a disproportionate amount of those inmates are poor, queer, and/or of color.

But how can that happen? Surely, heterosexism, racism, and transphobia can’t possibly be an institutional part of our justice system. This is AMURRICA, the land of the free!

If only. While we’re prancing about in our rainbow, edible underwear for National Coming Out Day, let’s take a second to reflect on the origins of the annual Gay Pride Parade.

Gay Pride wasn’t a thing until 1969, when police raided New York’s Stonewall Inn. Back then, cross dressing was illegal, and if anyone was caught wearing fewer than three pieces of gender-conforming clothing, he or she (or ze!) would get arrested. That meant a ton of trouble for butch lezzies–identifiable by their dapper menswear–trans folks, and drag queens. And what happened if you got arrested for your gender-non-conforming attire? Likely, you’d get beaten and raped. Just ask Leslie Feinberg. This shit used to happen ALL THE TIME. (And it actually still does.)

Then, in 2003, Lambda Legal won the landmark case Lawrence v. Texas, which decriminalized homosexuality. That’s right, folks. It was ILLEGAL to be gay (or at least, to have super hot gay sex between two consenting adults) up until 2003.

I kid you not.

So basically, up until a measly 10 years ago, the cops were trained to arrest us. They were taught to see queer folks as criminals. They were encouraged to treat us with violence and contempt, because we were nothing but perverted delinquents. Historically, queers have had a really terrible relationship with law enforcement as a whole.

Nowadays, even though it’s no longer explicitly illegal to be queer, we’re still targeted. After all, old habits die hard, am I right? Cops routinely troll cruising spots, targeting gay men, they still raid our bars, beat and humiliate us, and they still rape us, all the goddamn time. And that’s just what happens to gay people. Imagine adding all of that targeted bias to issues of race and criminalization, or poverty, or gender variance. It gets so much worse.

Trans women of color know better than any of us what happens when you take all of that intersectional oppression into account–they’re routinely stopped by cops and arrested for solicitation or prostitution, based solely on racist, sexist, transphobic assumptions of criminality. Have you ever been accused of solicitation while you’re walking your dog? Probably not. This is a case of literal fashion police, except there’s no Joan Rivers and it’s not funny at all.

Not to mention, racism, sexism, and transphobia aren’t exclusive to the cops. Lots of people have less than warm and fuzzy feelings towards queers, and that makes it exponentially harder for us to get jobs. I’ve written about how difficult it can be for butch women to score employment, and that goes quadruple for trans people of color. With little or no opportunities for traditional employment, queers are often left with no other options besides sex work to support themselves. And of course, sex work is illegal.

So, to recap, poor queers of color are funneled into the prison industrial complex in two key ways: they’re unfairly targeted for arrest, and they’re forced into criminalized activities because of a lack of other viable options. Both of these realities are a result of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia.

So you can see how it’s problematic that a piece of legislation, which is supposed to protect queer folks, actually strengthens an institution that specifically targets and harms us.

Because, ultimately, the cops aren’t using all that new money to find and punish white supremacists or gay bashers. More likely, they’re using it to harass, criminalize, and incarcerate poor people, queer people, and people of color.

Now, that’s not to say that all cops are bad, racist, homophobic pigs. Absolutely not. I’ve got an old friend whose father serves as a local Chief of Police, and I respect the hell out of him.

It is to say, however, that statistically, poor people, queer people, and people of color are targeted and harmed by the criminal justice system. As a result of that reality, funneling more money into that system is not a great strategy for protecting us.

But these facts often get ignored when we talk about Matthew Shepard. As a middle-class, gender-conforming, white man, his chances for having a run-in with the police were relatively small. No one would have stopped him while he was walking down the street and accused him of solicitation. Incarceration was not something Judy Shepard feared for her son.

And it’s no coincidence that Matthew became the gay hate-crime poster child. Many, many queer people have been violently murdered in the years before and after his death, and the majority of them were transgender women of color. Ever heard of Gwen Araujo? Probably not. And there’s a reason for that.

Reifying a white, cis-gender, middle-class gay man as the face of the LGBT community allows us to ignore the complex issue of intersectional, multifaceted oppression—where race, gender, sexuality, and class status are all inextricably linked.

