DOJ vs. Affirmative Action

The DOJ intends to direct its Civil Rights Division’s resources to investigate affirmative action policies, specifically what effects those policies have on white applicants. The DOJ may sue universities it believes are discriminating against white applicants. This is an odd use of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which was designed to address issues faced by minority groups in the United States.

Many have also pointed out the irony of the Trump Administration’s crusade against affirmative action:

The people who hate affirmative action because its ‘unfair’ are gonna be really mad when they find out how rich kids get into elite schools

— Ayatollah Cumonme (@Phonycian) August 2, 2017

The last time the Supreme Court ruled on affirmative action policies was in 2016, affirming the University of Texas’ admissions policy was constitutional after white student Abigail Fisher sued the university. But that hasn’t stopped additional cases from moving forward. Two more, one against Harvard and one against the University of North Carolina, are pending. Unlike the Texas case, they both allege discrimination against African-American students.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post RantCrush Top 5: August 2, 2017 appeared first on Law Street.

Republican Representative Martha McSally commented on the Congressional dress code on the House floor on Wednesday. The debate over the dress code, which is not clearly stated and irregularly enforced, was reignited last week after a female reporter was turned away from the Speaker’s Lobby outside of the House chamber. Reporters congregate in that area to grab lawmakers for quick interviews and the dress code rules are stricter there than in other parts of the Capitol Building.

On Wednesday, when speaking on the House floor, McSally ended her speech by saying, “Before I yield back, I want to point out I’m standing here in my professional attire, which happens to be a sleeveless dress and open-toed shoes.”

Here’s @RepMcSally on the House floor wearing a sleeveless dress, which chamber security says violates dress code (rule doesn’t exist). pic.twitter.com/RCjOeYE3wd

— Rebecca Shabad (@RebeccaShabad) July 12, 2017

The dress code is actually not specifically written out, which is why it has been interpreted differently at different times. Right now, women are expected to not wear sleeveless blouses or dresses or shoes with open toes. Men are supposed to wear suit jackets and ties. But the only written specifics are contained in Jefferson’s Manual and Rules of the House of Representatives.

In the 2015 edition of that manual, it says that Tip O’Neill, who was Speaker of the House from 1977 – 1986, thought that proper attire should be “customary and traditional,” and elaborated by saying that meant a coat and tie for men and “appropriate” clothing for women. “Appropriate” is not very specific. The manual then states that the House Speaker should determine what is proper attire. In June, Speaker Paul Ryan reiterated that all House members should wear “appropriate business attire.”

.@SpeakerRyan: “Members should wear appropriate business attire…” pic.twitter.com/a4f1Oy5ifT

— CSPAN (@cspan) June 23, 2017

After the female reporter was turned away, a lot of people reacted to the outdated dress code, especially since it is so irregularly enforced. Moreover, many female lawmakers wear sleeveless clothes, particularly given the oppressively hot weather in Washington D.C. during the summer. And former First Lady Michelle Obama often wore sleeveless dresses in an official capacity.

The Speaker’s Lobby has one of the most ridiculous and backwards dress codes around. Did when I covered Congress. Still does. https://t.co/88yv6YSuz1

— Lizzie O’Leary (@lizzieohreally) July 6, 2017

This is not the first time McSally has put her foot down when it comes to men making rules about what women wear. Back in 2002, she sued then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over a military rule that required female soldiers to wear an abaya when off-base in Saudi Arabia.

At the time, McSally was the highest ranking female fighter-pilot in the U.S. She said the rule was unconstitutional, as male soldiers weren’t required to wear any particular clothes when off-base. Women also had to be accompanied by a man at all times when off duty. The rules were changed, and while the military said they had been under review for a while and had nothing to do with the lawsuit, McSally’s tenacity went down in history. And while it’s unclear whether her speech played any role in this decision, Paul Ryan just announced that the dress code will be “modernized.”

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Republican Congresswoman Argues Against Supposed House Dress Code appeared first on Law Street.

Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

It’s Health Care Bill Reveal Time!

This morning, Senate Republicans unveiled the draft of the new health care bill. They’ve been working on this bill behind closed doors for weeks now. House Republicans passed a first version of the bill last month, but President Trump urged the Senate to pass a “more generous” version. Under that House bill, 23 million people could lose their health care coverage. The Senate version is pretty similar to the House bill, except even less generous. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in the Senate version there are massive cuts to Medicaid, and it undoes important parts of Obamacare, like the individual mandate. It also eliminates Planned Parenthood funding.

BREAKING: Full text of the Senate’s closely-guarded health care bill has posted online. Read it: https://t.co/tWGoaC4whm pic.twitter.com/T18BUSFpTf

— CNN (@CNN) June 22, 2017

“Republicans are writing their health care bill under the cover of darkness because they are ashamed of it,” claimed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer earlier this week.

via GIPHY

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post RantCrush Top 5: June 22, 2017 appeared first on Law Street.

Bill O’Reilly’s departure from Fox News is being touted as a victory against the vitriolic reporting of the network. After multiple sexual harassment lawsuits against the cable anchorman became public, sponsors began pulling ads from the show to the point that Fox leadership decided to cut their losses and dismiss O’Reilly. But will that move actually change anything about Fox News?

“The O’Reilly Factor” was an incredibly popular program and producers scrambled to fill the profitable 8 p.m. weekday time slot that draws almost 4 million viewers each night. Tucker Carlson has been chosen from the Fox News bench to fill O’Reilly’s shoes. While he might not have the same popularity or fame as O’Reilly, Carlson’s dismissive views of women hardly make him a departure from the O’Reilly Factor era. For those who don’t regularly tune in to Fox News, Carlson is best known for his program “Crossfire”–which Jon Stewart famously tore to pieces in 2004. This year, Carlson replaced Megyn Kelly after her decision to leave Fox–so it would appear that Carlson is making a habit of replacing more popular hosts.

O’Reilly may be leaving Fox in disgrace, but the moral judgment passed on him does not translate into financial ruin. O’Reilly is receiving a $25 million payout upon his exit, a far greater sum than any of the women who sued him received, which is equal to one year of his salary. He will no doubt be invited to speak on cable news shows and on the lecture circuit, and already has a book deal to further augment his income.

Other media outlets might have taken O’Reilly’s departure as an opportunity to demonstrate a commitment to reform. Fox News could have hired outside of its existing anchor network, a true break from tradition. Even once the executives decided to hire in-house, they could have gone with a candidate with more experience with O’Reilly’s viewers–like host Laura Ingraham, who filled in for O’Reilly on multiple occasions. Ingraham tows the party line at Fox so hiring her would guarantee viewer retention while simultaneously serving as a gesture of respect towards female anchors at the network.

After Megyn Kelly’s departure, which O’Reilly reportedly contributed to, Fox had a chance to step back and address the pervasive sexism that female staff have faced at the network–a chance executives did not take. Representative Maxine Waters, who was personally attacked by O’Reilly, went so far as to call Fox News a “sexual harassment enterprise.” By appointing Carlson, the Fox team has only reaffirmed the culture O’Reilly and Roger Ailes built together at Fox. The window dressing might change, but the 8 p.m. weekday slot–and Fox News as a whole–will be the same, whether or not O’Reilly is at the helm.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Why Bill O’Reilly’s Departure Won’t Change Fox appeared first on Law Street.

United Airlines is receiving criticism, after it was reported that two young girls were prohibited from boarding a flight because they were wearing leggings. The girls were reportedly traveling from Denver to Minneapolis when three of them were stopped for their outfits. One changed out of the leggings and was let on the flight, and the other two were prohibited from boarding. Shannon Watts, a woman who was boarding a separate flight, tweeted about the incident:

1) A @united gate agent isn’t letting girls in leggings get on flight from Denver to Minneapolis because spandex is not allowed?

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) March 26, 2017

2) She’s forcing them to change or put dresses on over leggings or they can’t board. Since when does @united police women’s clothing?

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) March 26, 2017

3) Gate agent for flt 215 at 7:55. Said she doesn’t make the rules, just follows them. I guess @united not letting women wear athletic wear?

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) March 26, 2017

United responded to the tweets Watts sent, indicating that the girls were in violation of its “Contract of Carriage” which includes a provision that passengers be “properly clothed.” But the concept that adolescent girls wearing leggings is improper sparked outrage on social media.

A 10-year-old girl in gray leggings. She looked normal and appropriate. Apparently @united is policing the clothing of women and girls. https://t.co/RKsIFoE8pq

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) March 26, 2017

@shannonrwatts Hey, @united, you know how this ends, right? Images of women in leggings tagging you on social as they fly your competition.

— Jenn (@jennvzande) March 26, 2017

@washingtonpost leggings? Like the ones in your advertisement @united hmmmmm… pic.twitter.com/EfIlBRMlEY

— OLIVIA FOX RADIO (@Oliviafoxradio) March 26, 2017

For the record, the girl wearing the leggings was TEN YEARS OLD. Good luck to @united explaining why she looked too sexual.

— Dana Schwartz (@DanaSchwartzzz) March 26, 2017

@united Leggings are business attire for 10 year olds. Their business is being children.

— Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) March 26, 2017

United has since stated that the girls were flying as “pass riders,” which are usually family members of United employees. Apparently, those designated as pass riders are held to a stricter dress code that specifically includes a ban on spandex. A local outlet, 9News, spoke to Jonathan Geurin, a spokesperson for United, about this special pass rider dress code:

Pass riders have a stricter dress code to board. The three people involved in the incident did not meet the criteria for pass riders.

Pass riders are considered representatives of United and that extends to the dress code requirements. Casual attire for pass riders is allowed as long as it is in good taste for the environment.

As an example, Guerin says flip flops are not allowed for pass riders.

9NEWS asked to see the dress code policy for pass riders. Guerin says the information is part of an internal policy and will not be released at this time.

But that concept seems odd–it’s hard to believe that anyone would have mistaken pre-teen girls for employees, or assumed that they represented United just because they may have been related to an employee. United has announced that it’s looking into the policy and the complaint, but many were left with a bad taste by the incident. After all, leggings are normal travel attire for many women–and that’s certainly not the airline’s business.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post United Prevents Girls Wearing Leggings from Boarding Flight appeared first on Law Street.

In May 2016, Nicola Thorp arrived at accounting firm PwC in London for her first day as a temporary receptionist. But the first thing her temp supervisor said was that her shoes–a pair of black ballerina flats–were unacceptable, and she would have to get a pair with at least two inch heels. When she refused, she was sent home without pay.

Thorp said that she asked whether the same rules applied to her male colleagues, but the supervisor just laughed at her. The company couldn’t give her a single reason when she asked how wearing heels would improve her work. “I was expected to do a nine-hour shift on my feet escorting clients to meeting rooms. I said ‘I just won’t be able to do that in heels,'” she said.

Five months after the incident, Thorp created an online petition that quickly collected more than 150,000 signatures. Dozens of women tweeted photos about wearing flats to work in protest. It prompted an inquiry by two British parliamentary committees. On Wednesday, the committees released a report on the issue and concluded that the outsourcing firm, Portico, had broken the law.

#FamiliarFeminist of the day is #NicolaThorp!! Let’s make the work place safe and comfortable for women everywhere.https://t.co/DmWTikWYgW

— #UndefeatedSisters (@BeandBeyond_) January 27, 2017

This may seem like a petty matter, but for women fighting for professional equality, it is a big step. Aside from the fact that this rule is blatantly old-fashioned and sexist, Thorp also cited public health concerns, as high heels can be damaging to women’s feet. Why should women suffer through wearing them if it doesn’t improve their work, and the same uncomfortable rules don’t apply to men? During their investigation, the committees came across hundreds of cases of women who had been ordered to dye their hair blonde, wear more revealing clothes, or constantly reapply makeup.

The shoes that got Thorp sent home from work are already famous.

@HackneyMuseum Neat bit of contemporary collecting. Shoes that got Nicola Thorp sacked in 2016 pic.twitter.com/NHHkFYqVkL

— Museum of Marco Polo (@MoMarcoPolo) January 4, 2017

The parliamentary report stated that the law needs to be tightened to combat sexism in the workplace. “Discriminatory dress codes remain widespread,” the report said, and reiterated concern for workers who are affected by them, “many of whom are young women in insecure jobs who already feel vulnerable in the workplace.” Even though the dress code that the company imposed on Thorp was unlawful, many companies still require their female employees to wear heels. The government expects companies to research and follow the law voluntarily, but this is not enough, according to the report.

Thorp herself pointed out that now, more than ever, with a U.S. president who brags about grabbing women, it is important for women to speak up about this kind of discrimination. She said:

I refused to work for a company that expected women to wear makeup, heels and a skirt. This is unacceptable in 2017. People say sexism is not an issue anymore. But when a man who has admitted publicly to sexually harassing women is the leader of the free world, it is more crucial than ever to have laws that protect women.

The outsourcing company Thorp was working for, Portico, has said it has rewritten its appearance guidelines. It used to include warnings against greasy hair or flower accessories, and demanded heels two to four inches high, makeup “worn at all times” and “regularly reapplied,” with a minimum of lipstick, mascara, and eye shadow. Representatives for the company she was sent to work for, PwC, emphasized that the heels requirement was not in their guidelines and that they are committed to gender equality.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Nicola Thorp: Woman Who Was Sent Home for Wearing Flats Sparks Change in the UK appeared first on Law Street.

Journalist Lauren Duca appeared in an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News on Friday, discussing the harassment of Ivanka Trump on an airplane, and the conversation soon turned into a heated debate. Carlson had brought Duca on to question her about one of her tweets that seemed to defend the man who shouted at Ivanka Trump. But when asked, Duca explained that she did not defend the action, she just thought that Trump’s children should not be exempt from scrutiny just because they are young, beautiful and, in the case of Ivanka, looks like she “smells good.”

Ivanka Trump is poised to become the most powerful woman in the world. Don’t let her off the hook because she looks like she smells good.

— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) December 23, 2016

But Carlson seemed to not accept Duca’s assurance that they did have the same opinion about the specific incident. Instead, he kept repeating his stance that Duca approved of shouting at people on airplanes, interrupted her, and talked over her. Finally he said, “stick to the thigh-high boots. You’re better at that,” and ended the segment while Duca was still talking. That last bit was a reference to Duca’s job at Teen Vogue. After the interview aired, many people hailed her as a hero and feminist role model for standing up to the male news anchor. But soon, the online threats started pouring in. Men hiding behind their computer screens started sending her emails and tweets with rape threats.

Messages like this — positioning sexual assault as a means of keeping women in line — make me want to fight even harder. pic.twitter.com/gtvMGQ9cpx

— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) December 27, 2016

The threats peaked on Christmas Day. Duca said it was especially discouraging that many people, and even websites, claimed that she had defended the man harassing Ivanka, when she had explicitly said the opposite. She said she tried to discuss it with one of them, but he only answered “get raped” and was clearly not interested in a conversation. But she received a whole lot of support, too, and her number of Twitter followers had doubled by Tuesday afternoon, to over 104,000.

