A Saudi Arabian prince has been arrested after a series of videos emerged online that appear to show him abusing people. The short clips posted on YouTube and Twitter allegedly show the prince pointing a rifle toward a bleeding man who is pleading for his life.

One clip, that has been viewed over 760,000 times, shows 18 bottles of Johnnie Walker whiskey and a pile of cash. Consuming or selling alcohol is forbidden in the strictly Muslim country. Another clip shows the prince, Saud bin Abdulaziz bin Musaed bin Saud bin Abdulaziz, beating someone who is sitting in a chair.

After the videos went viral, King Salman ordered the arrest of the prince on Wednesday. He also ordered the arrests of any associates that could be seen in the footage. The king reportedly won’t allow the release of anyone involved in the case until a ruling is ready.

Royals Not Exempt From Punishment

Even though royals have a very special status in the country, they are not above the law. Last fall, a prince was executed after he was found guilty of killing another man. The beheading was carried out on the direct orders of King Salman.

WATCH: The moment when a Saudi prince was arrested.
More here: https://t.co/QAF4pRC1pA pic.twitter.com/ZA87JMsnks

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) July 20, 2017

The extended royal family is conservatively estimated to be some 6,000 members. King Salman has tried to make it clear that royal family members don’t get any special treatment. In an effort to rebuild its reputation on an international level, Saudi Arabia has hired U.S. lobbying firms to push its agenda. Impeding Iran’s influence in the Middle East and isolating Qatar have also been part of that same strategy.

Double Standards on Social Media?

While Saudi Arabia may have found support online for its handling of the prince’s videos, it was only a few days ago that social media was in an uproar over a girl being arrested for wearing a short skirt in the country.

The country is lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to human rights and women’s rights. Women are still prohibited from going outside or driving a car without the company of a male guardian, and the law even dictates what they can wear.

Last weekend, a Saudi social media personality was arrested and questioned by the religious police after she walked around a historic Saudi fort wearing a short skirt. The arrest sparked outrage from people in other countries, and she was later released without facing any charges.

“Saudi Arabia’s purported plans to reshape society and advance women’s rights will never succeed as long as authorities go after women for what they wear,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch in the Middle East.

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 Saudi Prince Arrested After Videos Allegedly Show Him Abusing People 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:

White House Criticized for Promoting Mar-a-Lago

In a blog post from April 4, the U.S. State Department promoted Mar-a-Lago as “Trump’s Florida estate,” and claimed that by visiting “this ‘winter White House,’ Trump is belatedly fulfilling the dream of Mar-a-Lago’s original owner and designer.” After Trump was elected president, the Florida resort doubled its membership fee to $200,000. The blog post received renewed attention on Monday after it was featured on the website of the U.S. embassy in London, as well as several other U.S. embassies. Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden asked on Twitter why taxpayer money is “promoting the president’s private country club.” President Obama’s chief ethics attorney, Norman Eisen, called it “exploitation” and said that this behavior needs to be stopped. Eisen is also part of a group of attorneys who have already sued Trump for an alleged violation of the emoluments clause, which states that a president can’t accept gifts or payments from foreign states without approval from Congress.

Yes, I am curious @StateDept. Why are taxpayer $$ promoting the President’s private country club? pic.twitter.com/IlPhUlvMwa

— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) April 24, 2017

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: April 25, 2017 appeared first on Law Street.

Saudi Arabia marked the week following International Women’s Day with a historic event–the country’s first ever girls’ council, convened in the province of Qassim. The council is a small part of the sweeping Vision 2030 plan, a set of goals for the kingdom that includes creating a more tolerant and inclusive atmosphere for women. Yet the council has now become a viral joke rather than an important turning point for the country, after photos from the convening of the council revealed that it was entirely comprised of men.

Some women apparently do sit on the council, but the gender segregation codes of Saudi Arabia meant that they had to sit in a separate room, connected to the main conference by video link. In a country where women quite literally cannot get a seat at the table, what can the girls’ council accomplish?

Qassim Governor Prince Faisal bin Mishal bin Saud, who hosted the conference, framed the council as important because “we look at women as sisters to men.” This is far from a rallying cry for gender parity, but it may be the best we can expect from Saudi Arabia. Life for girls and women in the Kingdom is dictated entirely by their male guardians, who are able to control where they go, who they see, and what they do with virtually every moment of their day. Women are not treated as legal adults, which means even as progress slowly trickles into the country, they are still denied basic legal rights and protections.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, it is always wise to temper expectations and remember that the Vision 2030 goals may not actually be reached by 2030. Women’s rights are not the only issue on the table–poverty, youth unemployment, a lack of affordable housing and a clearly defined racial hierarchy that has been reinforced over the years by the wealthiest Saudi families preserving the status quo.

These civil rights issues are inextricably linked to the oil economy, which has concentrated wealth in certain pockets and has left the rest of the country out in the cold. Vision 2030’s mission requires an overhaul of every part of Saudi life–and it may be impossible to successfully implement the changes that must be made unless the government is willing to relax the ties between its extreme interpretation of religion and rule of law.

The Qassim girls’ council has already been turned into a meme, being compared to the photo of an all male Trump Administration team reinstating the Mexico City Policy (also known as the global gag rule) by executive order this year. Western news outlets picked up the images from Qassim, pointing out the absurdity of a girls’ council without any women present. Still, the criticism has not moved the Saudi organizers to change the make-up of the council or let the female advisers participate alongside their male counterparts.

I sincerely hope that the girls’ council does not fade into the background, and that it does receive the necessary funding and attention to advance gender equality. Yet, at this moment, it seems like a mere publicity stunt gone wrong: an attempt to showcase the Vision 2030 goals that revealed exactly how far Saudi Arabia still has to go.