So this National Coming Out Day, remember Matthew Shepard, but question the piece of hate crime legislation with his name attached to it. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

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Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Ludovic Bertron via Wikipedia]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Come Out, Come Out — and Go to Jail? appeared first on Law Street.

The government has been shuttered for three days now, and things are already starting to look bleak.

I’ve written about how the GOP’s obsession with defunding Obamacare is really about a racist, sexist, elitist desire to keep privilege (and life’s basic necessities) concentrated among rich, white, straight men. And that’s what’ll happen if the Affordable Care Act gets defunded.

But even though Obamacare hasn’t been axed, those of us who are outside of privilege are already starting to feel the heat. While Congress engages in the world’s most irritating staring contest, government programs that disproportionately serve women and people of color are already starting to run dry.

Thanks, Hyperbole and a Half!

One of the first things to circle the drain are WIC payments. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) has been deemed a non-essential government service. That means, while the government is shut down, WIC’s doors will be closed. More than half of the country’s babies rely on WIC to receive proper nutrition, and their mothers are the ones who will be left with crying, hungry, and sick children.

I’m sorry, but how can feeding babies possibly be considered non-essential? That’s really just awful. Especially considering that Republicans added a “conscience clause” to their ridiculous, let’s-shut-down-the-government ransom bill that would cut women off from accessing contraceptive and other preventive health services.

So basically, the GOP is pushing legislation that would simultaneously result in more babies, while denying food to those who already exist. And who has to figure out how to survive in all this mess? Women. More specifically, poor women of color. I’m sure they really appreciate that, Ted Cruz.

 And it doesn’t stop there. Head Start programs, which provide early education to low-income children, might have to stop serving their students, depending on how long this government shutdown lasts. A handful of Head Start programs will get hit immediately, with the rest following suit as this game of Congressional chicken drags on. Again, we’re seeing the GOP push legislation that creates more kids, while denying education to the ones who are already here. And who has to pay the price? All the mothers who will skip work, and potentially miss out on wages, to care for their children who have been turned away from shuttered Head Starts.

And those wages are really important, especially if this shutdown lasts any substantial amount of time. As temperatures drop, heating bills will rise, and the Low Income Home Energy program — which disproportionately serves women — won’t be able to provide assistance. Neither will the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, which is, once again, overwhelmingly used by women. Single mothers will have to decide between paying rent, feeding their children, or heating their homes. How can we allow that to happen?

All of this is happening because our elected Congress-people can’t — or won’t — do their jobs. This is professional incompetency at its finest, and it’s entirely unacceptable. But it also reveals a lot about our national state of affairs.

While the GOP may have started this ridiculousness with the goal of blocking legislation that would benefit underprivileged people, it’s clear that systematic inequality is already in place. Anyone who argues that racism and sexism are things of the past only needs to look at what’s happening right now to see that they’re wrong.

If racism and sexism were over, women and people of color wouldn’t be hit the hardest when our lawmakers fail to do their jobs. They wouldn’t be the ones who have to choose between feeding their children and heating their homes. And most importantly, those struggles would be making top headlines in news outlets across the country.

But that’s not the case. Women and people of color are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to this government shutdown, and they’re barely making any headlines about it. It’s no coincidence that veterans — who are mostly white and male — failing to receive government benefits has caused national outrage, while the single mothers who depend on WIC remain largely in the shadows.

As Republicans fight tooth and nail to keep women, people of color, queer people, and the poor disenfranchised, they wind up highlighting all of the ways that these communities are oppressed in the first place.

So thanks, guys. You’re making my job a little bit easier.

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Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [cool revolution via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post SHOCKING: Women Are Disproportionately Shut Out by the Shutdown appeared first on Law Street.

Well folks, it happened. After a collective freak out from the media – and a collective yawn from the general public – the government shut down today. Not surprising.

If you’ve been keeping up with this latest political soap opera, you’ll know that House Republicans planned this ridiculousness months ago, when they refused to meet with House Democrats and Hash out their budgetary differences ahead of time.

You’ll also know that this government shutdown isn’t the end of the world. A ton of federal employees will be furloughed, possibly without pay, military troops will stop receiving paychecks, national parks will close, passport applications won’t get processed, and Social Security checks will probably be a bit delayed. Obamacare will still become law. And Ted Cruz will forever be known as the latest King of Crazytown. (I told you all that someone would replace Michele Bachmann!)