OK, good night @GeorgeTakei and everyone else pic.twitter.com/CMKd2zCPNn

— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) December 27, 2016

The rape threats are truly challenging my faith in humanity, but this makes it all feel worth it. Love trumps hate. pic.twitter.com/DiIZAcFNOQ

— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) December 25, 2016

And she had a message for the people harassing others online:

Harassment is a theft of social capital via time & energy. It’s exhausting and wholly unethical. It will also never be enough to silence me.

— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) December 28, 2016

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Lauren Duca Receives Online Threats After Tucker Carlson Interview appeared first on Law Street.

Actress Lena Dunham hit the mark with her 2016 Halloween Costume, seemingly inspired by quotes from Republican nominee Donald Trump. She dressed as a surprised cat with two plastic hands attached to her, portraying a “grabbed p***y.” She posted a picture on her Instagram on Monday evening. “Happy Halloween! With love from a Grabbed P—y,” she wrote.

@LenaDunham sassily takes aim at Donald Trump with her Halloween costume https://t.co/znoJ4dogVF pic.twitter.com/0oUufCP6lL

— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) November 1, 2016

Dunham’s inspiration came from the audio recording that was leaked earlier in October when Trump was heard saying, “when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p—y. You can do anything,” to TV personality Billy Bush, who has since been sacked by NBC. And ironically the tape might have still been a secret if Bush himself hadn’t bragged about having had that conversation with Trump while in Rio covering the Olympics. Someone at NBC then thought it would be funny to dig up the old tape and release it, which Bush probably hadn’t counted on.

Dunham is a Clinton supporter and spoke out against Trump in People Magazine after the audiotape was released:

To hear someone in a position of power, in the race for the highest office in the land, to say something that is so distinctly violent, and so distinctly abusive — I think it creates a lot of fear and a lot of sort of pain in the public consciousness that we’re going to be dealing with for a long time.

Over the weekend and on Monday, she campaigned for Clinton in North Carolina and has been urging people on Twitter to go vote early.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Lena Dunham Took a Shot at Trump with Bold Halloween Costume appeared first on Law Street.

After a compromising audio recording from 2005–in which Donald Trump brags about groping women–was revealed last week, Trump had no other option than to apologize. But it nevertheless made several Republicans withdraw their support for him. After hearing the recording, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that he hopes Trump “works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests,” which made John Oliver burst out in a wordy monolog on Sunday, barely stopping to take a breath.

“It is too late in absolutely every way,” John Oliver said of the recent round of un-endorsements. “First, it’s October of an election year, and second, he’s fucking 70.”

He went on to show clips of different Republicans revoking their support of the Republican nominee after hearing the tape. Many did so with words like, “I have five daughters,” or, “I have a wife, I have a daughter, I have a mother, and I have five sisters.”

It should not be necessary to have to go through, as Oliver says, “such an elaborate six-degrees-of-separation exercise to arrive at someone with a Y chromosome that you can feel sorry for,” to think it’s not okay to talk like that about other human beings.

Here’s the full clip:

John McCain wrote in a statement on Saturday that he will not vote for Trump. In an earlier statement, he said: “He alone bears the burden of his conduct and alone should suffer the consequences.” For that, John Oliver called him out. “He alone does not bear the burden of his conduct because he alone did not make himself your party’s nominee,” he said to Republicans who’ve supported Trump up until now. “All of you have consistently supported him through some absolutely heinous shit.”

He added:

In his very first campaign speech, he called Mexicans ‘rapists’–and that was just the beginning. Because since then, he’s proposed a temporary ban on Muslim immigrants; advocated for killing terrorists’ families, which is, by the way, a war crime; argued for waterboarding even if it doesn’t obtain information because, and I quote: ‘they deserve it anyway;’ and just this week he stood by his claims that the Central Park Five were guilty despite the fact that DNA evidence has since exonerated them.

At this point, no one can pretend to be shocked by Donald Trump’s behavior, especially not the people that have stood by him despite wildly offensive comments that have all but become the signature of his campaign.

He ended by saying that this is essentially the logical conclusion of the election cycle:

The first female presidential nominee versus the human embodiment of every backward, condescending, ‘Mad Men’-esque boys’ club attitude that has ever existed, rolled into one giant, salivating, dick size–referencing, pussy-grabbing warthog in a red power tie.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post John Oliver Rips Republicans Who Waited Until Now to Un-Endorse Trump appeared first on Law Street.

It is finally seen as professional misconduct for men to make sexist remarks or call women “honey” and similar epithets when practicing law in court. Thanks to the American Bar Association’s (ABA) revisions to its ethics rules, sexism as well as comments or actions based on a person’s religion, race, sex, sexual orientation and other factors are no longer allowed.

Discrimination Against Women

Even though some states already have similar rules in place, there has been no formal, nationwide prohibition against such behavior. Therefore many male lawyers have felt free to use misogynistic language to undermine female opposing counsels, causing many female law practitioners to feel belittled and discriminated against.

Some of the women who spoke with the New York Times described how condescending male lawyers treated them when carrying out their profession. “Don’t raise your voice at me. It’s not becoming of a woman,” one man told lawyer Lori Rifkin when she objected to him interrupting her. “I got the pat on the head,” said Jenny Waters, now chief executive of the National Association of Women Lawyers, about working as a lawyer.

NAWL is a group that has supported the rights of female lawyers since 1899 and has over 5,000 members. They sent a letter to ABA to support the amendment to the ethics rule. And it worked–ABA presented the revised rule at its annual meeting in San Francisco on Tuesday. Any violations against it will result in either a fine or suspension from practice.

The Changes

The additions to the rule prevent discrimination based on sex, race, religion, and several other factors. They also detail what constitutes sexual harassment. The updated the ethics rule notes:

Discrimination and harassment by lawyers […] undermines confidence in the legal profession and the legal system. Such discrimination includes harmful verbal or physical conduct that manifests bias or prejudice towards others

The rule also describes that it applies during any activity that is related to the lawyer’s practicing of law. This includes when:

Representing clients; interacting with witnesses, coworkers, court personnel, lawyers and others while engaged in the practice of law; operating or managing a law firm or law practice; and participating in bar association, business or social activities in connection with the practice of law.

This part of the rule caused critics to say that the new rules could lead to limitations on free speech while working with clients, but so far no lawyers have objected to the adoption of the revisions. Further revisions were made before approving the rule to make sure it is only offensive conduct if the person doing it “knows or reasonably should know [it] is harassment or discrimination.”

Only 36 percent of law practitioners are women, according to the American Bar Association, and they still make about $1,400 less than men per month. But at least this new rule is more than welcome as a step forward in the fight for gender equality.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post No More Sweet-Talking: ABA Bans Calling Female Lawyers ‘Honey’ appeared first on Law Street.

Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

Let The Sexist Commentary Begin!

Last night at the DNC, Hillary Clinton officially accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. Many viewers, including myself, were in awe of such a historic moment. I’m sure the opposition seized in disbelief. We all have a lot to say about what went on last night, from Katy Perry’s performance to Hillary Clinton’s killer white pantsuit (loved it!). But for some reason, the hot topic this morning is not what Hillary said during her acceptance speech, but how she sounded.

James Naughtie, a BBC commentator on the “Today Programme,” responded to a question about whether Clinton had a “woman problem” saying:

 She does. There’s something about her which puts some people off. It’s partly the history. It’s partly the slightly shrill tone which she tends to adopt sometimes in speeches.

And during her speech on Thursday night, many on Twitter couldn’t resist telling Clinton to smile and commenting about her voice. I guess we’ve got a lot of sexist coverage to look forward to.

via GIPHY

Rant Crush

RantCrush collects the top trending topics in the law and policy world each day just for you.

The post RantCrush Top 5: July 29, 2016 appeared first on Law Street.

Donald Trump recently told his supporters that “If Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she would get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she’s got going is the woman card.” Twitter users balked at the multiple levels of stupid and offensive tucked inside his statement; namely that it is somehow easier for women to run for public office than men, or that Hillary’s gender is her leading (or only) accomplishment. Men and women alike turned their trigger fingers into Twitter fingers to rebuke Trump’s sexist comments. Check out some of the best tweets below:

The Loyalty Card

I wish my #womancard gave me discounts on shoes and tampons instead of being a discount card for same work pay.

— Heather Wilson-Smith (@GoddessesUnite) April 27, 2016

Sean Simon

Sean Simon is an Editorial News Senior Fellow at Law Street, and a senior at The George Washington University, studying Communications and Psychology. In his spare time, he loves exploring D.C. restaurants, solving crossword puzzles, and watching sad foreign films. Contact Sean at SSimon@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Twitter Shows Trump the Real “Woman Card” appeared first on Law Street.

Berniebros are demanding answers to #WhatsInHillarysPurse in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s eyebrow-raising hot sauce admission.

Last week Clinton declared that she always has a bottle of the peppery condiment on standby after being asked the question “what’s something you always carry with you?” during a radio interview with “The Breakfast Club.” Because “hot sauce” likely wasn’t the presidential-yet-still-feminine answer that listeners had anticipated, Clinton was accused of pandering to minority voters with a popular Beyoncé reference.

Of all the Clinton hot sauce skeptics out there, The Berniebros [sic] were definitely the most savage. This douchey subset of Bernie Sanders supporters, known for bullying others into “feeling the Bern,” capitalized on the political misstep by speculating what else may be hiding in the former Secretary of State’s bag.

Under the hashtag #WhatsInHillarysPurse, critics took turns taking jabs mainly at Clinton’s personal life, her emails, and her overall credibility. Here’s what they had to say.

#WhatsInHillarysPurse Several flash drives full of incriminating evidence. Right next to the hot sauce.

— Roberto Sandernista (@Gungledink) April 25, 2016

#WhatsInHillarysPurse Her memoirs from Bosnia (Foreword written by historian & fellow truth-teller Brian Williams) pic.twitter.com/JCwwa7iGXG

— Bilal Raza Rizvi (@bilalraza) April 25, 2016

Stolen votes from Brooklyn and the Bronx #NYPrimary
#WhatsInHillarysPurse

— JeSuisNotWithHer (@RenagadeGirl) April 25, 2016

Server wipes#WhatsInHillarysPurse pic.twitter.com/Q6R7MALvJ4

— Brendan McInnis (@BrendanMcInnis) April 25, 2016

Bill’s Leash
…………………..And It Is VERY Short#WhatsInHillarysPurse

— McMannofthepeople (@McMannofthepeop) April 25, 2016

Nothing. The contents have been scrubbed, shredded, and trashed. #WhatsInHillarysPurse

— Shannon Knutsen (@STKnutsen) April 25, 2016

Clinton’s supporters were quick to call the hashtag a sexist attempt at discrediting the female candidate, since no one seems to be wondering what’s in the wallets of her male contemporaries.

Not saying I’m a Hilary supporter but #WhatsInHillarysPurse is super sexist. Nobody’s asking what’s in Trump’s pockets or under his toupee

— Tiffany D. Jackson (@WriteinBK) April 25, 2016

Some of Clinton’s supporters even chose to adopt the hashtag to show support for the Democratic frontrunner instead.

Hashtags don’t win you squat. #WhatsInHillarysPurse? Try millions more popular votes and an insurmountable pledged delegate lead.

— Joseph Hughes (@nczeitgeist) April 25, 2016

#WhatsInHillarysPurse? A Thermos full of Bernie tears! pic.twitter.com/O5T2Uhn9mW

— Hillary’s Uterus (@HillarysUterus) April 25, 2016

While the actual contents of Clinton’s bag are probably top secret, one thing may be certain. If Sanders doesn’t win 59 percent of the remaining delegates, Hillary will definitely have the Democratic nomination in the bag.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post #WhatsinHillarysPurse: Hillary’s Hot Sauce Inspires Sexist Hashtag appeared first on Law Street.

Although gender equality in the sporting world is far from perfect, a majority of sports now have women’s leagues. One notable exception is racing–both Formula 1 and NASCAR. Danica Patrick has worked tirelessly to be a visible competitor on the NASCAR scene but few other female American drivers have been recognized. In Formula 1, there are only a handful of female drivers who were recently made to feel even more out of place in their sport when Bernie Ecclestone, Chief Executive of the Formula One Group, said in an interview with The Daily Beast that he didn’t know “whether a woman would physically be able to drive an F1 car quickly, and they wouldn’t be taken seriously.” Ecclestone said in the same interview that he thinks women can break through as executives outside of the sporting world, but by stating that women are not physically capable of driving in Formula 1 Races, he has effectively written them off as trivial rather than valuable contributors to the sport.

Mario Andretti was asked to comment on women in Formula 1 in the wake of Ecclestone’s comments and told TMZ that

You could be more delicate about it, but Formula 1 has been in existence for what, 66 years, and we’ve only seen 5 women try and compete and none have really been successful.
The bottom line is you can make assertions until the cows come home. Saying women can do it. Bottom line, they have to prove it. You can’t just come out of the woodwork and say ‘I want to be a F1 driver.’ You need to earn your way there.  Will it happen one day? It’s impossible to predict, but I’d say probably yes. At the same time, someone else might say, if it was going to happen, why hasn’t it happened in 66 years?  I think it’s clearly more of a men’s sport. Could there be some women who are competitive? Like with tennis… could Serena Williams compete with men? I think yes, but could she win a major, I don’t know.

Former Williams test driver Susie Wolff has stepped forward, stating that Ecclestone’s comments were taken out of context and that Ecclestone has committed to her Dare to be Different initiative, which aims to get more girls interested in motor sports. However, Wolff’s defense of Ecclestone (and his commitment to her initiative) may be too little too late. By claiming that women don’t have the physical capacity to drive at the highest level of racing, Ecclestone has undercut decades of hard work and sacrifice from the women who are pioneering gender integration in Formula 1.

Just because women are a minority in the sport does not mean that they are not capable. When given access to the training, funding, and resources that male drivers receive, women can also compete on the most challenging race tracks in the world. It is a question of opportunity, not of ability. Ecclestone and Andretti are working on the flawed assumption that because no woman has emerged as a racing champion equivalent to a male driver in the past, it would be impossible for such a female to exist in the present or the future. In reality, all forms of sport are based on breaking records and pushing forward rather than being tied to the way the sport was conducted in the past.

When male leaders in the motor sport community dismiss the possibility of female talent, they are shutting the door for the current generation of girls who find racing interesting. These girls may enjoy driving and cars just as much or more than their male peers but when they are constantly told that there is no way they will ever compete seriously, they lose all inspiration and incentive to continue training and racing. Ecclestone and Andretti should have stepped forward and challenged young women to break into the boys’ club of motor sport so that it can become just as diverse as any other major sport. By falling back on antiquated notions of female ability, Ecclestone and Andretti are hammering the final nail into the coffin–if the most high profile and experienced men in the sport don’t think you’re capable, then you can bet no one else will.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Where are the Women in Formula 1? appeared first on Law Street.

Raymond Moore, CEO of the BNP Paribas Open, left his post this week after he stated that women’s tennis “rides on the coat-tails” of the men’s game and that female players “should get down on their knees” in gratitude for famous male players who have, in his eyes, kept the sport afloat.

Moore’s comments angered tennis players from around the world but even though his immediate removal from his post suggests that the tennis community will not stand for this kind of blatant sexism, there has been a surprising wave of agreement with Moore’s comments.