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 Saudi Arabia Isn’t Going to Hit its 2030 Goal appeared first on Law Street.

Texas state Rep. Jessica Farrar was fed up with men making laws restricting women’s reproductive choices and decided to get back at them. Farrar, a Democrat, introduced a bill on Friday that calls for a $100 fine on men who masturbate, and would place additional requirements on doctors prior to performing vasectomies and colonoscopies or prescribing Viagra. Under the proposed legislation, men would have to go through the same invasive scrutiny that women face today when seeking an abortion. House Bill 4260 would also allow doctors to refuse to perform a vasectomy and prescribe Viagra because of religious beliefs.

Farrar realizes that her bill, unfortunately, has very little chance of becoming law, but she said she hopes it will open up people’s minds–even though she admits this may be too much to ask of her fellow politicians. “What I would like to see is this make people stop and think,” she told The Texas Tribune. “Maybe my colleagues aren’t capable of that, but the people who voted for them, or the people that didn’t vote at all, I hope that it changes their mind and helps them to decide what the priorities are.”

#HB4260, “A Man’s Right to Know,” mirrors real TX laws and health care restrictions faced by TX women every #txlege session.

— Jessica Farrar (@JFarrarDist148) March 11, 2017

The new bill is named the “Man’s Right to Know Act.” Given that many male politicians cite the sanctity of life when fighting against abortion, Farrar said it’s only fair to view a man’s sperm as a contribution to that life and that it would be a shame to waste it. Therefore she proposed a bill that would require men to be responsible for their own actions–only allowing them to masturbate at a clinic where the sperm can be stored to fertilize a woman in the future.

Mirroring yet another law that currently affects women, the bill also calls for a 24-hour waiting period after a man’s first consultation for an elective vasectomy procedure or a Viagra prescription. This is a reality today for women seeking an abortion. Also, Farrar’s bill would require a rectal exam before a vasectomy or colonoscopy, even though it is not medically necessary. Today in Texas, women are required to have an ultrasound and listen to the heartbeat of the fetus before an abortion is performed, which is also medically unnecessary and, as Farrar says, “messes with women’s heads.”

Jessica Farrar, a Texas state Rep. from Houston, just filed a bill that trolls the entire Texas GOP. H/t @rossramsey https://t.co/PMNNQtmEje pic.twitter.com/IN9BvSHwdV

— Aman Batheja (@amanbatheja) March 11, 2017

It probably goes without saying that Farrar is an outspoken advocate for a woman’s right to choose abortion, and she has long fought against Texas legislation that restricts access to abortions. Lately, a lot of bills have been filed in the state targeting women’s reproductive rights. A bill by Rep. Tony Tinderholt goes as far as charging women who have an abortion, and their abortion providers, with murder. In a statement responding to the “Man’s Right to Know Act,” Tinderholt said, “I’m embarrassed for Representative Farrar,” and suggested that she take a biology class, obviously missing the point Farrar was trying to make.

Another bill by Rep. Byron Cook requires Texas hospitals to bury or cremate all fetal remains rather than disposing of them as biological waste. Texas is only one of many states with pending legislation like this. Advocates say it’s inhumane to “throw the bodies of human beings into a landfill.” Opponents say this is an ideological viewpoint that the state shouldn’t impose on women and that it could affect the access to abortion by imposing additional costs on clinics and hospitals.

As expected, many men and conservatives attacked Farrar and the bill on social media, claiming that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. But most people got the joke and if the satirical bill could help people open their eyes to what women go through every day, that’s at least one step in the right direction.

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 Texas Legislator Introduces Bill to Penalize Male Masturbation appeared first on Law Street.

Sportswear brand Nike has announced that it will launch a high performance hijab, to help female Muslim athletes perform at their best. Muslim women who wear a hijab will now have an actual item of sportswear that represents them and doesn’t make them choose between function and their beliefs. The new product goes under the name Nike Pro Hijab and is designed to better deal with problems that traditional hijabs could pose when used in a sports setting, such as being too heavy, too sweaty, or easily coming loose.

Nike said in a statement that the hijab has been officially in the making for a year, but really for much longer than that if you consider Nike’s mantra that, “if you have a body, you’re an athlete.” The statement added that Nike started discussing the matter seriously in 2012, when runner Sarah Attar became the first female track athlete to compete for Saudi Arabia in the London Olympics and did so in her hijab. She finished the 800 meter race almost 45 seconds after the other runners, and the audience gave her a standing ovation. A few days earlier her teammate Wojdan Shaherkani, who competed in Judo, became the very first Saudi woman to compete in the Olympics.

As a hijab wearing athlete, I’m stoked for @nike‘s pro hijab line. Moreso I love that its approved/featured by ACUTAL hijab wearing athletes pic.twitter.com/qzIRtQcQ9Y

— Rowaida Abdelaziz (@Rowaida_Abdel) March 7, 2017

Nike said that it started to work on the hijab when Muslim female weightlifter Amna Al Haddad visited Nike’s sports research lab in Oregon to discuss problems she had with her own hijabs. She said that she only had one that worked to exercise in, and that she had to wash it by hand every night. After that, the Nike team collaborated with athletes to develop a more breathable and lightweight garment.

Many women see Nike’s announcement as a victory for Muslim female athletes all over the world.

This is the most amazing thing!! Imagine how comfy it’s gonna be – better than those other scarf things hijabis have to wear now. https://t.co/QqPfR1FlUF

— Aisha Baker Parnell (@bakedtheblog) March 7, 2017

But on the other hand, some people on social media pointed out that smaller and less influential sports brands have been making athletic hijabs for several years.