To the average American, some of these facts will be irritating, inconvenient, or downright awful. (Are you the poor soul who planned a Washington, D.C. vacation for this upcoming week? No panda for you!) And the economy will definitely take a dip. But overall, nothing too horrific.

But! Let’s not get too comfy in our government-shutdown-who-cares apathy. Even though this doesn’t mean our entire democracy will come crashing down around our shoulders, it does bring up some very interesting questions about who matters in our government.

Let’s start with Obamacare, shall we?

A few days ago, Ted Cruz filibustered Congress for 21 hours, talking about why Obamacare is an awful, terrible idea.

First of all Ted, trying to dismantle healthcare reform while engaging in a very medically irresponsible activity probably isn’t your smartest idea. Just something to think about.

Forrest knows what’s up.

Second of all, what is so awful about Obamacare? Why is Teddy over here torturing himself, and creating quite the media circus, over defunding it?

Here’s what’s so awful about it – Obamacare benefits mostly everyone, but mostly poor people and women. Who are, incidentally, often the same thing. Also people of color and queer folks. Again, many times the same thing. Who does it benefit the least? Rich people! White people! Men! Again – many times, one in the same.

Ted Cruz’s obsession with defunding Obamacare is reflective of a larger idea that’s present across both parties, but which has come to a particularly alarming head within the GOP. Poor people, women, people of color, and queer people don’t matter. They are not worth out tax dollars or our reform efforts, and bills – like Obamacare – that would benefit them are offensive. That’s a really classy concept, isn’t it?

Seriously. It’s pretty gross that House Republicans would rather the government shut down than to extend basic healthcare to folks who don’t have access to racial, gendered, or economic privilege.

Now, obviously, that’s pretty shitty. But since the whole government shutdown thing isn’t overly dire, it’s not really a big deal, right? Jerks will be jerks, can’t we call just roll our eyes and move on?

Not really. Very soon, this government shutdown won’t be our only problem. In just 17 days, Congress will have to vote to lift the United States’ debt ceiling. While this sounds like voting to allow the government to spend more and rack up more debt, that’s not at all what it means – instead, lifting the debt ceiling simply means voting to keep the American economy running.

Without lifting the debt ceiling, the U.S. won’t be able to pay any of its bills. That means indefinitely delayed Social Security checks, no more benefits for veterans, and no more paychecks for soldiers. Also, hundreds of thousands of companies that do business with the U.S. government won’t get paid, the cost of borrowing money will skyrocket, and the U.S. won’t be seen as a safe place for business or investment.

Basically the U.S.’ economy, and the global economy, would go kaput. You think 2008 was bad? Failing to lift the debt ceiling would be much, much worse. And guess what! The GOP doesn’t want to do it.

Unless of course, a whole bunch of entirely unreasonable demands are met. Halting healthcare reform, building an oil pipeline, and nixing the regulation of greenhouse gases all make the list. It reads, essentially, like Mitt Romney’s campaign platform.

But, you see, Mittens lost the 2012 election for a reason.

He wasn’t shy about his disdain for the less fortunate, for those of us who are outside of privilege. We all remember his comment about the 47 percent. And last November, we all collectively decided that his wasn’t the kind of attitude we wanted in the White House. The American people have spoken! This case should be closed.

Mitt.

But the GOP isn’t willing to let it go. Some of their other demands over the past few years have included eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood – which would leave thousands of women, mostly poor and of color, without access to necessary healthcare – slashing food stamp funding – a program that is already insufficient for making sure the poor don’t starve to death – and preserving or implementing a bunch of tax reforms that benefit the rich and screw the rest of us.

The pattern is very clear. To the GOP, political negotiation means demanding people who are outside of privilege be made as vulnerable as possible. It means crusading against women, poor folks, people of color, and the queer community. It means threatening political and economic ruin for the entire country if our lives and livelihoods aren’t seriously threatened.

So, even though this latest government shutdown isn’t the end of the world, it’s only one episode in an ongoing political drama. And in 17 days, things could get much, much worse.

Because today, the Republican Party has shown that it would rather shut down the government than support a whole bunch of disenfranchised citizens gaining access to healthcare.

What will they do on October 17th?

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Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Mount Rainier National Park via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Here’s Why Republicans Shut Down the Government appeared first on Law Street.