Famed tennis star Novak Djokovic has claimed that male tennis players should be awarded more prize money at competitions because men attract more spectators. He went on to say that:

[Women’s] bodies–and their bodies are much different than men’s bodies–they have to go through a lot of different things that we don’t have to go through. You know, the hormones and different stuff–we don’t need to go into details. Ladies know what I’m talking about. Really, great admiration and respect for them to be able to fight on such a high level.

Djokovic also said that women have to make “sacrifices for certain periods of time, the family time or decisions that they make on their own bodies in order to play tennis.” Although Djokovic was clearly fumbling to reform his comment into a statement that respected women, the mere concept that women are too “hormonal” to compete on the same level as men and that they should set aside time for family life that male athletes should not is not a compliment nor a mark of respect.

Serena Williams responded to Djokovic’s comment, saying that: “Novak is entitled to his opinion but if he has a daughter–I think he has a son right now–he should talk to her and tell her how his son deserves more money because he is a boy.” Djokovic could have made a simple statistical argument about prize money–tournaments that attract more spectators in person and are viewed more on television should have a bigger prize at the end–but by choosing to make the discussion about female bodies and “hormones,” he has stepped firmly into the camp of sexism.

It is never acceptable to suggest that women deserve to be making less in their chosen place of work, but the insult is especially galling in a field where women have historically been excluded because their bodies were considered too weak to play. Female competitors spent centuries being labeled “enthusiasts” rather than athletes. We are lucky enough to have hundreds of strong female athletes in sports across the world who demonstrate that women are capable of incredible athleticism–but consider that the Olympics only began accepting female athletes in 1900,  the U.S. Women’s Open only began in 1946, the FIFA Women’s World Cup only began in 1991, and the Women’s National Basketball Association was only formed in 1996.

Gender parity is not alive and well in the sporting world, even at the highest tier, where men should respect the women who worked the same long, draining hours they did to become champions. Professional athletes and organizers who participate in tournaments such as the BNP Paribas Open are not ignorant of the training athletes of both genders have to go through in order to become the best in their sport. Less than fifty years ago, Billie Jean King and the other founders of the Women’s Tennis Association had to fight to receive equal pay–male tennis players told them that “No one is going to ever pay to watch you birds play.”

Modern women’s tennis is a testament to the work of King and her contemporaries, as millions of viewers tune in to women’s matches, attend the matches in person ,and follow the careers of female athletes. Yet after comments like those of Djokovic and Moore, it would seem that little movement has occurred since the 1970s.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post A Lesson in Sexism: Moore and Djokovic Trivialize Women in Tennis appeared first on Law Street.

You’ve probably seen some coverage of it in the last few days: a man named Daryush Valizadeh, more commonly known as Roosh V., has been advocating for international meet ups of his readers this weekend. Roosh V. founded the site called “Return of Kings” and purports to be the leader of a movement called “neomasculinity,” as well as an accomplished “pick-up artist.” But his arguably most controversial position–the legalization of rape on private property–drew international attention. In light of the widespread criticism, leaders and advocates rallied against the meet ups, and they have since been cancelled.

The meet ups were supposed to be on February 6, all over the world. According to the Return of Kings site, there were to be 165 meetings in 43 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. While Return of Kings originally publicly gave instructions for how to find the meet ups, after protests began, the organizers began to privatize the meet ups and required that prospective attendees prove that they were legitimately fans of the site (or one of Roosh V.’s other exploits) by one of three means:

• If you’ve left a non-hater comment on ROK or RooshV.com using your Disqus account before January 15.
• If you have an active account on RVF that is at least three months old.
• If you can provide a screenshot receipt of one of my books (Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, Paypal, etc) that was purchased before January 15.

Eventually, the meetings were cancelled altogether; according to a message posted by Roosh V. yesterday:

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post MRA Group Making Waves: What’s Up with all These Return of Kings Meet Ups? appeared first on Law Street.

There is a mixture of excitement and dread that permeates the air around the holidays. Excitement because, for most, we get a few badly-needed days off, we can expect at least a few gifts, and we get to talk to those friends and family who we haven’t seen in months. Of course, the dread comes in because we have to scrape together enough funds to return the favor of those gifts, and we have to talk to those friends and family who we haven’t seen in months.

Different generations have different fears about what they’ll run into on the long, wintry visit home. For high school and college students, it’s the questions from older relatives like, “Do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend/horde of cats?” For professionals, it’s the questions from younger and older relatives like, “Do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend/horde of cats?”

And for many, we are not looking forward to having the inevitable discussions about politics with the set-in-their-ways relatives whose views differ so completely from ours.

While we’d like life to be like the Thanksgiving SNL skit where all disputes are solved by playing a little Adele, sadly the the melancholy tones of “Hello” will not stop your aunt or your grandfather or your young cousin who doesn’t know any better from questioning your political views, or even your way of life.

To help you out, here is a list of issues that might come up, and how you can keep from pulling your hair out. Deep breaths, you can get through this. Though, breaking out into song may be necessary.

Islamophobia

A hot-button topic on the campaign trail and in the news is, of course, the Syrian refugee crisis and its connection to ISIS. These might be subjects you would like to avoid with your grandmother who says vaguely racist things on a daily basis, but what if they come up?

First and foremost, remain calm. This goes for any touchy conversation. It is probably the easiest to get angry with our own family members, but nobody ever changed their opinions after being yelled at to stop their racist bullshit.

Facts are your friend, in this case, so point out the facts. There are millions of U.S. residents who identify as Muslim, but there isn’t an exact number because census data doesn’t record religious affiliations. Do you know why? Because U.S. citizens are supposed to be free from religious persecution. “Supposed to be” being the key phrase, here. Furthermore, ISIS wants the western world to be afraid of Muslims, and it wants people to misunderstand Islam so the Muslim population will subscribe to ISIS’ extremist views. Luckily, despite misconceptions perpetrated by conservatives and the media, the millions of Muslims who live, work and protect America are not extremists.

Sexism

It is a truth universally acknowledged that men and women deal with societal expectations based on gender. The stereotypical “having it all” for girls means finding a husband, landing a great job, and having a few children. For guys, it means making enough money to easily and happily support their spouse and 2.5 children. Maybe throw in a golden retriever for bonus points.

But the reality is that not everyone wants what society expects. While your parents and grandparents may have fit into that model, an exceeding number of young professionals do not. Maybe you’re a woman who does not want marriage or children, but has instead decided to focus on her career. Maybe you’re a man who has decided to be a stay-at-home dad while your common-law wife works a 9-to-5. Whatever your life choices, the best thing you can do when you receive passive aggressive comments about them is not to apologize.

You don’t need to make excuses or explain your way of life. When someone says, “your biological clock is ticking” or “you’d better settle down with a man before all the good ones are taken!” call out those comments for what they are: judgmental and outdated. Nobody needs to conform to sexist gender roles to feel fulfilled. Do what makes you happy and don’t say sorry. *Cues happy dancing*

Homophobia

Don’t forget to pack your rainbow flag before heading home so you can wave it in the faces of all your homophobic relatives! It is sure to be both entertaining and effective.

In all seriousness, most peoples’ homophobia stems from religious beliefs. So, if anyone complains about the historical decision to legalize same-sex marriage, you can ask them for a reason LGBT people should not be allowed to marry–outside of religious excuses. If they cannot give any legitimate reasons (and let’s face it, there really aren’t any), just remind them that we are a nation of many religions, and not everyone agrees with Christian ideals. Then wave aforementioned rainbow flag.

“Those damn millennials!”

If you are one of the thousands of 20-somethings who suffer from student loan debt, you’ve heard yourself referred to as an “ungrateful millennial” more than once this year. The generations that came before worked their way through college, after all, so why are we complaining about paying back that money? Why do we all want free handouts?

You can remind whichever relative brings it up that, in 1979, the minimum wage was $2.90 and students could easily pay for a year of school (public schools were around the $3,000 price tag) by working a job over the summer. Today’s minimum wage is $7.25, and that $4.35 bump per hour doesn’t really cover the difference in tuition costs, which now leave students with an average of $30,000 in debt. And that’s just undergrad.

Show them the math, and then tell them about how much you have to pay back on your loans every month. That amount, plus rent, insurance bills, and various other expenses like car loans and gas money, don’t leave a lot of expendable income for young graduates trying to break into their respective industry. And that lack of money probably has something to do with many young people putting off other big ticket items in their lives: settling down, buying a house, having kids, etc.

Remember, the greatest tools in your arsenal are facts and a calm demeanor. Keep an open mind, and if all else fails, stop talking and stuff your face with sugar cookies.

Morgan McMurray

Morgan McMurray is an editor and gender equality blogger based in Seattle, Washington. A 2013 graduate of Iowa State University, she has a Bachelor of Arts in English, Journalism, and International Studies. She spends her free time writing, reading, teaching dance classes, and binge-watching Netflix. Contact Morgan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post How to Deal With Family and Politics During the Holidays appeared first on Law Street.

A whole lot of bullshit happened this week, from a subset of Christians becoming outraged about the new, plainer, less-Christmasy Starbucks holiday cup, to finding out Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson doesn’t think the pyramids were used as royal burial grounds.

Seriously, who is supporting that guy?

But let’s talk about Ariana Grande for a second. Yes, the Ariana Grande who faced some legal trouble after licking those doughnuts.

At least she apologized? But anyway, there are many better things about the actress/singer to focus on.

For example, her recent interview at Power 106 FM, where, toward the end of a roughly twenty minute-long talk, the DJs asked her what she would choose between giving up her phone and giving up make-up.

She, rightfully, questioned the motives behind the question, and the DJs responded with sexist stereotyping and disbelief that a girl could go without her cell phone for hours. The sexist comments continued through talking about emojis, because apparently a unicorn can’t be unisex. Finally, when asked about what she would change in the world, she dropped this on them:

I have a long list of things I’d like to change. I think, judgement in general; intolerance, meanness, double standards, misogyny, racism, sexism. You know, all that shit. There’s lots we’ve got to get started on…We’ll start with you, though.

Feminists everywhere agree, Ms. Grande.

But even though the topics covered in their conversation were somewhat trivial, and Ariana’s message of equality was friendly and absolutely justified in this context, the response from social media was overwhelmingly negative. Many referenced her doughnut-licking fiasco as a reason not to take her seriously, and still others knocked her for what she wears onstage and in music videos, going so far as to suggest that she deserves such sexist degradation because of her persona.

No.

Ariana Grande, along with several other female celebrities who don’t dress according to what society thinks is “appropriate,” has long stood for equality and loving yourself the way you are. Take her recent reaction to someone comparing her to Modern Family‘s Ariel Winter:

here we go again…. Sure I’m not the only 1 feeling this way today!! in case you need a reminder, you’re beautiful pic.twitter.com/OPQIgzroEI

— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) November 2, 2015

So just because you don’t like the music she creates, or you disagree with something she has done in the past, does that really justify shaming her when she makes absolute sense? No. Past performance is no indication of future performance, and anyone–celebrity or non-celebrity, woman or man–is absolutely allowed to change their minds, views, or opinions. But people don’t live by that rule, which is why we run into things like Hillary Clinton’s many, many Benghazi hearings.

If a person like Ariana Grande, who you may not particularly like or respect, says something that is absolutely true, your opinion of her should not devalue her message. Sexism, whenever it appears, should always be questioned and shut down.

Morgan McMurray

Morgan McMurray is an editor and gender equality blogger based in Seattle, Washington. A 2013 graduate of Iowa State University, she has a Bachelor of Arts in English, Journalism, and International Studies. She spends her free time writing, reading, teaching dance classes, and binge-watching Netflix. Contact Morgan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Ariana Grande is a Doughnut Licker, and a Feminist appeared first on Law Street.

Oh, I would love it if the way that people are talking about 16-year-old Melissa Mayeux–an excellent French shortstop (and the first woman to be added to the MLB’s international registration list, which makes her technically eligible to be signed this week)–is how we would talk about men.

Take Yankees outfielder Garrett Jones. How ‘ridiculous’ would it be if I took his ‘supportive’ comments about Mayeux and made them about men? Let’s find out, shall we? (Brackets are where I’ve switched pronouns and other such gender-y words.)

I watched the video of [him] taking ground balls and hitting, and [he] looked really good for being 16… [He] looked good for a 16-year-old [girl]. I’m for it. If a [boy] can play up to the level and compete with [gals], I’m all for it. If [he] can compete and help the team win, why not? It’s pretty cool that [boys] are playing baseball. I didn’t know they had that in other countries, like France. So, why not? If a [boy] can compete with the [gals] and play, why not let [him] play?

Hahaha, funny, right–isn’t it so odd to talk about how surprising it is that boys might be as good as girls at something? But it is not ridiculous–it is, in fact, considered complimentary–when we talk about girls that way. When we’re shocked that girls and women are–not can be, but are–as good as men at sports. Or maybe–gasp!–even better?

Keep your compliments to yourselves, boys. I don’t want to hear that I can play if I’m as good as you. (I already know I’m better.)

And just for clarity there, Jones: were you unclear as to whether people in general play baseball in France? Or that girls are allowed to play?

Probably the second one, because you seem surprised that girls play baseball at all (though I suppose you’re right: it is “pretty cool”).

But I suppose maybe it’s not fair for me to take Jones as a proverbial straw man: he was, after all, trying to be supportive, and anyway, the problem is not limited to him.

There’s a problem in the way that most male-dominated sports-casting is discussing Mayeux: in sporting industries where women must automatically be on the defensive regarding whether or not we are “as good as” men, we are bound to get sexist reporting and commentary that is trying very hard to sound non-sexist.

Except it’s failing. Because it is evidence of a sexist industry when supportive people are referring to Mayeux as a “legitimate” shortstop (would we question a man’s legitimacy in his position?)

It is evidence of a misogynist industry when MLB Director of International Game Development Mike McClellan comments on Mayeux smoking a 91 mile-per-hour fastball that she “looked good doing it.”

It is evidence of a misogynist industry when articles rush to assure readers that Mayeux is not interested in–or (unrealistically unlikely) even aware of–breaking down gender barriers.

If she were an outspoken advocate for her right as a woman to enter the MLB, would she be considered a less “legitimate” shortstop?

In the male-dominated gaze of pro sports? Probably, yeah.

Jennifer Polish

Jennifer Polish is an English PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC, where she studies non/human animals and the racialization of dis/ability in young adult literature. When she’s not yelling at the computer because Netflix is loading too slowly, she is editing her novel, doing activist-y things, running, or giving the computer a break and yelling at books instead. Contact Jennifer at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post You Play Ball Like a Girl! appeared first on Law Street.

The gaming industry is massive, raking in $100 billion worldwide. The industry has come a long way since Tetris and Pac-man. Video games are on cellphones–think Candy Crush. Gamers can use a headset to talk to one another half way across the globe while playing out a visually realistic battle scene. The technology is impressive and has lured people in from all different backgrounds and ages. One would think that the diversity of the games would be mirrored in the industry itself; however, critics of the industry frequently lob accusations of misogyny and the perpetuation of rape culture, which is ironic since 48 percent of gamers are women. Is this merely the market responding to the demand of its consumers or is this the industry actively demeaning a large section of its customer base?

Gender Roles Inside the Games

Female Gamers

A female presence has always been in the gaming industry, but it has skyrocketed in the last few years. In 2011, 1.2 million girls and women played on their consoles more than five days a week. Today that number is more than 5 million.