Most patronising. I’ve been wearing a scarf and exercising fine for years, just as small businesses have BEEN making scarves for activewear. https://t.co/BFpjn8jdCR

— Aaisha Dadi Patel (@aaishadadipatel) March 7, 2017

Some people also levied complaints, saying that Nike “sides with the oppression of women,” or that Nike is taking advantage of religious concerns to make money. But in general, the new product seems to have garnered plenty of applause. The discussion about hijabs in sports has been controversial and FIFA, the international football association, banned hijabs for soccer players until as recently as 2014. The international basketball federation, FIBA, still has a ban in place.

That a world-renowned sports brand such as Nike started producing an activewear hijab is seen as a big step in the right direction. “For a brand like Nike to come out and say that these people exist and are inclusive of hijabis is a big deal,” said Manal Rostom, an Egyptian athlete, to Al Arabiya English.

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 Nike Launches High Performance Hijab For Muslim Athletes appeared first on Law Street.

Uber leadership is scrambling to react this week to the sexual harassment allegations of former employee Susan J. Fowler, whose blog post on her experience at Uber has gone viral. Fowler describes how she was repeatedly sexually harassed and discriminated against yet every time she made a report to her managers or to human resources, she was dismissed. Fowler’s story throws a spotlight on sexism in an industry that loves to paint itself as forward thinking and inclusive, and her experience was not an isolated case–as Fowler’s blog gained traction, women from a range of companies began sharing their experiences with sexual harassment in the tech world.

Uber’s reputation already took a hit this winter when #deleteUber began to trend after Uber failed to condemn the Trump Administration’s immigration ban and continued sending cars to airports during a tax driver protest. After Fowler’s blog post, the deleting trend is back in full force. With rival Lyft picking up some of the client base that was once so loyal to Uber, the company’s reputation–and financial success–could begin to crumble.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has stated that he was disturbed and shocked by Fowler’s experience and within a matter of hours had hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a review of sexual harassment claims at the company. This will be Holder’s second venture into creating a more inclusive Silicon Valley brand. After Airbnb received widespread complaints of discrimination from hosts, Holder and Laura Murphy, former head of the ACLU, were hired to craft an anti-discrimination policy for the company. Airbnb now has hosts accept its anti-discrimination rules before they can become part of the Airbnb community, and while there have been arguments that the rules are not actually effective and that they don’t go far enough, the new rules were at least a step in the right direction. Holder has always been a staunch advocate for civil rights and was fully committed to women’s rights during his tenure as attorney general–but is he truly being asked to overhaul Uber’s culture or simply being brought on for publicity reasons?

There are doubts that Holder’s team will be able to defeat sexism in an industry where women are rarely given a seat at the table within a nation where sexual harassment has gone unpunished for decades and where the sitting president has bragged about assaulting women. Uber, like most companies across Silicon Valley and around the world, prioritizes results over respect for women in the workplace. Multiple interviews from current and former Uber employees have revealed that the work environment can be very hostile but that no one reports it out of fear of retaliation.

Now that Fowler’s case has shone a spotlight on a reality that we often ignore, Uber has at least taken steps to acknowledge the problem immediately, both by hiring Holder and by issuing a message that acknowledges Fowler’s case when users try to delete the app. However, over the coming weeks as media attention shifts, Uber may have minimal incentives to improve its sexual harassment policies. Uber is still an exciting company for any young developer to work at, and while Fowler’s case may give female programmers and engineers pause, there is little reason to think that many male candidates will choose not to work at Uber because of Fowler’s story.

The most effective boycott would be taking #deleteUber a step further–don’t work for Uber. If Uber takes a hit in its hiring pool, that is when it will truly feel the pressure to reform. It is the responsibility of young, qualified candidates who are working in Silicon Valley to turn down offers at companies that subscribe to a toxic work environment that devalues female voices. Holder will be working to create new policies and investigate past offenses, but his investigation will be futile if we continue to ignore the results and sign up for Uber just the same.

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 Eric Holder Can’t Save Silicon Valley Alone appeared first on Law Street.

Groups of Canadians and Europeans headed to the Women’s March on Washington claim they were detained and denied entry at the U.S. border after disclosing plans to attend the protests. According to Joseph Decunha from Montreal, the first thing the border agent asked him was, “are you anti- or pro-Trump?” He was traveling on Thursday with two American citizens and they shared their plans to attend the march with the border agents. All of them were then required to be photographed and have their fingerprints stamped. In the end, the Americans could cross but Decunha wasn’t allowed. He said:

They told me I was being denied entry for administrative reasons. According to the agent, my traveling to the United States for the purpose of protesting didn’t constitute a valid reason to cross.

Decunha said that the border agent also asked him if he had travelled to the Middle East and if he believes in violence. “It’s concerning to see that at border crossings you’re being screened for what your political beliefs are,” he said. “It felt like, if we had been pro-Trump, we would have absolutely been allowed entry.”

US Border Patrol is asking people if they’re pro/anti-Trump, denying people entry if they’re attending the March https://t.co/75vaUPdVK9

— Kelly Hills (@rocza) January 21, 2017

Sasha Dyck was in another group of eight people—six Canadians, two French citizens—who traveled in two cars to the same border crossing as Decunha, located between St Bernard de Lacolle in Quebec and Champlain in New York. When they stated that they intended on attending the women’s march, the border agents reportedly told them to pull over and started a two-hour interrogation. They also had to provide their fingerprints and be photographed. Agents searched the contents of their phones, as well as their cars. France is a part of the Visa Waiver Program that lets foreign nationals enter the U.S. without a visa. But the agents told the French citizens they would need to apply for one if they wanted to enter the U.S. in the future.

And so it begins…Canadians, including a dual Cdn-US citizen, denied entry to USA. https://t.co/BtD0QPsJMD

— NutkinNB (@NutkinNB) January 20, 2017

Dyck said the agents told the rest of the group that they were “headed home today” without any reason given. The agents said that if they tried to cross the border again that weekend, they would be arrested. But Dyck also drove to the U.S. after Obama’s win in 2009, and says that was a very different experience: “I couldn’t even get in for this one, whereas at the other one, the guy at the border literally gave me a high five when I came in and everybody was just like, ‘welcome,’” he said. He holds dual citizenship, but didn’t have his American passport with him this time.

Yet another group of people was allegedly stopped at the same border crossing the same day. British man Joe Kroese was driving to Washington with one Canadian and two Americans to participate in the women’s march when they were stopped. They also went through the same steps of questioning, fingerprints, and photos, after which Kroese and his Canadian friend were denied entry and told to not try to travel to the U.S. for a couple of months.

Kroese, who is a student in Montreal, reports that he was told the same thing as the French citizens—that he would need a visa if traveling to the U.S. in the future. “They took my phone and started going through my texts,” he said. He also said there was another car with Canadians heading to the march, and the agents asked the driver of that car if he practiced Islam and if he spoke Arabic. “They wanted to spook us a bit. It felt like a kind of intimidation.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has not responded to media’s requests for comment, but has said in statements that it can’t comment on individual cases for privacy reasons.

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 Canadians Traveling to the Protests Report Being Denied Entry to the U.S. appeared first on Law Street.

A 29-year-old woman is suing a Tennessee sheriff for $1.5 million, claiming he violated her Constitutional rights when he denied her access to an abortion while she was in jail.

The Tennessean reports that Kei’Choura Cathey was arrested in July 2015 on robbery and murder conspiracy charges in Maury County. She found out that she was pregnant roughly two weeks later. Cathey alerted Maury County Sheriff Bucky Rowland via her lawyer that she wanted to have an abortion, but claims that Rowland told her that his department would not pay to transport her to the clinic unless the abortion was medically necessary or the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest.

Cathey wasn’t able to post bail until January 2016, and by then it was too late to have the procedure. The child was born in April.

Sheriff Rowland disputes her account. “The lawsuit is not correct,” Rowland told the Daily Herald on Tuesday. “We did offer her transportation to and from, if she elected to go through with the procedure. We were not going to take her and pay for the procedure. We felt like it was an elective procedure. We did not feel like the taxpayers should pay for it.”

“Her health and her life [were] not in jeopardy,” Rowland said. “No other circumstances came into play, except she wanted to have an abortion. If she wanted to pay for that, that was up to her.”

The lawsuit was filed December 29 in federal court in Nashville. Cathey alleges in the complaint that Rowland violated her Eighth Amendment rights by inflicting cruel and unusual punishment, as well as her 14th Amendment rights.

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Doe v. Arpaio that an Arizona woman had a Constitutional right to get an abortion off jail grounds.

Imprisoned women have a legal right to obtain an abortion if they want one; however, women receiving non-life threatening abortions are often left financially responsible for the appointment and transportation, regardless of whether or not they are able to pay. Jail and prison policies regarding pregnancy-related health care and abortions vary from state to state.

While the ACLU has often represented women in cases where they believe their right to an abortion was infringed upon, the non-profit is not involved in Cathey’s pending case against Maury County.

Cathey is asking for $150,000 in actual damages and $1.35 million in punitive damages.

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 Jailed Tennessee Woman Claims She Was Denied an Abortion, Sues Sheriff appeared first on Law Street.

Revenge porn–the non-consensual posting of someone’s explicit photos or videos, usually by an ex–is deeply problematic. And as our technology evolves, we need lawyers willing to help out those, often women, who fall victim to this kind of online harassment. Brooklyn attorney Carrie Goldberg specializes in sexual privacy and focuses on fighting revenge porn, and recently made headlines after being featured in a New Yorker profile. She was once the victim of online sexual harassment, and basically had to start her own law firm in order to become the kind of lawyer that was needed. She mainly represents young women who are trying to get photos off the internet, are being extorted, or have endured sexual abuse.

ACTIVIST SPOTLIGHT (USA): Carrie Goldberg is a Brooklyn attorney with a practice specialising in sexual privacy,… https://t.co/jNGmstSmH2

— The Pixel Project (@PixelProject) December 12, 2016

Many of her clients feel shame, even though they didn’t do anything wrong. One of the youngest is an African-American girl who is only 15 years old. When she was 13, she was raped by a classmate who filmed it and spread the video around the school. Instead of punishing the boy, the school sent the girl home and later transferred her to another school. She was in effect punished for being raped and harassed. Most other clients are women in their twenties who have ex-boyfriends or husbands who have spread or threatened to spread photos or videos online.

Goldberg has, sadly, seen a steady uptick in the number of clients seeking her help since the emergence of Donald Trump as a serious political contender. By this summer she had 35 active clients and had to hire a colleague. She said that many people seem to believe that a Trump presidency might mean a “license to be cruel.” And it’s not all revenge porn–for example she represents a family whose kids’ pictures were used in memes about the Pizzagate conspiracy.

Abuse on the internet flourishes easily, as it is hard to punish. In the case where someone just sends verbal threats it’s basically impossible to find the perpetrator. But we’re making progress. According to the New York Daily News, Goldberg has already done a lot:

She estimates she’s removed more than 900 pieces of revenge porn from the internet, protecting 72 victims. She’s also lobbied for legislation across the country and 34 states now have it — though not New York.

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 How One Lawyer is Fighting Revenge Porn and Why that Fight Matters Now appeared first on Law Street.