It is time to change the face of the stereotypical gamer. In reality, males between the ages of 10-25 only account for 15 percent of the market. Puzzle-oriented games on cell phones, like Words With Friends, have created a more diverse marketplace. For example, according to the Entertainment Software Association, from 2012-2013, female gamers over the age of 50 increased by 32 percent. With cell phones and social media, games are much more user-friendly. Game developers took notice and started creating games specifically aimed at women. “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood” amassed $51 million since its launch, making it one of the highest grossing apps on iPhones and Androids.

But these types of games cannot take all the credit. Yes, they have helped bring a new audience, but the average female gamer has been playing for more than 13 years, which predates the explosion of such casual mobile games. Many females play more stereotypical games like “Call of Duty” and want to be treated fairly. According to a study conducted by Danielle Keats Citron, author of “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace,” 70 percent of female gamers play as a male character in order to avoid sexual harassment and ridicule. Apparently, playing as a male character ensures equal treatment.

Female Characters

Female characters inside more stereotypical video games like “Assassins Creed” or “World of Warcraft” are sexually objectified and hyper-sexualized. Female protagonists look more like porn stars than badass warriors. Of course, this is only true when female protagonists are even allowed in the games. And female extras are even worse off, some experiencing extreme sexual violence.

The latest installment of “Assassin’s Creed,” for example, offered no female protagonists. Ubisoft technical director James Therien claimed adding a female character would have “doubled the work” for the animation team. Game designer Jonathon Cooper, a lead developer for earlier installments of the game, denied this, estimating it would have only taken days. So what’s the real reason?

When female protagonists are offered, they are hyper-sexualized. Most “women in drawn art, comics, and animation must and show, look and move with flowy, exaggerated gestures, graceful movements, and hip, chest, and ass thrust forward.” These women perpetuate completely unrealistic ideals of women. Skimpy clothing, skirts, bows, and makeup don’t create an advantage in combat.

Then of course there is the damsel-in-distress stereotype. The female character is at a loss until her knight in shining armor type comes to rescue her. For example, there is Princess Peach who “wears a gown, dainty gloves, and a clueless expression, which imply nothing as far as skill and ability, unless you consider her special attack: a dimpled, smiling heart that protects her cart.” Her character is indeed less capable than her male counterparts.

“Grand Theft Auto V” promotes extreme sexual violence. Even more exaggerated by a first-person view option, a gamer can watch as a prostitute services the character. All you need to do is drive or walk up close to a prostitute. It can even boost character health to more than 100 percent. And in the end, you can kill the prostitute and take your money back. Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of GTA’s publisher Take-Two, called this type of scene “beautiful art.”

LGBTQ Characters

Females are not the only demographic portrayed negatively in the video game world. The LGBTQ community is just as much underserved. Although there are exceptions, most LBGTQ video game characters come out as the villain. The “Metal Gear Solid” series depicts the variety of gay and bisexual characters as enemies of the main character. “Fable II“ and “Fable III” represent the bisexual character, Reaver, as fickle and decadent. The protagonist in “Ballad of Gay Tony“ is a murdering “drug-addicted crime lord.” More often than not, LGBTQ characters are absent. But when they are provided, the associations with the characters are almost entirely negative.

 Professional Women in the Industry

As proved, the number of women playing video games is only on the rise. This is cannot be said, however,  for the number of women taking on professional roles in the gaming industry. Only 11 percent of women are game designers and only three percent are programmers. This is even more shocking when compared to the percentages of women in graphic design (60 percent) and tech sectors (25 percent). And according to a 2011 survey by Gamer Developer Magazine, female programmers make $10,000 less a year and female designers make $12,000 less than their male counterparts.

In November 2012, a massive Twitter conversation, among thousands of men and women gamers and developers was sparked by the tweet “Why aren’t there more female game developers?” Answers ranged from safety (females being groped at conventions) to blank stare responses to questions about over-sexualized female characters. The conversation received national coverage and long awaited recognition.

There are notable and exciting exceptions. Kirsten Duvall has been working in the industry for the last 20 years and is currently the Business Development Director of Everyplay Unity Technologies. Tracy Fullerton is the Director and experimental game designer at the University of South Carolina’s Innovation Lab. USC is one of the world’s leading video game schools. And Chelsea Howe is an extremely effective Creative Director at EA Mobile. These women prove that female success in the industry can be done regardless of the rocky road.

Case Study: #GamerGate

Here is a look at a prime example of the hostility women can face in the industry. Gamergate started around two women: Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian. Quinn, a game designer, released a free game/interactive story called Depression Quest. Quinn’s ex-boyfriend publicly claimed in a number of lengthy blogs that Quinn had cheated on him with people in the field to further her career. It boiled down to Quinn being accused of trading coverage for sex and ethics in journalism. The attacks spiraled out of control leading to death threats. Days later, Sarkeesian, a feminist writer and media critic, got thrown into the mix. Sarkeesian previously advocated for less sexualized female characters and greater female inclusion. Sarkeesian’s video series “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” received a lot of attention. Her unpopular opinion was answered with unspeakable malice.

This was not your run-of-the-mill negative attention. Both women received graphic and disturbing threats and felt it necessary to leave their homes. These threats all came under the viral hashtag #Gamergate. Shortly after, Jenn Frank and Mattie Brice, notable women in the industry who defended Quinn and Sarkeesian, announced their resignations from the industry due to similar threats.

 The Legal End

Unfortunately as far as regulations go, there are few to none. The courts have time and time again defended game developers under free speech and the First Amendment.

In the 2005 case Entertainment Software Ass’n v. Blagojevich, the federal court found Illinois’ video game statute unconstitutional. It ruled against the previously implemented law banning the distribution to minors of video games with certain violent content. The court did, however, mandate labels restricting such video games to adults and ensure retailors displayed signs explaining video game rating systems. The 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision. A year later the same verdict was rendered in Michigan and Louisiana in Entertainment Software Ass’n v. Granholm and Entertainment Software Ass’n v. Foti. Many states endured this battle until the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in California in 2011. In a 7-2 opinion, the court stated “speech about violence is not obscene” and that they are “as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature.”

As of now, the only legislation in effect is the “Video Games Rating Enforcement Act” that mandates specific labels on video games displaying the ratings based on violent content. One bill introduced, but untimely denied, was the “Children Protection from Video Game Violence and Sexual Content Act.” The act advocated for stricter regulations regarding viewership and video game content. The bill died in the House.

Conclusion

Females are serious heavyweights in the gaming community more than ever before. They love to play as much as males. This includes games of all intensities from Zelda to Trivia Crack. The industry is just starting to take this demographic seriously. But the hostility and open sexism toward women is real and can’t go unchecked, even if it isn’t coming from the majority of gamers. Industry leaders need to make the inclusion of women a priority, and they can start by hiring more of the many intelligent, competent women in the industry.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Congress: Video Game Legislation

Additional

Boston Globe: Women Remain Outsiders in Video Game Industry

Washington Post: More Women Play Video Games Than Boys, and Other Surprising Facts Lost in the Mess of Gamergate

Daily Dot: How Sexist Video Game Animators Keep Failing Women

Entertainment Consumers Association: Video Games and Government Regulations

Fortune: 10 Powerful Women in Video Games

Hastac: Damsels in Distress: Female Representation in Video Games

HuffPost Tech: Sadistic and Decadent: Queering Video Games

Mirror: Grand Theft Auto V: Shocking Video of Prostitute Sex With Gamer in Controversial First-Person Viewpoint

Washington Post: The Only Guide to Gamergate You Will Ever Need to Read

Jessica McLaughlin

Jessica McLaughlin is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in English Literature and Spanish. She works in the publishing industry and recently moved back to the DC area after living in NYC. Contact Jessica at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Gaming Industry: Misogynistic and Living in the Past appeared first on Law Street.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is often the subject of daily life experiences and intense internet debates on topics such as trigger warnings or the United States’ use of drones. Rates of PTSD are known to be dramatically affected by racism, sexism, queerphobia, and other forms of oppression.

But what about people who witness extreme traumas without necessarily experiencing the trauma themselves? Lawyers, doctors, social workers, and teachers all are at a high risk of experiencing something variously called vicarious trauma, secondary trauma, or compassion fatigue.

How might legal office cultures leave people from law students to defense attorneys extremely susceptible to vicarious trauma? And, significantly, what impact does this have on clients?

When Trauma is Contagious

Vicarious trauma is often popularly defined in terms of professionals, like lawyers, who work with people who have been traumatized. A form of PTSD in its own right, people enduring vicarious trauma experience symptoms similar to more widely recognized PTSD. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network refers to vicarious trauma as “secondary traumatic stress,” and defines it in this way:

Secondary traumatic stress is the emotional duress that results when an individual hears about the firsthand trauma experiences of another. Its symptoms mimic those of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Accordingly, individuals affected by secondary stress may find themselves re-experiencing personal trauma or notice an increase in arousal and avoidance reactions related to the indirect trauma exposure. They may also experience changes in memory and perception; alterations in their sense of self-efficacy; a depletion of personal resources; and disruption in their perceptions of safety, trust, and independence.

All of these trauma responses often lead to more commonly known experiences, such as anxiety, depression, sleeping problems, substance abuse, procrastination, and low self-esteem. The Vicarious Trauma Institute highlights, crucially, one of the key differences between vicarious trauma and directly experienced trauma: the intensity of vicarious trauma is dictated by being exposed, first-hand, “to traumatic stories day after day or respond to traumatic situations while having to control your reaction.” Not only are people being exposed to stories or direct experiences of violence, then, but lawyers, social workers, school counselors, teachers, etc. are trained or otherwise expected to keep a straight face and remain a bastion of calm for their clients and/or students. Commonly referred to as “burnout,” many professionals who chronically endure these feelings of vicarious trauma are forced to stop working, leave their field of specialization, or switch professions entirely.

Many who identify as working in a “helping profession”–doctors, lawyers, social workers, etc.–are affected deeply by vicarious trauma. At the Annual Convening of Crisis Intervention in Chicago in 1996, social worker Terri Spahn Nelson contributed the following perspective on vicarious trauma:

Many of us, especially those of us in a helping profession, are secondary witnesses to trauma almost everyday. As we listen to our clients tell about their trauma of incest, rape, domestic violence, alcoholic families or memories of childhood abuse, we bear witness to their victimization. We listen, we support and we validate their feelings and their experience. We offer them the opportunity to let go of some of their burden. As witnesses and healers, we can’t help but to take in some of the emotional pain they have left with us. As the client releases some of their pain, we take it in. By the end of the day, we’ve collected bits and pieces of accounts of trauma. We may have pictures in our mind or intense feelings running through our body. We’ve become a witness to rape, child abuse, domestic violence and death… In simple terms, this vicarious trauma as experienced by professionals and volunteers in the helping field.

By positioning oneself as being a “helping” professional, the burden of “taking in” clients’ trauma becomes a nearly unavoidable expectation. The sense of responsibility for clients–and attendant guilt for not having endured what clients did, especially when client outcomes are not positive–often prove overwhelming for professionals who enter fields expecting to “help” or “fix” clients’ lives.

Legal Burnout

This form of trauma is particularly prevalent in lawyers, who often witness clients’ trauma on a daily basis. Especially when responsibility is placed on lawyers to alleviate that trauma somehow–whether through their efforts to win a criminal or civil case–vicarious trauma can set in.

The lack of control associated with many cases deeply contributes to lawyers’ experiences of vicarious trauma: as Abby Anna Batko-Taylor and Melissa L. Shearer of the Voice of the Defense Online highlight, “In addition to dealing with interpersonal relationships with challenging clients, lawyers also experience personal and institutional pressure to produce results that many times are outside of their control.” Given the relationship between loss of control and trauma in general–traumatic events generally involve survivors losing control of some enormous aspect of life, and can result in a need to control as much as possible in order to feel safe–the feeling of not having control over the outcome of a case can deeply aggravate feelings of vicarious trauma for lawyers.

While issues of vicarious traumatization are not exclusive to lawyers, legal professionals often experience higher rates of vicarious trauma than professionals with similarly traumatized clients. In a study of criminal defense attorneys, defense lawyers were found to experience even higher rates of vicarious traumatization than mental health providers and social workers. Bigger caseloads and lack of supervision around trauma were offered as possible explanations for these higher rates.

According to a Science Alert report on a Macquarie University study on vicarious trauma among those who work in the field of criminal law, these attorneys experience disproportionately higher impacts and intensities of trauma from client interactions. The report goes on:

While often presenting an image of toughness and emotional detachment, it would seem that criminal defense lawyers and prosecutors are significantly more vulnerable to developing depression, stress and vicarious trauma than their non-criminal law colleagues.

These vulnerabilities have tremendous negative impacts on not only legal professionals, but on their clients. In an article for Canadian Lawyer Magazine, which includes clips from lawyers who experience vicarious trauma, cover story author donalee Moulton reports that:

Withdrawal is one of the common symptoms of vicarious trauma. Other symptoms include difficulties solving problems, a sense of being disconnected from work and home, and feelings of powerlessness. In response, lawyers and judges may take on greater responsibility, work longer hours, and attempt to exert greater control over others. They may also become more distant and withdrawn, more cynical, and even more accident prone. It is not unusual for victims of vicarious trauma to develop chronic health problems.

Withdrawal, difficulty solving problems, and issues with control all carry enormous risk of negatively impacting clients both on a case and an interpersonal level.

Despite the fact that unaddressed vicarious trauma is known to negatively affect clients, not to mention its chronic health impacts on lawyers themselves, many legal professionals do not seek or have access to affirmative work environments that can both assist with and help prevent vicarious traumatization.

What does office culture have to do with it?

Not only do many lawyers lack access to assistance and preventive care, but many legal cultures are such that vicarious trauma can take hold. Lack of trauma-related supervision and extremely high case loads as a measure of a lawyers’ skill contribute to a masculinized culture in which addressing and preventing vicarious trauma is perceived as taking time away from the ‘real work.’ In a similar way that the macho, product-oriented culture of journalism is often cited as a cause of vicarious trauma among journalists, lawyers–especially women and people of color–are often actively discouraged from emotional expression in the workplace. This emotional suppression alone has negative impacts on lawyers’ health, and also facilitates a masculinized culture that makes it nearly impossible to treat, let alone prevent, vicarious trauma.

While many workshops and presentations on vicarious trauma focus on individualized healing plans, it is more rare that action plans to ease vicarious trauma focus on organizational cultures. However, research shows that the most effective way to assist professionals who are likely to experience vicarious trauma is through structural changes to office and professional cultures, such as reduced and/or more diverse case loads, comprehensive healthcare provisions, holistic approaches to work and clients, effective supervision, explicit group support, and education.

So, What Can Be Done?

It is clear, then, that vicarious trauma impacts a vast array of people, particularly lawyer–most often defense attorneys and those who specialize in domestic violence, immigration, or family court. Emphasizing the importance of self-care is an important move toward providing healthy, effective, and sustainable services to clients, but it seems that structural changes to office and professional cultures, which are often very cut-throat, can go the longest way toward reducing the negative impacts that vicarious trauma has on both lawyers and clients.