Ohio could soon adopt the nation’s strictest abortion legislation. A bill sent to Governor John Kasich would outlaw abortions as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected–which is as early as six weeks after conception.

The state’s Republican-led House and Senate voted in favor of the so-called “heartbeat bill” Tuesday night, and now it awaits Kasich’s signature.

The measure, which was tacked on last minute to House Bill 493, an unrelated child abuse bill, would not exempt abortions in cases of rape or incest, but does include an exception for an abortion to save the life of a pregnant woman.

The amended bill passed in the Senate with a 21-10 vote, and then again in the House with 56-39–with votes largely following party lines.

If Kasich signs the bill, or if he does nothing in 10 days, the bill will go into effect early next year.

Physicians could face a year in prison if they perform an abortion after a heartbeat is detected or if they fail to check for one before a procedure.

*wakes up*

*trump is person of the year, abortion basically banned in ohio*

*goes back 2 sleep sets snooze for 2020*

— Jessica Samakow (@jsam1126) December 7, 2016

1/3 Well, a 6 week abortion ban just passed the House in Ohio. FYI, you miss your period at 4 weeks pregnant. https://t.co/lAmrVUdHIQ

— Jessica Hische (@jessicahische) December 7, 2016

In February, Kasich labeled himself “pro-life with the exceptions of rape, incest and the life of the mother.” Since he became Ohio governor in 2011, Kasich has signed 17 anti-abortion measures into law. This includes a measure that helped defund Planned Parenthood, and another that banned abortions when a pregnancy is 20 weeks along unless a doctor determines a fetus cannot live outside the womb.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio has already said it will lead a legal battle against the bill if it passes.

If @JohnKasich signs #HeartbeatBill, we’ll sue. #20WeekBan may pass as early as tmrw. Both are unconstitutional & should veto. #StoptheBans

— ACLU of Ohio (@acluohio) December 7, 2016

At least two other “heartbeat bills” in Arkansas and North Dakota were found unconstitutional in federal court.

Kasich has not indicated whether he will veto the bill or sign it.

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 Ohio’s ‘Heartbeat’ Abortion Bill Waits for Governor John Kasich’s Signature appeared first on Law Street.

One of the richest people on earth, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdelaziz Alsaud, published a note on Wednesday urging Saudi Arabia to lift its driving ban on women. “It is high time that Saudi women started driving their cars,” he wrote on his personal website, citing economic, social, religious, and political reasons as to why Saudi Arabia should do away with the highly controversial ban.

Though he is not a member of the government, Alwaleed is highly influential, due in large part to his vast estate. Alwaleed, a billionaire, is the chairman of the Kingdom Holding Company, which invests in Citigroup, Disney, Apple, Twitter, and a handful of other prominent U.S. and European companies. His sentiment is unlikely to directly result in a change in government policy, but in a kingdom where money is power, Alwaleed’s opinion could have an effect.

“Preventing a women from driving a car is today an issue of rights similar to the one that forbade her from receiving an education or having an independent identity,” he wrote in the four-page note. “They are all unjust acts by a traditional society, far more restrictive than what is lawfully allowed by the precepts of religion.”

كفى نقاش:

حان وقت قيادة المرأة للسيارةhttps://t.co/BBgyF8i1Gs

Stop the debate:

Time for women to drivehttps://t.co/6KAniFa4BT

— الوليد بن طلال (@Alwaleed_Talal) November 29, 2016

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world with a driving ban, which is enforced by religious police. Though it’s not technically illegal for women to drive, they cannot be issued driver’s licenses, which in effect does make driving an illegal activity for women. While women throughout the country have protested the ban, and have been jailed for doing so, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in April that he is “not convinced” women should drive.

With some of the harshest restrictions on women in the world, Saudi Arabia recently reached a milestone many countries reached decades ago: as of last December, women in the kingdom can vote and run in local elections.

Another reason to lift the driving ban, Alwaleed contends, is that it would allow the country to “dispense with the services” of the estimated one million foreigners who work in the country as drivers, shuttling women to where they need to be. The average Saudi family spends 3,800 riyal (about $1,000) each month on a driver, he said. Lifting the ban and removing these drivers from the streets, he said, would “lower traffic accidents and decrease the congestion at airports, banks, hospitals, etc., thereby affording better access to a number of services to the Saudi citizenry.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Saudi Prince: It’s “High Time” Women Should be Allowed to Drive appeared first on Law Street.

It is hard to believe that in 2016 in a European country, a government could propose a new law that would make child marriage legal, and also protect rapists from being punished by the law as long as they marry their victim. But that is exactly what is happening in Turkey. The new bill was approved on Thursday and is scheduled to undergo a final vote on Tuesday. If it passes, it will take away the punishment for sexual assault if there is no force or if the victim and perpetrator are married. This would include girls under the age of 18. So how could sexual assault without force be criminalized, and how could sexual violence in marriages be punished? Put simply: they likely couldn’t be.

WTF Turkey with this project of law to decriminalize rape if it ends in a marriage??? “rape legalization”, that’s the true meaning of it…

— mandubianhotep (@mandubian) November 21, 2016

If a man rapes a girl, he can escape punishment by agreeing to rape her for the rest of her life. #Islam #Turkey https://t.co/CrLGhzXM46

— Anne Marie Waters (@AMDWaters) November 19, 2016

Over the weekend, thousands of people took to the streets to protest the proposed law, carrying signs that read “Punish the rapist, not the child,” and “Rape cannot be pardoned.” According to reports even the daughter of Turkey’s President, whose party introduced the bill, protested it. “Pardoning the crime of sexual assault, or dropping it due to prescription, is out of the question. People who commit sexual assault and rape crimes cannot be cleared,” one protester said to the AP.