Resources

Primary

Legal Profession Assistance Conference: A Desk Manual on Vicarious Trauma

University of Washington Center for Public Service Law: Secondary Trauma and Compassion Fatigue When Working With Clients in Crisis

National Child Traumatic Stress Network: Secondary Traumatic Stress

Vicarious Trauma Institute: What is Vicarious Trauma?

Additional

Voice for the Defense Online: Representing the Traumatized Client: The Case, the Client, and You

Pyscholawlogy: Lessons About Emotion Suppression for Lawyers

Science Alert: Crime Can Traumatize Lawyers

Huffington Post: A Mental-Health Epidemic in the Newsroom

Good Men Project: Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box

I

Jennifer Polish

Jennifer Polish is an English PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC, where she studies non/human animals and the racialization of dis/ability in young adult literature. When she’s not yelling at the computer because Netflix is loading too slowly, she is editing her novel, doing activist-y things, running, or giving the computer a break and yelling at books instead. Contact Jennifer at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Vicarious Trauma: What is it and How Can Legal Culture Make it Worse? appeared first on Law Street.

In 2006, the criminal justice system helped Josh Duggar’s family expunge his record of abuse and protected him from being exposed in media reports as someone who had “forcibly fondled” younger girls (a.k.a. molested children).

Every day–then, now–the criminal justice system targets people of color–especially women and trans people of color–for abuse and shootings (a.k.a. public executions for walking while Black or Latina).

And yet.

And yet we continue to use pictures of him in suits instead of finding pictures that try to reflect him negatively (see featured photo), like the mainstream media insists on doing with young people of color slaughtered by cops.

When Black young men are murdered by cops, they are cast as “thugs.” When a young white man is accused of child abuse, he retains his status as ‘poor cult victim.’

This serves both racist and misogynist ends: white perpetrators remain victims, and his misogyny is cast as an exception (caused by his cultish family).

The mainstream media likes to speculate on the “scandalous” aspects of how the family helped cover up the abuse; how the family, in fact, abused him through their extremism and his isolation from “mainstream culture”; but we don’t like to speculate on how Josh Duggar is not, in fact, an exception. Josh Duggar is the rule.

Duggar is an embodiment of rich white cis male non-dis/abled privilege, and while the control his family exerts over him is indeed frightening, their misogyny is not an exception.

The Duggars may be particularly explicit in the ways they preach and practice misogyny, but what pieces focusing on the cultish aspects of the Duggars that facilitated the abuse miss is that every person in this country–every. single. person.–is raised to hate women. The Duggars may be more explicit than most, but they are not alone: Josh Duggar’s apparent belief that women and girls exist for male pleasure is the same belief that we are all raised with.

It’s called rape culture, and it’s everywhere.

The fact that the Duggars isolated their children so much that they didn’t have a TV misses the point: all of us with TV, too, receive the same message–in a heteropatriarchal society like this one, women are disposable.

Because rape culture is not isolated to “cults.” It is everywhere.

Because women–especially women of color–are disproportionately targeted by the same criminal justice system that protected Duggar when the first police report was issued against him.

Because living in a heteropatriarchal society makes us much more vulnerable to debilitating mental health issues.

Because “strong women” in the mainstream media is still the only trope we’re allowed to hope for.

Because the kind of misogyny that the media ascribes to the cult of the Duggars is the same kind of misogyny that we are exposed to every single time we turn on the television, interact with men in the street, or are educated in a public school system that still focuses on “great” [read: genocidal] white men and does not teach consent as the golden rule in health classes (a.k.a. teach rape culture to all students).

Because we can condemn–or pity–Josh Duggar as much as we’d like.

But ultimately, we must recognize that his privileged positions and entitled, abusive actions are the rule, not the exception.

Jennifer Polish

Jennifer Polish is an English PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC, where she studies non/human animals and the racialization of dis/ability in young adult literature. When she’s not yelling at the computer because Netflix is loading too slowly, she is editing her novel, doing activist-y things, running, or giving the computer a break and yelling at books instead. Contact Jennifer at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Josh Duggar is Not an Exception: On Rape Culture in the U.S. appeared first on Law Street.

Fashion is meant to be a form of self expression, but if you’re currently a teenage girl in high school that expression might be seriously limited due to strict dress code restrictions. Of course making sure there are no visible butt cracks, nipples, or genitals is a must for school administrators, but when bare shoulders, backs, and thighs are considered just as taboo there’s a serious problem. In the past week alone I’ve read two stories about obscene dress code restrictions and sexist double standards in both the New York Times and Buzzfeed that call for some rant worthy commentary.

Now about 100 years ago it was positively scandalous for a woman to show a bare ankle in public, but it’s not the Victorian era anymore. Unlike the oppressed women back then, we have the right to vote, serve in the military, obtain an education, and take birth control, just for starters. So you’d think that with all of these advancements in women’s rights, women would have the right to decide for themselves what to wear, right? Wrong.

The New York Times wrote a very interesting piece discussing the issue after speaking with high schools girls who were told by administrators that the expensive dresses they’d purchased for prom weren’t acceptable and either needed to be altered or they wouldn’t be permitted to attend. In their piece Kristin Hussey and Marc Santora write:

Girls have been told to cover up shoulders, knees and backs. They have been reprimanded for partially exposed stomachs and thighs and excessive cleavage. They have been ordered to wear jackets, ordered to go home and suspended.

For one girl in the article, that meant a dress and alterations that cost $400 on top of the $90 prom ticket. Some schools have even begun to require girls to take pictures of their gowns and submit them to administrators for approval before they’re even able to buy a ticket to the dance. When asked why the rules are so strict, one superintendent they spoke with said “We want our young ladies to be dressed beautifully; we want them to be dressed with class and dignity. But we are going to draw the line relative to attire that would be deemed overexposing oneself.”

This idea that schools need to protect girls from overexposing themselves isn’t restricted to just the U.S. Take 17-year-old Canadian teen Laura Wiggins, for example. Laura looked in her closet one morning and decided she wanted to wear a full-length halter dress to her high school in New Brunswick. Her legs weren’t showing. Her belly button wasn’t hanging out. Her breasts weren’t on display. The ensemble did, however, showcase her bare arms and a semi-bare back.

A Canadian Teen Wrote The Best Rebuttal After Getting Detention For Wearing A Halter Dress http://t.co/hS4WHTHsf0 pic.twitter.com/hfZSXjghbB

— BuzzFeed Canada (@BuzzFeedCanada) May 13, 2015

That was apparently enough for Laura to receive a detention for being a “sexual distraction” to her male classmates, because if there’s anything that gets a teenage boy all hot and bothered, it’s a back. Isn’t that what Justin Timberlake meant when he said he was “bringing sexy back?”

But it’s the way that Laura dealt with the situation that is truly amazing. Instead of taking the detention quietly, she chose to write a letter to her school’s vice principal and it was very eloquent, impressive, and inspiring. I won’t quote the whole badass letter, but here are two passages that particularly stood out to me:

In today’s society, a woman’s body is constantly discriminated against and hypersexualized to the point where we can no longer wear the clothing that we feel comfortable in without the accusation and/or assumption that we are being provocative.[…]

Then she continues with,

So no, Mr. Sturgeon, I will not search for something to cover up my back and shoulders because I am not showing them off with the intention to gain positive sexual feedback from the teenage boys in my school. I am especially not showing them to receive any comments, positive or negative, from anybody else besides myself because the only person who can make any sort of judgment on my body and the fabrics I place on it is me.

So instead of focusing on what causes boys to be “distracted” my advice to schools would be to try teaching them self control. These young men will need that in the real world, especially with all these empowered girls walking around in yoga pants everywhere.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Are Schools Going Too Far with These Dress Code Rules? appeared first on Law Street.

I was heartbroken last month to hear that Jon Stewart would be leaving his seat on “The Daily Show” for presumably bigger and better things after an impressive 16 plus years as the show’s host. Even though I was so sure that my girl Jessica Williams was primed to take Stewart’s spot, I was both impressed and excited when Comedy Central announced yesterday that South African comedian Trevor Noah had been awarded the coveted position. The world appeared to be geared up to embrace Noah and his international spin on politics, until fans of the show began to comb through his Twitter account and found some old tweets that have been deemed offensive to both women and Jews.

.@Trevornoah, new ‘Daily Show’ host, faces criticism for tweets http://t.co/K7QeoYNGQz pic.twitter.com/CWa34wcgI2

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) March 31, 2015

Some of the tweets in question include:

South Africans know how to recycle like israel knows how to be peaceful. — Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) June 2, 2010

So she gets fat? RT @missdanibagel: When a woman is loved correctly, she becomes 10 times the woman she was before

— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) July 18, 2014

Almost bumped a Jewish kid crossing the road. He didn’t look b4 crossing but I still would hav felt so bad in my german car! — Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) September 18, 2009

This one is a gem.

A hot white woman with ass is like a unicorn. Even if you do see one, you’ll probably never get to ride it.

— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) November 28, 2011

His comments have been called both anti-semitic and anti-feminist, but we need to take a second to remember one thing–Trevor Noah is a comedian. He’s not a politician, school principal, or “real” news correspondent. He makes a living telling jokes and making people laugh, and while humor is in fact subjective, these tweets appear to have been intended as jokes.

He’s not the first comedian to have his social media taken out of context, and he won’t be the last. As a top source for televised comedy, Comedy Central likely understands this and doesn’t seem to be putting too much stock in the controversy. I doubt Noah will lose his new position over this, but how he handles the situation will be telling.

Noah seemingly acknowledged the controversy Tuesday, sending out a tweet just before 9 a.m. Eastern time that read, “Twitter does not have enough characters to respond to all the characters on Twitter.” The tweet was deleted shortly after. Maybe he’s already learned his first social media lesson, at the very least: don’t fuel the Twitter trolls.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Trevor Noah: First and Foremost a Comedian appeared first on Law Street.

Crowd-sourced mobile taxi service Uber has developed a bit of a reputation for having a sexist “bro culture.” A new announcement this morning from the company reveals it’s trying to change that. Uber announced it will be partnering with UN Women “with the goal of accelerating economic opportunity for women.” As part of that commitment, it has pledged to create 1,000,000 jobs for women drivers by 2020. That sounds good, but is this sudden explosion of growth really proof that the company is becoming more female friendly?

A good example of how Uber has gotten a sexist rep is the feud between the company and Sarah Lacy, the founder and Editor-in-Chief of tech website PandoDaily. In October, Uber’s French office unveiled a sexist promotion with an app called “Avions de Chasse” that pairs Uber riders with “hot chick” drivers. Lacy responded with an oped piece on her site criticizing the company’s “Asshole culture,” writing that she deleted the app. She stated she was shocked that this company valued at $18 million “celebrated treating women who may choose to drive cars to make extra money like hookers.”

That’s when Uber execs apparently retaliated in maybe the worst way possible. They hired spies. Yup, spies. Spies who allegedly attempted to dig up information on Lacy to discredit her. While nothing ever real came of it, there was a lot of public outcry against Uber.

USA Today reported that Emil Michael, senior vice president of the business, allegedly said at a dinner party that the company spends $1 million to conduct “oppo research” on journalists. That means digging for any information Uber can manipulate in order to discredit its journalist critics. After public backlash the company made its apologies on Twitter and dropped the promotion.

The controversy with Lacy wasn’t the only anti-female press for Uber. Uber founder Travis Kalanick was quoted referring to his company as “Boob-er” because of all the ladies he pulls due to its success. With comments like that it’s no wonder the company’s headquarters have been deemed a boyish clubhouse.

It only got worse for Uber in December when it was banned from New Delhi, India after a male Uber driver was accused of sexually assaulting a female passenger. Unfortunately, that’s not the only case of alleged Uber sexual assault. In Boston, an Uber driver was charged with sexual assault after inappropriately touching a female passenger while dropping her off in the North End neighborhood. With that in mind, hiring more female drivers could make female passengers feel safer while using the service. In NYC, the app SheRides has already created a business model based on the concept, with an all female fleet that it claims is tailored to the needs of women.

Currently women make up only about 14 percent of Uber’s 160,000 drivers in the U.S., according to the The Huffington Post. This new female hiring initiative would increase Uber’s driving force by more than seven times its current total. Its clear that Uber realizes that referring to itself as “Boob-er” and hiring spies to stalk female journalists wasn’t the best idea. This hiring initiative, however, is a good first step of many that Uber will need to take in order to rid itself of its negative “bro culture” rep.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Uber’s New Hiring Initiative: Trying to Win Back the Women appeared first on Law Street.

At this year’s Academy Awards broadcast, winners and presenters called our attention to more than one political issue, including racial equality and gay rights. (If you say you weren’t tearing up after Graham Moore’s speech you are LYING.) One of the most memorable moments, and one of the first, was Patricia Arquette’s call to action:

To every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation we have fought for everybody’s equal rights. It is our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.

As you can imagine, my reaction–and that of many others–was “YEAH! YOU GO GIRL!” I mean, anything that makes the great Meryl Streep react like this is truly amazing.

Yes. Everyone pretty much agreed that it was a fantastic acceptance speech.

However, after the show in the press room, Arquette expanded her speech, and with it ended up rubbing some people the wrong way.

So the truth is, even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America, right under the surface, there are huge issues that are applied that really do affect women. And it’s time for all the women in America and all the men that love women, and all the gay people, and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.

What quite a few people are pointing out is that “all the gay people” and “all the people of color” still don’t have equal rights either, yet Arquette called them out to fight for women.

People of color and gays, it seems we owe Patricia Arquette for “fighting for us.” Did anyone capture any footage of said fight?

— jamilah (@JamilahLemieux) February 23, 2015

when you wake up in the morning and find out what else patricia arquette said pic.twitter.com/Edu5dUWXR4 — Anne T. Donahue (@annetdonahue) February 23, 2015

stop cheering for #PatriciaArquette, the feminism she advocates isn’t intersectional and that in itself is really rude

— Jocelyn Jones (@j_abriaaa) February 23, 2015

Maddening that even in a speech that screamed “pay attention to women!” some women are overlooked. http://t.co/5xkzzo7P74 — Latoya Peterson (@LatoyaPeterson) February 23, 2015

After the backlash, Arquette came back with responses on Twitter to try and explain her speech.

Wage equality will help ALL women of all races in America. It will also help their children and society.

— Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) February 23, 2015

I have long been an advocate for the rights of the #LBGT community. The question is why aren’t you an advocate for equality for ALL women? — Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) February 23, 2015

Clearly what we have here is a case of a well-intentioned woman expressing herself the wrong way. Taken at face value, her speech in the Oscar press room truly does alienate women of the LGBT and racial minority communities. In my opinion, she meant to convey the fact that equal rights for all women will affect these communities as well. Equal pay is just one topic in the broader spectrum of equal rights, but you have to start somewhere.

So, should her original, Meryl-Streep-cheered-for-it speech be ignored because she didn’t explain herself well enough? Definitely not. If anything, her comments should incite more action in women–and men–of every race and orientation.

Morgan McMurray

Morgan McMurray is an editor and gender equality blogger based in Seattle, Washington. A 2013 graduate of Iowa State University, she has a Bachelor of Arts in English, Journalism, and International Studies. She spends her free time writing, reading, teaching dance classes, and binge-watching Netflix. Contact Morgan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Patricia Arquette Under Fire Over Oscar Speech appeared first on Law Street.