The government claims it didn’t create the bill to pardon rapists, but to solve some legal challenges in connection with the widespread custom of child marriage. According to Prime Minister Binali Yildrim, it would release men who were imprisoned after marrying underage girls in religious ceremonies. But critics say the law would pardon rape and basically take away the rights of women and children. Now some United Nations agencies, like UNICEF, are urging Turkey to not go ahead with the law, as it would work against the country’s ability to “combat sexual abuse and child marriages.” A spokesperson said that UNICEF is “deeply concerned,” and that “these abject forms of violence against children are crimes which should be punished as such.”

Motion to ‘protect child marriage’ in #Turkey draws criticism and claims of pardoning rape. #EndChildMarriage https://t.co/FIfDpo2Fkr pic.twitter.com/KFUNI04FY8

— Edward Herbert (@ed_herbert) November 21, 2016

Turkey has one of the highest rates of child marriage in Europe, especially in more rural areas. The changes would apply to cases between 2005 and November 16 of this year.

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 Public Uproar: Turkey Moves Ahead With Child Marriage Law appeared first on Law Street.

The Brock Turner sexual assault case upset us all, and you can’t have missed the assault survivor’s powerful words as her statement circulated in the media. It started with the words, “You don’t know me, but you’ve been inside me, and that’s why we’re here today.” A few days after the trial, an open letter was released by Vice President Joe Biden, commending her for her courage. She has only been identified as Emily Doe in the media to protect her identity. Now Glamour magazine has named her as woman of the year for her courage and her words, with the praise: “It was Doe’s take-no-prisoners telling of what happened afterward that changed the conversation about sexual assault forever.”

We honor Emily Doe to support the @RecallPersky initiative: https://t.co/ZwZyzGwv6R #GlamourWOTY #shattertheceiling pic.twitter.com/YrJnEYp8IU

— Glamour (@glamourmag) November 1, 2016

The nomination continued:

Doe’s words circled the globe. Within four days her statement had been viewed 11 million times; it was read aloud on CNN and the floor of Congress. Rape hotlines experienced surges in both calls and offers of volunteer help. And importantly, California closed the loophole that had allowed lighter sentences in cases where the victim is unconscious or severely intoxicated.

On Tuesday, Doe wrote another piece for Glamour describing how she was told her case was an “easy” one, thanks to the evidence and witnesses. But she didn’t experience it that way.

I had forensic evidence, sober un­biased witnesses, a slurred voice mail, police at the scene. I had everything, and I was still told it was not a slam dunk. I thought, if this is what having it good looks like, what other hells are survivors living?

Doe went on to describe how she lost all hope when she heard Turner was only sentenced to six months in prison. And how later, he was let out after serving only about half that time. But after Buzzfeed published the powerful statement she read in court, support from women all over the world started pouring in. She got letters from Botswana, Ireland, and India, she received bicycle shaped earrings to symbolize the two Swedish guys who biked by and rescued her, and she got paintings of lighthouses, referring to the part of her speech when she talked about being a beacon of light for others.

Doe wrote how she wants to be a role model for young girls–and to encourage everyone to speak up. She also contemplated how one woman felt it necessary to comment somewhere on the internet: “Sad. I hope my daughter never ends up like her,” as if being raped was Doe’s own fault. Someone else said: “she’s not pretty enough to have been raped.” Doe absorbed those remarks, but drew strength from seeing her message spread online and on the TV news. And she said she did hope other girls would “end up” like her–strong and knowing their rights.

Emily Doe, “the Stanford Survivor” speaks out in a powerful essay—”I hope you don’t end up, I hope you keep going.” https://t.co/0thSTYFw8Y pic.twitter.com/x6LzPuTLKa

— End Rape on Campus (@endrapeoncampus) November 1, 2016

Placing the blame on an assault survivor is a dated and dangerous way mindset. No matter how someone is dressed or how dark it is outside, an attack is never the survivor’s fault.

If you think the answer is that women need to be more sober, more civil, more upright, that girls must be better at exercising fear, must wear more layers with eyes open wider, we will go nowhere. When Judge Aaron Persky mutes the word justice, when Brock Turner serves one month for every felony, we go nowhere.

She ended her essay by saying that the world won’t change until everyone makes it a priority to avoid harming other people–and hold accountable those who do.

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 Glamour Names Emily Doe from Stanford Rape Case as Woman of the Year appeared first on Law Street.

“So tell me what you want, what you really, really want. I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha)…..end violence against girls!” This may not be the way you remember Spice Girl’s debut hit single “Wannabe,” but thanks to a new viral campaign, it is now.

UN initiative The Global Goals released the video produced by Project Everyone on Tuesday as part of its #WhatIReallyWant campaign. Aside from ending violence against women, the video also contains signs explaining that women want equal pay for equal work, an end to child marriage, and quality education for all girls.

. @AsliJacqueline is a force of world changing girl power in our #WhatIReallyReallyWant video..

What do YOU want? pic.twitter.com/udvDUhkLYi

— The Global Goals (@TheGlobalGoals) July 6, 2016

According to the organization’s Facebook page,

The Spice Girls always have represented girl power — and this time their song “Wannabe” is being used to promote the Sustainable Development Goals, especially No. 5 Gender Equality.

As part of the #WhatIReallyWantCampaign, The Global Goals initiative is asking women to share a photo of themselves holding up sign with what “YOU really, really want” for girls and women. A host of women and girls have already begun uploading their own handcrafted signs to social media, including Posh Spice herself, Victoria Beckham. 