I have spent quite a bit of time on this blog focusing on women who have gone viral with their feminist actions. There have been speeches, performances, videos, and even hashtags that, within the past year, have pushed the feminist movement forward into the digital age and shed light on the huge difference between being a man and being a woman in our society. Supporters of such women should be proud of their positive influence, but of course for every feminist who dares to speak out, there are those who want to silence her.

We live in an age when news is reported instantly, where an unemployed singer can become a YouTube sensation overnight, and where we can all comment on every aspect of someone else’s life via social media. Some of those comments are positive, many more are negative.

Celebrities get hit the hardest by trolls whose goal in life is to sit at their computers all day creating drama on internet forums. And if one of those celebrities dares to speak out against a social injustice? Well, death threats are not at all uncommon, and whether they are real or simply the bluff of an angry teenager locked in their bedroom, social media has a huge impact on the lives of people in the public eye.

Washington Post writer Michelle Goldberg recently published an article about feminist writers and social media entitled “Feminist Writers Are So Besieged By Online Abuse That Some Have Begun to Retire.”

Yeah.

Apparently, sitting behind a computer screen with access to a Twitter feed gives people the right to insult how somebody looks, and even threaten people they disagree with. According to the article, many of the writers featured receive death and rape threats on a regular basis. If these threats had been made in person or even by mail, legal action could be taken, but what happens when hundreds of angry sexists with screen names like “M3ninist69” all make the same threat? What happens when whole online groups are dedicated to shooting down women? How many of those threats are real, and how would someone go about prosecuting them?

These incredibly negative and sometimes dangerous online exchanges force women who make their livings online to either a) engage extremely volatile followers by defending themselves or b) ignore them, sometimes completely withdrawing from social media. Many in the Washington Post article explain the damaging effect bodily threats and insults to their appearance have on their psyches, forcing some into therapy and others into retirement.

When you enter into a role that has a lot of public exposure, it is generally accepted that you will have people who love you and people who hate you. The sad part is, that love and that hate gets translated differently based on your gender. Men do not face death or rape threats, at least not to the scale that women do, because for some reason that sort of violence is restricted to women who dare to challenge social norms. Says Goldberg: “Women, urged to tell their stories, are being ferociously punished when they do.”

Feminists are no strangers to naysayers, and since the first wave of the movement have had to fight against the norms set by a patriarchal society. Never before, though, has feminism moved on this scale, and therefore never before has it faced so much resistance.

So how do we move forward? We challenge the naysayers, and while it is never easy to put up with verbal abuse, there will always be feminist writers to do so.

Morgan McMurray

Morgan McMurray is an editor and gender equality blogger based in Seattle, Washington. A 2013 graduate of Iowa State University, she has a Bachelor of Arts in English, Journalism, and International Studies. She spends her free time writing, reading, teaching dance classes, and binge-watching Netflix. Contact Morgan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Social Media and Feminists: You Can’t Stop All of Us appeared first on Law Street.

The Super Bowl is one of those traditions that I don’t fully comprehend but take part in anyway. I am not particularly fond of football, but the commercials are always entertaining and the half-time show is always either the “blown away” or the “that was painful” kind of fun to watch.

So this year I picked up the hot wings and spinach dip, opened a beer, and sat down to watch the game. Or, rather, live tweet the commercials and play Trivia Crack the rest of the time.

I cried during the Budweiser commercial, predictably, and laughed when Liam Neeson appeared in a Clash of Clans ad (#SconeForLiam), then nearly cheered when I saw a commercial I recognized from a little feminine hygiene company called Always.

Ad spots during the Super Bowl are the most expensive of the year due to the record-setting viewership numbers, and in the last few years many companies that can afford such commercials have used their air time to address big issues–whether meaning to or not.

Who can forget the 2014 Coca-Cola commercial that caused such controversy, simply because “America the Beautiful” was sung in several different languages? It brought attention to the ignorance of some United States citizens who said things like “Speak American” when the United States doesn’t even have an official language.

The commercial has now been viewed more than 12 million times and became an advertisement for freedom.

Hopefully, the Always commercial will do the same for gender equality.

I first saw the commercial after it aired in June 2014, featuring men and women and a young boy demonstrating what it is to fight or run “like a girl.” Without even thinking about it, they demonstrate the actions weakly. The show that “like a girl” or “girly” becomes synonymous with “less” and “weak.”

Then, young girls–age ten and below–demonstrate what it means to them to run and fight like a girl, and the result is inspiring. Watch the full length video below for yourself.

As the video shares, during and after puberty, girls become discouraged and are demeaned because of their gender. It does not have to be that way. Society has turned “like a girl” into a joke and an insult. Society has the power to change that.

In the short time since the commercial aired during the game, #LikeAGirl has begun trending on Twitter, where thousands of men and women have joined forces against those who would make fun of being female.

My vote is still #LikeAGirl for best #SuperBowlAds – what is everyone else thinking?

— Angie Ahrens (@angieahrens) February 2, 2015

Boys might make fun of that #LikeAGirl commercial, but it’s 100% true & I’m so glad that was finally publicized — Sydney Carpenter (@Sydney_Grace57) February 2, 2015

in the future, i hope that people don’t need commercials to remind us of the injustice prevalent in society #LikeAGirl

— danielle (@DanieFreezee) February 2, 2015

You go girls. And boys.

And to those people making fun of #LikeAGirl, or somehow turning it into a Meninist (a.k.a. why is that even a thing?) argument–that commercial showed up during a four-hour broadcast dedicated to being male. You can’t let girls have one minute?

In conclusion, Katy Perry riding in on a mechanical tiger then flying out on a shooting star was pretty awesome too, but the Always commercial gets my vote for best Super Bowl moment.

Morgan McMurray

Morgan McMurray is an editor and gender equality blogger based in Seattle, Washington. A 2013 graduate of Iowa State University, she has a Bachelor of Arts in English, Journalism, and International Studies. She spends her free time writing, reading, teaching dance classes, and binge-watching Netflix. Contact Morgan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Super Bowl Wrap Up: “Like A Girl” is the Best Moment 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.

It’s no secret that feminism became a huge talking point in the news and on the web this year. More than ever before, we saw women standing up for themselves and calling out the bullshit that is gender inequality. We still have more to do, but let’s just take a moment to appreciate the progress that was made this year thanks to some amazing women–and men–who took up the feminist mantle.

#YesAllWomen

In May, after 22-year-old Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree in California blaming women for rejecting him sexually, women and men took to Twitter, using the hashtag #YesAllWomen to share stories of misogyny they have experienced.

Because my hormones make me an ineffective leader and a man’s hormones absolve him of rape #yesallwomen

— Tessa (@TessaKerlin) May 27, 2014

There’s not a woman I know who wouldn’t fight for a man who was being denied equality & freedom. #YesAllWomen — Muriel B (@QuiltingMuriel) May 27, 2014

No, #NotAllMen are violent against women, but #YesAllWomen have to navigate a world where those who are look the same as those who aren’t.

— Karin Robinson (@karinjr) May 25, 2014

Because every single woman I know has a story about a man feeling entitled to access to her body. Every. Single. One. #YesAllWomen — Emily (@emilyhughes) May 24, 2014

“I have a boyfriend” is the easiest way to get a man to leave you alone. Because he respects another man more than you. #yesallwomen

— Juliet Bennett Rylah (@JBRylah) May 25, 2014

I shouldn’t have to hold my car keys in hand like a weapon & check over my shoulder every few seconds when I walk at night #YesAllWomen — Sophia Bush (@SophiaBush) May 25, 2014

The hashtag received several hundred tweets a second, and just four days after its inception had reached over 1.2 million tweets. It is still going strong, and the solidarity shown by the men and women in the face of sexism and misogyny reached further than most attempts previously.

Calling out catcallers became an internet phenomenon

After one woman’s Cards Against Harassment campaign went viral on YouTube, catcalling became a much-discussed issue on the internet.

The debate centered around whether or not catcallers were being complimentary, and if women should just ignore it. Short answer: street harassment is harassment, and is not a compliment.

Later in the year, a woman walked around Manhattan for ten hours to record the catcalls she received during the day.

Which of course, prompted misogynists everywhere to focus on justifying the behavior of the men in the video, not the woman receiving the harassment. This video too, went viral, and currently has just shy of 40 million views on YouTube.

The media response included a debate on CNN, where the man in the video tries to justify the employment of catcalling. This video also circulated the web after he is completely shut down for his misogynistic views.

Hopefully the women at CNN taught men everywhere something with their debate. Women are speaking up and out against harassment from strangers, but the fight is long from over.

Beyonce’s Feminist Performance

Millions watched the MTV Video Music Awards this year, where Beyonce literally lit up the stage with her feminism. She showed women everywhere that you can be proud of your sexuality, be a wife, a mother, dance sexy, and be famous while still calling yourself a feminist. She did it all while broadcasting one of my favorite feminist quotes of all time:

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man…Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political, economic equality of the sexes.

-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Whether you like her music or not, it cannot be denied that Beyonce is at the forefront of feminist celebrities fighting for the cause.

Emma Watson’s UN Speech

Another feminist celebrity, who was named by the Ms. Foundation as the Top Celebrity Feminist of 2014, is Emma Watson. As an ambassador for the United Nations, the former Harry Potter star shook up the world with her speech on gender equality.

She called men and women to action, detailing how it is everyone’s responsibility, regardless of gender, to seek equality for both sexes. She stated, “both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong.”

Male feminists on the rise

They have always existed, sometimes silently supporting the rise of feminism in the 21st century, but the year 2014 saw even more men joining their female counterparts in vocalizing their discontent with society. Even more men took their cues from celebrity male feminists like Joseph Gordon Levitt and Aziz Ansari, who proudly wore the title of feminist while explaining to men everywhere why it just makes sense for men to support gender equality. If you think men and women should have equal rights, you’re a feminist.

The number of women in Congress shot up

For the first time in American history, there are over 100 women in Congress. Yes, it still makes up less than one-fifth of the seats in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, but that record breaking triple-digit number is extremely encouraging. We are still a ways off from having the 50/50 ratio that would represent the United States population, but the fact that so many women were elected this year gives us evidence that times are changing.

Morgan McMurray

Morgan McMurray is an editor and gender equality blogger based in Seattle, Washington. A 2013 graduate of Iowa State University, she has a Bachelor of Arts in English, Journalism, and International Studies. She spends her free time writing, reading, teaching dance classes, and binge-watching Netflix. Contact Morgan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post 2014: The Year of Feminism appeared first on Law Street.

Most women can say with certainty that they have experienced sexism at work. It does not matter what profession or industry; at some point all women will come into contact with a coworker or boss who will look down on her simply for being female. It is frustrating, saddening, and often there is not much she can do to combat it–especially if the misogynist in question is her superior.

But if we do not fight it, nothing will change. And although we may not be able to come right out and say to their faces “you’re a sexist asshole,” we can stop that sexism from affecting the way we do our jobs.

1. #SorryNotSorry

It is a habit that I have noticed in myself and also in friends and female coworkers that we apologize–a lot. Most of the time the apology is unnecessary, and seems as if we are saying “sorry” for giving input, or for requesting something to which we’re entitled.

Watch the video below, produced and marketed by Pantene, as they take on this phenomenon.

Once you realize how much you say it, you can stop. When interacting with a misogynistic coworker, don’t apologize for things that don’t need apologies. Saying “sorry” only reinforces the idea that you are somehow weaker or less than. Put yourself on the equal footing you deserve.

2. Don’t change the way you look or dress.

How to spot a sexist: they will comment on your appearance. No, not compliment–I am not saying “you look nice today” or “I like that dress” are statements that are inherently sexist. More like “your skirt is too short” or “look at you in your sassy librarian boots!” (yes I have heard that before). Obviously, you should dress for whatever your profession may be, but if you are getting negative attention or you are told you need to dress more conservatively–don’t. Unless outlined in your contract, you do not need to dress a certain way. Wear what makes you feel confident and good, and don’t dress to please anyone else but yourself. When faced with negative or sexist comments about the way you look, don’t acknowledge them. Change the subject. Don’t give them the power to demean you.

3. Call them out on their bullshit.

Clearly, you may run into some serious “you’re fired” problems if you just up and yell at the misogynist for being a woman-hating imbecile. Good thing subtlety exists.

My favorite response is to ask questions. If someone–most likely a man–was given a project you deserved, ask why. If a less-qualified man is promoted over you, ask why. When you get vague responses in return, keep asking questions to force them to be more specific. Don’t lose your cool: stay calm and collected and watch them lose theirs. If you can do this in front of other coworkers, even better.

The most important thing to remember is this: don’t let people like sexist men or women hold you back from achieving your goals. One day, hopefully soon, we will live in a world where women are not seen as inferior simply because we are women. Until that happens, don’t be afraid to be you–the amazing, wonderful woman that you are.

Morgan McMurray

Morgan McMurray is an editor and gender equality blogger based in Seattle, Washington. A 2013 graduate of Iowa State University, she has a Bachelor of Arts in English, Journalism, and International Studies. She spends her free time writing, reading, teaching dance classes, and binge-watching Netflix. Contact Morgan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post How to Handle Sexism at Work appeared first on Law Street.

On Monday, Parisian fashion house Maison Martin Margiela announced that industry pariah John Galliano would take over as its new creative director. The former creative director of Dior has been attempting to make a comeback since he was caught on film going on an anti-Semitic rant back in 2011. Subsequently, Galliano was dismissed from his positions at both Dior and his own namesake line. But now that he’s back in the couture game, everyone can’t help but ask the age-old question: is it possible to separate art from the artist?

One of the most ubiquitous examples of a controversial man behind beautiful works is Woody Allen. There’s no arguing the classic status of Allen’s films but — especially recently when Dylan Farrow finally spoke out about her estranged father molesting her — people sometimes have trouble appreciating them knowing that a man with a weird fetish for underaged girls is the brain behind the masterpiece. That said, will the industry be able to forget, but maybe not necessarily forgive, Galliano’s transgressions come next couture season?

Galliano is hardly the only controversial figure in the industry. Fellow couturier Karl Lagerfeld is notorious for his sexist actions from his recent faux-feminist show to comments he’s made about women’s bodies like the singer Adele. But not everyone can get away with such aloof behavior. Activewear brand Lululemon’s CEO Chip Wilson resigned shortly after coming under fire for a comment he made about some women being too fat to properly fit into his leggings, and let’s not forget about American Apparel founder Dov Charney finally getting his just deserts for sexually harassing employees.

However, in the case of Galliano and Lagerfeld, as unacceptable as their behavior is they never physically hurt anyone like alleged sexual offenders Dov Charney and Woody Allen. So there aren’t necessarily any laws against such bigoted actions.