#WhatIReallyReallyWant is no more girls dying of HIV @TheGlobalGoals X vb pic.twitter.com/mFza6cHyBx

— Victoria Beckham (@victoriabeckham) July 5, 2016

Get involved. xxx #WhatIReallyReallyWant pic.twitter.com/kLzQ1wXCc7

— amanda abbington (@CHIMPSINSOCKS) July 5, 2016

Join the movement & tell our world leaders it’s #TimeforGirls. #whatireallyreallywant @TheGlobalGoals pic.twitter.com/q9865lCMTF

— Tanya Burr (@TanyaBurr) July 5, 2016

Many older women don’t get hired for interesting jobs because they’re not…what? Interesting? #WhatIReallyReallyWant pic.twitter.com/LyNJHnOPrI

— Heather McDougal (@wundergrrl) July 6, 2016

Your gender should not be the reason you can’t achieve goals or succeed @TheGlobalGoals #WhatIReallyReallyWant pic.twitter.com/vfPNGcgRiz

— Samantha Kingston (@K_Samantha1) July 5, 2016

This is #WhatIReallyReallyWant #TimeforGirls pic.twitter.com/6MBVbjmAbT

— ell ♡ tan (@tanburrbear) July 5, 2016

Equal Opportunities for all #WhatIReallyReallyWant #TWUK pic.twitter.com/0jjAJoyMkA

— L a u r a (@LauraHJenkins) July 5, 2016

“Every boy and every girl, Spice up your life”#WhatIReallyReallyWant #TimeforGirls @TheGlobalGoals @victoriabeckham pic.twitter.com/yWfgA3ZZF6

— Omri (@Omri_Rawrlan) July 5, 2016

Melanie C, a.k.a. Sporty Spice, said she felt “flattered and [honored]” by the video, and Emma Bunton, a.k.a. Baby Spice, also tweeted out the video.

MJ Delaney, who directed the film said,

This is about modern day girl power. The Spice Girls were about a group of different women joining together and being stronger through that bond. These differences are what we want to celebrate in this film, while showing there are some universal things that all girls, everywhere, really, really want.

Watch Project Everyone Remake:

Original Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” Music Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJLIiF15wjQ

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 Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” Gets Viral Feminist Makeover appeared first on Law Street.

I never thought I would have anything in common with a Kenyan who was born and raised in a small African village, has two master’s degrees from the University of Nairobi in Kenya and University of Pretoria in South Africa, worked on environment and development policy in East Africa, and now is a technical leader working in the elevation and advancement of the links between population and environment. But on June 23 we had something in common–we were both sipping ginger ale and conversing over the intersectionality of women’s empowerment and climate change. 

Hours before, Clive Mutunga was one of a dozen expert panelists present for “At The Eye of the Storm: Women and Climate Change,” an event geared towards fostering conversations about how women are most affected by climate change and the role they play as victims. According to his fellow panelist Jacqueline Patterson, director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program, “Climate change exposes gender vulnerabilities.”

“Women are resilience personified.” Roger-Mark De Souza opens Wilson Center #EyeOfTheStorm event pic.twitter.com/QAjWDypkfm

— UniversalAccessProj (@UnivAccessProj) June 23, 2016

The experts in attendance consisted of both men and women who held distinguished positions at the Department of Defense, Congress, Project Concern International (PCI), University of Hawaii Law School, Tetra Tech, and Solar Sister. Most of them appeared to be young and in their thirties, yet they had already accumulated impressive resumes consisting of environmental and humanitarian jobs aimed at helping women effected by climate change. Sono Aibe, a senior advisor at Pathfinder International perfectly encapsulated the ideology of the event saying, “There is no justice in climate change. Nature does not choose its victims, we do.”

Elhers: Women aren’t invisible. We just aren’t listening. @NewSecurityBeat #EyeOfTheStorm

— Maria Prebble (@maria_prebble) June 23, 2016

In developing countries, most women must rely on collecting natural resources (water, food, and energy for cooking and heating) to sustain their livelihood and the livelihood of their families. Uncertain rainfall, drought, and deforestation–all common symptoms of climate change–make it harder for women to maintain their livelihood. Compared to men in these poor countries, women are disadvantaged because of their limited access to education, economic assets, and a place at the table to make decisions on how to combat the problem.

At the event, there were three different panels that looked at the different angles in which climate change disproportionally impacts women.

Women in Crises: Conflict, Disasters, and Complex Emergencies

Most of the panelists on this panel had traveled to remote parts of the world, and experienced first-hand how women were at the center of the effects of climate change in some of the poorest areas. They also shared stories of how violence against women during times of environmental crisis are happening right in our backyards. Patterson elaborated on this by sharing a startling stat from Hurricane Katrina–nearly 300 women were raped during and after the lawless days of the storm.

Similar violence happened to women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Kelly Fish, a gender technical advisor for PCI, recounted one story about an African woman she worked with who had to walk for miles to collect firewood in order to cook for her family. Sadly, the same wood that she had walked miles to retrieve, was used as a tool for violence–her husband beat her with it every night.

Walks to collect water from miles away can also be dangerous for women, Fish explained. Women in the area were encouraged to wear female condoms when walking to collect water because the risk of rape was so high.

Our Bodies, Our Planet: Climate, Gender, and Health

With the U.S. Agency for International Development, Mutunga works in areas where contraception isn’t easily accessible, or there is a lot of ignorance surrounding it–many women end up raising eight or nine children in poverty-stricken areas. It’s not unusual for the daughters who grow up in these families to be sold off as child brides, because as he described during this panel, “Marriage means one less mouth to feed in a poverty-stricken family.”