Ultimately, artistic minds like Galliano’s and Lagerfeld’s are very different from the average person’s in that they may not always be aware of the social ramifications of their actions. I’m not trying to excuse their behavior by any means. But whenever I hear Lagerfeld say ridiculous things about women I can’t help but roll my eyes and chuckle a little, because I know he has absolutely no perception of the real world. Galliano also allegedly blamed his abuse of alcoholism and drug abuse (which definitely fueled his inappropriate rants) on the pressures of running two couture houses. These artists tend to live in their own bubbles, only interacting with a select few people who let them get away with their odd behavior, because they are the genius masterminds who pay their paychecks. Quirky artists have the potential to offer so much joy in our lives, but sometimes you may have to look past their odd behavior and just appreciate their work for what it is.

Since getting the boot from the industry, Galliano has attempted to make his way back in. He tried a residency at Oscar de la Renta and a guest professorship at Parsons the New School for Design, but all have fallen through because the public was still not ready to forgive him. So is the industry ready for Galliano to return to the couture scene? Only time will tell.

Katherine Fabian

Katherine Fabian is a recent graduate of Fordham University’s College at Lincoln Center. She is a freelance writer and yoga teacher who hopes to one day practice fashion law and defend the intellectual property rights of designers. Contact Katherine at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Is the Fashion Industry Ready to Forgive Anti-Semite John Galliano? 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.

I was recently married, and my husband is in the armed services. While military life isn’t quite what Army Wives would have you believe, there are definitely some aspects I have had to get used to. One of these is the dress code. Recently I went to the PX (think a T.J. Maxx with Wal-Mart prices) on our new base, and encountered a woman being turned away from the door because her midriff was showing. When I say “showing” I mean her tank top had ridden up about two inches. She did not look inappropriately dressed at all — clearly she had just thrown on her tank and jean shorts to do some shopping — yet she was being told she was in violation of the rules.

This was not the first time I had come into contact with strict military clothing restrictions. While my then-fiance was still stationed in Hawaii, I flew there so we could get married and honeymoon on the islands. While there, I ended up — apparently — being in violation of the dress code not once, but twice.

The first time happened shortly after the wedding, when my husband, some friends, and I went to a bar on the Naval base. It was country-themed, with a huge floor for line dancing, so I dressed accordingly: high-waisted skater skirt, polka-dotted crop top, Keds, and bandana headband. When showing our IDs to the bouncer, he stopped me and said, “Ma’am, you’re going to have to pull your shirt down or your skirt up.”

Now, this was the first time I had had any exposure to the dress code. My husband, not being known to wear crop tops himself, had not yet told me about it. I was understandably confused; barely an inch of my lower rib cage was showing, and my skirt was not short by any standard. Not wanting to cause a scene, I pulled down my shirt and was let in.

My second violation was pointed out when we went to the on-base golf course. I had on pastel shorts from the Gap and a white tank top. Not a spaghetti-strap tank, mind you (which would not have been a violation anyway), but a thick-strapped, loose fitting, high-neckline shirt. The man checking people in took my husband’s ID, wrote us down to tee off, then looked at me and said: “Ma’am, that type of shirt is not allowed here.”

I believe my jaw might have involuntarily dropped open. I looked down at my shirt and back up at him, saying “Tank tops? Or white shirts?”

Not amused by my sarcasm, he informed me that tank tops were not allowed and that to be let on the course I would have to buy a shirt in their shop or go home and change. Excuse me, sir, if I don’t want to buy a $50 Puma polo just to play golf. Needless to say, we did not play golf that day.

My point with sharing these examples is not to say that the military needs to take away its dress code. I understand that there is a necessity for uniformity: it makes things easier to regulate, tampers jealousy, and creates a global standard for all active military and their families. Women are not the only ones who have regulations. Men most certainly cannot be found in cropped off short-shorts. My point is that uniformity is not, truly, the only reason women have their clothing choices regulated.

Personally, I have no problem with the way other people dress. They’re expressing their individual style, wearing what they find comfortable, or dressing up for a special occasion (like going to a country bar). I would never call a woman “trashy” for wearing a tight-fitting dress or 6-inch heels, and I certainly wouldn’t say that lewd behavior toward a woman dressed that way is justified. Believe it or not, women DO NOT dress the way they do for the benefit of men or other women. 

When an organization’s dress code seeks to put a stop to those “trashy” fashion trends, they are encouraging uniformity, yes, but they are also saying that a woman showing her midriff, or her shoulders, is inviting inappropriate attention. That somehow the way she dresses makes it her fault men sexually harass her.

Let me explain. The US military continues to have a terrifyingly high number of sexual assault cases each year, yet thousands more go unreported. They are not, by any means, the only organization that has the same problem. This is a huge issue, and one that will not be solved easily because victims are encouraged to keep their assaults quiet. Dress codes like the one the military has in place are there not just for uniformity, but to discourage sexual assault.

If this doesn’t seem ridiculous to you, let me put it another way. In an episode of How I Met Your Mother, Marshall seduces Lily by showing her his calves. Take a look at this quick clip from the episode:

The scene is hilarious because a woman put into a sexual frenzy by the sight of a man’s legs seems ludicrous. Yet, when a woman goes to report a rape, one of the questions she is asked is “What were you wearing?” As if the sight of her bare shoulders caused a man to force himself on her. Telling women what they can and cannot wear to discourage sexual assault is telling them that, somehow, it is their fault when it happens.

Let’s be clear: WHAT SOMEONE IS WEARING DOES NOT JUSTIFY NOR CAUSE SEXUAL ASSAULT.

So, do I think the military and other organizations with similar dress regulations need to take those regulations away? No. Like I said before, I get why they’re there. What I am saying is the reasons behind those dress codes need to change. Instead of encouraging women to cover up to prevent rape, let’s encourage men to be respectful. Instead of saying “cover your midriff” let’s say “don’t catcall someone on the street.” Only when we acknowledge the problem can we change the perspective.

—

Morgan McMurray (@mcflurrybatman) is a freelance copywriter and blogger based in Savannah, Georgia. She spends her time writing, reading, and attempting to dance gracefully. She has also been known to binge-watch Netflix while knitting scarves.

 Featured image courtesy of [Florian Ramel via Flickr]

Morgan McMurray

Morgan McMurray is an editor and gender equality blogger based in Seattle, Washington. A 2013 graduate of Iowa State University, she has a Bachelor of Arts in English, Journalism, and International Studies. She spends her free time writing, reading, teaching dance classes, and binge-watching Netflix. Contact Morgan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Uniformity Isn’t the Only Reason Organizations Enforce Dress Codes 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.

Movies are supposed to be an escape–a medium of entertainment where the viewer can suspend their own reality and delve into another. However, recently complaints have arisen that movie executives have stretched audiences’ imaginations too far. Instead of problems with the content however, these critics take issue with the actors who are delivering the performances. The silver screen continues to be inundated with white, heterosexual, male actors despite the diverse population of the United States and the world. Read on for an analysis of the racist, sexist, and discriminatory tendencies of the modern entertainment industry.

Race

When 44 percent of movie tickets are purchased by non-white customers, it would be plausible to think the ethnicity of actors on screen would reflect the diversity of the viewers. That is simply not the case.

American movies have a history of being dominated by caucasian actors and actresses. As a study by University of Southern California discovered:

• Out of the 565 directors of the 500 top-grossing movies from 2007 to 2012, 33 of them were black–and only two were black women.
• In 2012, the speaking characters of the top 100 grossing films were 76.3 percent white, 10.8 percent black, 4.2 percent Hispanic, 5 percent Asian, and 2.6 percent other ethnicities or mixed race.
• Hispanic actors and actresses are the most underrepresented group on screen.
• From 2007-2012 the ratio of non-black directors to black directors was 16:1.

Halle Berry became the first African-American to win an Academy Award for Best Actress in 2002. During her acceptance speech she reflected on her achievement and what it will mean for other minority women. She opined, “this moment is so much bigger than men…it’s for ever nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.”

However since this momentous achievement, every other recipient of the award has been white.

Unfortunately, that is not the only acting category lacking diversity. In 2001, Marcia Gay Harden and Benicio del Toro won Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor respectively, and there has not been a Latino, Asian, or Native American winner in any acting category since.

Juliet Lapidos of The New York Times pointedly stated,

“Hollywood’s great at congratulating itself for diversity; it’s just not great at actual diversity.”

Whitewashing

Although blackface is no longer deemed as acceptable, the entertainment industry continues to inaccurately depict minorities in films. In part this is done by whitewashing–casting white actors as characters in roles that were written for minorities.

There’s a very long history of white-washing in Hollywood–West Side Story, winner of 10 Academy Awards and one of the most beloved musicals of all time, is a famous example. Natalie Wood (who is of Russian decent) played the leading female character Maria, who is supposed to be Puerto Rican. Disney has also received some criticism for similar portrayals–Aladdin is a good example. The voice of the film’s protagonist is provided by Scott Weinger who, unlike the title character, is not of Arab decent.

More recently, Jake Gyllenhaal as Dastan in Prince of Persia, Ben Affleck as Tony Menendez in Argo, Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily in a new Peter Pan project, and rumors of Angelina Jolie being cast Cleopatra are all examples of roles being white-washed.

In addition to being offensive, white-washing diminishes roles–leading to non-Caucasian performers being cast as minor characters that serve to supplement a white lead.

Gender

Women make up slightly more than 50 percent of the population in the United States, yet they continue to be sidelined by the entertainment industry.

Some findings surrounding the inequalities are:

• Women in the top 100 films of 2012 only made up 28.4 percent of roles with speaking parts.
• In 2013, 30.2 percent of women were dressed in sexualized clothing compared to 9.7 percent of men.
• A recent study of films from the past six years showed that 29.5 percent women and 11.7 percent men were shown partially or fully nude.
• In 2013, 16 percent of films had a balanced cast; an increase from 2010 when it was just 4 percent.

The amount of women represented behind the camera faired even worse in 2013:

• Only 1.9 percent of directors were female
• Just 7.4 percent were women
• Women made up 19.6 percent of producers

While accepting her award for Best Actress during the 2014 Oscars, Cate Blanchett remarked:

For those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the center are niche, they are not! Audiences want to see them and in fact they earn money. The world is round, people!

Actress Olivia Wilde is known for being a feminist and has spoken out multiple times about the quality of roles available to actresses in Hollywood. In the video below, she further explains the differences between roles normally crafted for male and female roles.

Bechdel Test

In 1985, Alison Bechdel created the cartoon Dykes to Watch Out For. From the comic strip the Bechdel test was created, which is a list of standards that determines gender bias in entertainment. Many feminists use it to analyze various forms of media.

The basic principal of the Bechdel Test it that the women depicted in Hollywood should not be clichés, but character who express genuine feelings about diverse areas of their lives.

The rules for the Bechdel Test are that the film:

1. Has at least two women
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something besides a man

Magazine editor Nikki Baughan offered insight as to the importance of the test:

The Bechdel test acts as a magnifying glass; by breaking down a film in these simple terms, it draws attention to the shocking gender disparity that exists in the majority of cinematic narratives.

LGBT

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community is incredibly underrepresented–and oftentimes misrepresented–in Hollywood. When an LGBT actor or character is written into a movie, they often serve as a token member of the ensemble. Their purpose is to represent the stereotypical trait habitually accompanied with their identity in the media.  

Depiction of race in LGBT characters does not differentiate greatly from heterosexual characters. In a study conducted by GLAAD, it was found that the races of LGBT characters were 76 percent white, 12 percent black, 8 percent Asian, and 4 percent Latino.

Derived from the Bechdel Test, GLAAD created the Vito Russo Test to examine the presence of LGBT characters in movies.

In order for the film to pass the Vito Russo Test, these qualifications must be met:

• The film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender.
• That character must not be solely or predominantly defined by their sexual orientation or gender identity.
• The LGBT character must be tied into the plot in such a way that their removal would have a significant effect.

Out of the films GLAAD assessed using the Vito Russo Test, less than half passed.

Rayon

Although hailed by mainstream critics, the recent movie Dallas Buyers Club received a combination of praise and condemnation from the LGBT community. The focus of criticism fell upon Jared Leto for his Oscar-winning portrayal of Rayon, a transgender woman.

Steve Friess of Time accused Leto of pandering to the transgender stereotype, stating, “she’s a sad-sack, clothes-obsessed, constantly flirting transgender drug addict prostitute…There are no stereotypes about transgender women that Leto’s concoction does not tap.”

Advocates were also dismayed that an actual transgender actor was not cast in the role. Since Rayon is a fictional character, the casting directors had a wide breath of opportunity and freedom in choosing an actor for the role, yet they chose not to include a transgender actor.

However, Mara Keisling, executive director at the National Center for Transgender Equality, had a contrasting view, saying, “to the film’s credit, I think it accurately showed what the life of this brave person [Rayon] must have been and how she was treated.”

In his Oscar acceptance speech, Leto took a moment to recognize the LGBT community, stating, “to those of you out there who have ever felt injustice because of who you are, or who you love, tonight I stand here in front of the world with you and for you.” Despite his accepting comments, reception to the portrayal remains mixed.

Oscars 2014

The 2014 Academy Awards appeared to be a step in the right direction. The year before, Cheryl Boone Isaacs became the first African American and third woman to ever be elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Not only did the Academy itself get a shake up, but the recipients of the awards did as well.

The movie “12 Years a Slave” won Best Picture, one of the most coveted awards. This was a significant victory, because before this film, a movie featuring a black leading man had not won Best Picture since 1967. Steve McQueen–the director, and co-producer–is the first director of African descent to have a movie win in the Best Picture category. The 2014 Best Director award went to Alfonso Cuaron, the first Mexican director to win the category.

Conclusion

In an industry that has such a drastic impact on our culture, it is disheartening to see Hollywood fail in diversity both in front of and behind the camera. Hopefully, future films will be created that cast individuals who accurately represent the audience viewing the films.

Resources

Primary

University of Southern California: Race/Ethnicity in 500 Popular Films: Is the Key to Diversifying Cinematic Content Held in the Hand of the Black Director? 

University of Southern California: Gender Inequality in Popular Films: Examining On Screen Portrayals and Behind-the-Scenes Employment Patterns in Motion Pictures Released between 2007-2013

Additional 

New Yorker: Lessons From Late Night

Mic: 6 Disney Films That Are Undeniably Racist and Sexist

The World Bank: Population, Female (% of Total)

Metro: The Bechdel Test and Why Hollywood is a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World

GLAAD: 2014 Studio Responsibility Index

GLAAD: The Vito Russo Test

KPCC: Oscars 2014: 8 Ways They Made Diversity History

TIME: Don’t Applaud Jared Leto’s Transgender ‘Mammy’

IndieWire: 10 Trans Actors Who Could Have Played Jared Leto’s Role in ‘Dallas Buyers Club’

Huffington Post: Jared Leto’s Oscar Win For ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ Criticized by Transgender Community

Alex Hill

Alex Hill studied at Virginia Tech majoring in English and Political Science. A native of the Washington, D.C. area, she blames her incessant need to debate and write about politics on her proximity to the nation’s capital.

The post Diversity in Hollywood: A History of Failure 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.

Hey y’all!

I was just doing my normal internet surfing, riding the news wave and trying to find something that hasn’t bombarded your TV or social media outlets yet. What I stumbled upon is so ridiculous and infuriating I just could not let it go.

So, the University of Wisconsin – Madison has come up with a new policy that states good grades should be distributed equally among different races. Known as the “Framework for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence,” this policy calls for “proportional participation of historically underrepresented racial-ethnic groups at all levels of an institution, including high status special programs, high-demand majors, and in the distribution of grades.”

I’m sorry, WHAT!?! Obviously colleges like the idea of diversity — they promote it every chance they get — but if you go back and actually read what the policy calls for then you’ll see that while they may be promoting diversity, they are also promoting racial oppression. “Historically underrepresented racial-ethnic groups” — it is stated right there. In most cases white people have not been historically underrepresented. So what UW-Madison is saying is let’s give out free grades to students who are not white and who may not have worked as hard as other students. What about those students who are “historically underrepresented” who work their asses off to get those good grades? Why should they have to work so hard for their grades but their peers simply get handed the same grade because of their race or ethnicity?

By all means please promote diversity at a university, it is one of the best ways for people to learn from one another. But handing out grades based on race is a slap in the face to every student and professor at any university.

W. Lee Hansen, professor of economics at UW-Madison, was outraged by this policy and shared his opinion. “Suppose there were a surge of interest in a high demand field such as computer science. Under the ‘equity’ policy, it seems that some of those who want to study this field would be told that they’ll have to choose another major because computer science already has “enough” students from their ‘difference’ group.” Professor Hansen goes on to say, “Especially shocking is the language about “equity” in the distribution of grades. Professors, instead of just awarding the grade that each student earns, would apparently have to adjust them so that academically weaker, ‘historically underrepresented racial/ethnic’ students perform at the same level and receive the same grades as academically stronger students.”

How would any professor or student be okay with even the idea of this policy? How did UW-Madison get away with putting this policy into effect! Each student had to work hard to get into the university but now all of a sudden the school is saying that no matter what you did in the past if you are considered “historically underrepresented” you can simply show up to class and still get a good grade.

What’s the point of going to college if this is how it is going to be? These kids are going to end up with a four-year degree that they did not earn but simply purchased. If that’s the case why not just close down all institutions and require people to write a check for $80,000 – $125,000 to the government and have them hand out degrees.

Instead of promoting hard work, dedication, and real education, UW-Madison has basically said, “Come to UW-Madison where you pay tuition and we will give you the grades.” Is this really the kind of reputation that a university wants to have? Is this the kind of reputation that any student graduating from this institution wants to have? I know if I were ever in a situation where I was going to hire someone I would never want to hire the graduate from UW-Madison because he may not have understood the purpose of college and may not have learned anything except that things can apparently just be handed to you.

Life does not work that way. Life is not easy or fair and part of that statement includes the idea that school is not easy. You get the grade you worked for, not the grade that was assigned to you because of your race.

Too many of today’s youth are just expecting a hand out. They aren’t being taught the value of a dollar or a strong work ethic. Here comes the reference again, Idiocracy at its finest.

I also find it very interesting how hard generations before us fought for equality but here we are creating more separation than ever before. Is it not obvious to the world that subtle lines are being drawn in the sand? No one is created equal anymore. We might as well throw out the Declaration of Independence and forget about our past because nothing has really changed. People talk about how racism and sexism are still very alive in our world and how things need to change for the better. But how can anything change when universities are promoting policies that demonstrate separation over equality? Equality is not being promoted in this “Framework for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence” policy at all.

You want to be equal? Take the same classes as your peers, work as hard as you can and get the grade you deserve. That makes you equal with your peers, not waiting around for a professor to give you an A for a class that you probably barely attended, never studied for and possibly slept through.

Shame on you University of Wisconsin – Madison for not only promoting racial and ethnic oppression but for also basically telling your students that they aren’t smart enough to get the grades on their own. Not to mention telling the world that handing out grades because of race or ethnicity is okay, thanks for basically showing the world that the fight for desegregation in all aspects meant nothing. I’m sure Medgar Evers, Betty Friedan, Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King, Jr. are all turning in their graves.

 —

Allison Dawson (@AllyD528) Born in Germany, raised in Mississippi and Texas. Graduate of Texas Tech University and Arizona State University. Currently dedicating her life to studying for the LSAT. Twitter junkie. Conservative.

Featured image courtesy of [Okandasan via Flickr]

Allison Dawson

Allison Dawson was born in Germany and raised in Mississippi and Texas. A graduate of Texas Tech University and Arizona State University, she’s currently dedicating her life to studying for the LSAT. Twitter junkie. Conservative. Get in touch with Allison at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post University of Wisconsin Policy Calls for Grade Distribution by Race and Ethnicity 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, 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.

It’s no secret that many Americans feel there are too many lawsuits in this country. If you’ve ever been selected for jury duty, then you know that one of the most common questions asked before sitting on a civil case is whether or not people sue too often. The answer back to the attorney is often “yes,” not just because the panelist is seeking to avoid jury service, but because that’s the view espoused by many when reflecting on the American zeitgeist.

This sentiment is caused, or at least reinforced, by the media’s reporting of lawsuits. The headlines that make the largest waves are often based on huge, seven-digit verdicts. Laura Beth Nielsen and Aaron Beim alluded to this correlation in a recent paper claiming the courts are not as favorable to plaintiffs as the media often portrays, yet the media’s reports are what the public absorbs. Neilsen and Beim’s chief example is a Boston Globe report of an MBTA worker who was awarded a $5.5 million discrimination verdict. The verdict was later reduced by 80 percent on remittitur, an important detail the Globe did not feature as prominently as the original verdict. It seems that cases alleging discrimination in the workplace carry a stigma with the public and media.

Just as the figures of a verdict can be lost on the average American, so too can the merits of the underlying discrimination case. In 2009, former Los Angeles Clippers executive Elgin Baylor sued team owner Donald Sterling alleging racial discrimination. A jury of 12 unanimously rejected Baylor’s suit, and many called the hall of famer’s action frivolous.

Cases alleging tales of sexual discrimination are no different. This year alone, cheerleaders from three different NFL teams have sued their employers, often alleging sexual harassment among a variety of different wage claims. Knee-jerk reactions to such suits are often negative, as evidenced in the comments section of ESPN articles covering the matter.

A closer look at both situations may evoke a more tolerant response. Since his lawsuit, Elgin Baylor’s former employer has allegedly been caught on tape making racist comments against African Americans, and some former Clippers aren’t surprised by his discriminatory tendencies. Details have also emerged in the cheerleading case of the Buffalo Jills, whose employer allegedly instructed them on how to control their menstrual cycles and how to wash their “intimate areas.”

In sum, it’s never a bad idea to reserve judgment on a lawsuit that appears in the news or on TV, even one alleging discrimination. In fact, suits alleging workplace discrimination often already have safeguards in place against frivolous litigation, like the EEOC’s Right-To-Sue-Letter. But even absent an EEOC investigation, plaintiffs should be afforded a blank slate. Few things in this country are as ubiquitously opposed as prejudice and discrimination. Those who decide to sacrifice time, money, and privacy to personally combat these evils in a public court should be heard with an open mind.

____

Andrew Blancato (@BigDogBlancato) holds a J.D. from New York Law School, and is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. When he’s not writing, he is either clerking at a trial court in Connecticut, or obsessing over Boston sports.

Featured image courtesy of [BuffaloProCheer via Wikipedia]

Andrew Blancato

The post Rethinking Discrimination Suits in Light of Buffalo Jills, Donald Sterling 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

More than 20 percent of women in the armed forces have experienced sexual misconduct in the military. Due to fear of backlash, this statistic is significantly under reported. In the last year, however, reported sexual assaults in the military increased an unprecedented 46%.

Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have truly made bi-partisan efforts to shed light on this national travesty. Sen. Gillibrand recently predicted that the current Military Sexual Assault Bill, which would remove sexual assault cases from the chain of command, will receive the necessary votes to pass.

The efforts of Sen. Gillibrand and others fighting for reform, particularly to take military oversight of sexual assault cases out of military hands, is increasingly gaining attention and steam. The Invisible War, a groundbreaking documentary directed by Kirby Dick, helped make waves on the road to reform, expanding awareness of the critical issue. Two of the women featured in the film, attorney Susan L. Burke and former Airman First Class Jessica Nicole Hinves, joined the Forum on Law, Culture and Society at Fordham Law School for the Forum Film Festival to discuss the issues raised by the film and the steps needed for reform and to pass the Military Sexual Assault Bill. Moderator Thane Rosenbaum, film executive producer Maria Cuomo-Cole, and Rear Admiral Susan J. Blumenthal rounded out the panel.

(All statistics in the film are from U.S. Government Studies)

The Invisible War addresses the rampant under-reporting of sexual harassment in the military. Female soldiers are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than be killed in action. In addition, women who have been raped in the military have a higher rate of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than men who have been in combat.

In fact, about 80% of sexually assaulted men and women do not report. Yes, I said men and women, as male victims comprise approximately one percent, or 20 thousand cases, of all military sexual trauma.

A study by the United States Navy included in the film asserts that 18 percent of incoming recruits have attempted or committed rape before entering the military. An alarming statistic considering that we hold our military to such high standards and expect a certain degree of oversight. Twenty-five percent of women do not report rape because their commanding officers are the rapists. Due to the chain of command disciplinary system, prosecution of these attacks is entirely at the discretion of the military and the commanding officers are in charge. Although Congress has the power to exercise congressional oversight over these military sexual misconduct situations, few members have chosen to become involved until recently.

Susan Burke suggested that the military justice system is flawed and must be modernized. “Put the adjudicatory power in the hands of the prosecutors – not the commanders,” she stated.

The problems with sexual misconduct in the military is not new. As the film points out, in 1991, the Navy dealt with sexual misconduct issues with regard to the Tailhook Convention in which approximately 200 Navy and Marine airmen participated in “The Gauntlet”. This involved men roaming the halls in search of women to assault. “The Gauntlet” ending with the sexual assaults of hundreds of women.

The embarrassing events that took place at the Tailhook Convention in 1991 are absolutely unacceptable; however, such conduct did not end there. In 1996, the Army dealt with sexual misconduct at the Aberdeen Proving Ground involving the rape and sexual harassment of 30 women. In 2003, the Air Force dealt with sexual misconduct within their Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Most recently, there was a scandal involving the rape of a Marine stationed at the Marine Barracks in D.C., a very reputable place to be stationed due to its proximity to the U.S. Capitol building.

Many of the resulting lawsuits and prosecutions in these sexual misconduct cases often end in a form of insignificant justice. In Jessica Nicole Hinves’ case, the man who was under investigation actually received a promotion. Many of these lawsuits end poorly, partially due to the Feres Doctrine which states that the U.S. government is not liable for injuries sustained during service (including rape, apparently).

Additionally, a December 2011 lawsuit was dismissed because the court claimed that sexual harassment is “an occupational hazard of military service.” This seems outlandish, outrageous and absolutely upside-down. Since when is rape and sexual misconduct part of the job description when enlisting in the military to serve our nation and protect our freedom? What’s next, barcodes on every American citizen’s neck as a residential hazard of living in the United States?

Even with bills such as the STOP Act aimed at rectifying the many injustices our service people endure when it comes to sexual assault, many still wonder if it will be enough. According to, Jessica Nicole Hinves, this type of moral erosion is a national security issue, as military feminism is looked down upon by higher ranking commanders.

Holding servicemen accountable for the sexual misconduct they perpetrate is essential in order to maintain the respectable and cohesive nature of our military. Resistance to oversight legislation aimed at removing military sexual assault cases from the chain of command is at odds with the military’s insistence that in order to maintain good order and discipline, commanders need to maintain leadership, control and power.

The panel suggested that military justice can and must be effected through civilian control, encouraging audience members to tell their Congressional representatives that commanders must be held accountable and that higher ranks do not put people in a position to make legal determinations about sexual assault. Countries such as England, Australia and Israel have taken the oversight out of military hands. Therefore, perhaps it is time the United States follows suit.

—

Rob Anthony is a founding member of Law Street Media. He is a New Yorker, born and raised, and a graduate of New York Law School. In the words of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, “We need to be bold and adventurous in our thinking in order to survive.” Contact Rob at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [U.S. Army IMCOM via Flickr]

Robbin Antony

Rob Antony is a founding member of Law Street Media. He is a New Yorker, born and raised, and a graduate of New York Law School. Contact Rob at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Forum Film Festival Series: Part 2 – The Invisible War 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.

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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.

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.

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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.

In the workplace, there are certain parameters of acceptable behavior that are common knowledge, and then it is up to a given company’s discretion to set additional rules. For example, a big-time global firm by the name of Clifford Chance recently sent out an office memo on how to act appropriately within the workplace to its American offices. Parts of the memo were aimed seeming exclusively at women, and overall the piece was a rather impressive display of sexism.

The memo was entitled “Speaking Effectively” and contained 150 pieces of advice on various types of presentation skills. Some of the tips were pretty benign and gender-neutral, such as to bring notes to presentations, make strong eye contact, timing speeches, and using pauses effectively. However, others were clearly aimed at women, and can be considered patronizing at best.

The five-page memo is broken up into a number of categories, and each category seems to contain an extra tip for women. Some of my personal favorite lines:

• “Pretend you’re in moot court, not the high school cafeteria.”
• “Your voice is higher than you hear. Think Lauren Bacall, not Marilyn Monroe.”
• “Don’t giggle.”
• “Don’t hide behind your hair.”
• “Don’t take your purse up to the podium.”
• “Wear a suit, not your party outfit.”
• “Understated jewelry, nothing jingly or clanky.”
• “No one heard Hillary the day she showed cleavage.”
• “If wearing a skirt, make sure audience can’t see up it when sitting on the dias.”
• “Make sure you can stand in your heels, not trip, don’t rock back on them.”

None of these tips could be construed as anything but specifically aimed at female attorneys. Stating that Lauren Bacall, an American actress known for her “distinctive husky voice and sultry looks,” is a more appropriate voice role model than a different actress is condescending. Demeaning our former Secretary of State Clinton’s outfit choices is uninspired—no one would ever make an equal comparison to our male politicians. And overall, this memo treats female attorneys as though they are teenagers, and reduces their high educational attainment and worth to their physical and verbal appearances.

The worst part about this memo is the way in which these tips are presented, not the tips themselves. As someone who has competed in public speaking activities for many years, and who is constantly charged with teaching other young women how to present, some aspects of these are grounded in reality. The issue is that they’re not just for women, they’re tips for men too. Everyone should know that there’s an appropriate professional voice and personal voice. Both women and men should speak differently to their friends than their coworkers. But by comparing women’s voices to celebrities, and not making a similar comparison for men, is where this memo veers into grossly inappropriate territory.

As much as we would like to think differently, women are still at a disadvantage in the workplace. While estimates of its actual value range from 77 cents – 91 cents, the gender pay gap does indisputably exist. Furthermore, we constantly are hearing case after case of sexual harassment—from San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s rampant inappropriate behavior, to a recent revelation that unpaid interns aren’t necessarily protected from sexual harassment.

Then there are memos like this one from Clifford Chance. It differentiates between men and women, and while it cannot necessarily be legally defined as sexual harassment, it is absolutely discriminatory. As long as women are treated like children while being told how to behave appropriately in the work place at a prominent firm, workplace equality will remain a struggle.

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Steve Wilson via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Commonsense Etiquette or Blatant Sexism? appeared first on Law Street.