He added that when women have children young, and have lots of them, it decreases their chances of staying in school and in the workforce–perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

Prez @SuzannePAI discussing the importance of #familyplanning in mitigating effects of climate change #eyeofthestorm pic.twitter.com/PV9zaKjRE8

— PAI (@popact) June 23, 2016

Climate Champions: Women Entrepreneurs & Climate Solutions

The stories of women who had been victimized by the effects of climate change were important to the context of the event, however, the point was not to dwell on the tragedies, but to offer solutions.

“It’s important that we be climate victors and not climate victims,” said Sherri Goodman, former deputy under Secretary of Defense, at the event’s final panel.

Neha Misra, Co-Founder and Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister, a company that provides clean energy technology to remote areas of Africa to help empower women, emphasized that the response to fighting climate change “has to include women.”

“I believe in a world where women, girls, and their communities have access to the sustainable energy they need to create a prosperous life,” she added.

Another panelist, Swathi Veeravalli, a research scientist for the Army Corps of Engineers found in her research that sometimes simple solutions can make a big difference. “If you provide access to lighting, just lightbulbs the incidents of rape go down immediately.”

Roger-Mark De Souza, Director of Population, Environmental Security, and Resilience at the Wilson Center went as far as saying, “every problem we have is linked to climate change.”

The debate over whether or not climate change is real is essentially over, but it is just the beginning when it comes to grasping what the consequences are. Jane Harman, Director, President, and CEO of the Wilson Center, said women should be at the forefront of creating climate change policy. Harman stated,

Climate change is coming to all of us, but women are the ones who are disproportionally hurt— we bare the burden of sick relatives and personal issues. Women as parents and sisters and caregivers, we are qualified to make security policy and to sit at any security policy table in the world. Who should be the leaders in the climate change policy debate? I would say women.

Following the three panels there was a Happy Hour for the panelists to mingle with the audience. I showed up to the event that day wearing a t-shirt, blue jeans, and dirty converse. To say I didn’t fit in with all of the expert panelists and well-dressed young professionals there is an understatement. However, I felt almost a little guilty for worrying about what I showed up in after learning about the women all over the world who have much bigger problems that affect their well-being.

That’s how I started my conversation with Mutunga, and he responded in a thick Kenyan accent, “Think how lucky those women would be to worry about what they were wearing.” After an inspiring chat with him and learning what I did at the panels, I left the event feeling grateful and motivated to make sure I do my part in helping women impacted by climate change.

Editor’s Note: This post has been edited to reflect that one of the featured quotes was said by Sono Aibe, a senior advisor at Pathfinder International. 

Inez Nicholson

Inez is an editorial intern at Law Street from Raleigh, NC. She will be a junior at North Carolina State University and is studying political science and communication media. When she’s not in the newsroom, you can find her in the weight room. Contact Inez at INicholson@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Victimization of Women From Climate Change appeared first on Law Street.

** Warning: As the title would suggest, this post will contain and link to some NSFW nudity

Some brazen broads in the #NeverTrump movement have devised a new tool to use against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee–female nudity. In an effort to stop Trump from making it to the oval, and to make the Republican National Convention (RNC) as awkward as possible, women are baring it all for anti-Trump votes and female empowerment.

Tramps Against Trump

This movement, comprised of mostly sex workers, has promised to exchange #Votes4Nudes in order to steal votes away from Trump.

#votes4nudesusa #trampsagainsttrump @election2016 pic.twitter.com/hxt98TnC2Q

— Tramps Against Trump (@votes4nudesusa) June 4, 2016

The Tramps Against Trump creator, who goes by the pseudonym “Jessica Rabbit,” told Motherboard, “In the past we had Rock the Vote and other ways to get the vote out, but what do young people like now? They like naked people on the internet. So, we’re using naked people on the internet to make a change and get people excited about something.”

Rabbit and her cohorts are in strong opposition to Trump’s anti-abortion (and some would say anti-women) stances, which threaten both their bodies and their livelihoods.

“Whoever becomes president will have a direct effect on what we can and can’t do with our bodies, and how the law will move forward relating to us,” Rabbit said. “For sex workers, this is a really important election.”

In order to receive nudes, 18 and up voters need only provide a selfie with proof of vote (i.e. a voter receipt).

But don’t even think about bullying any of these ladies to send you pics. This site has a strictly enforced zero tolerance policy for “harassment, racism, homophobia, transphobia or body shaming of ANY KIND” and violators will immediately be blocked.

Nude Art Installation Outside RNC convention

As a disclaimer let me admit that this isn’t a protest of Trump per se, but the nudity will be directed right at him.

Photographer Spencer Tunick, who is best known for organizing large-scale nude shoots, is seeking 100 women volunteers to pose naked in a group art installation in July during the week of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

This piece, which will be titled “Everything She Says Means Everything,” will involve women holding large mirror discs aimed at the convention center in order to “reflect the knowledge and wisdom of progressive women and the concept of ‘Mother Nature.'”

Tunick explained the piece’s philosophy on his site writing, “By holding mirrors, we hope to suggest that women are a reflection and embodiment of nature, the sun, the sky and the land.” Adding, “The mirrors communicate that we are a reflection of ourselves, each other, and of, the world that surrounds us. The woman becomes the future and the future becomes the woman.”

You can volunteer to pose naked in Tunick’s Cleveland installation here.

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 Women Bare Their Naked Rumps to Protest Donald Trump appeared first on Law Street.

A 22-year-old Dutch woman who reported being drugged and raped during a holiday in Qatar ended up being jailed herself for “illicit consensual fornication” and being “drunk in a public place.” The woman, identified only as “Laura,” has been in jail since March 14, and on Monday was handed a one-year suspended sentence, three years of probation, and a fine of about $823.

Protestors feared Laura, 22, would get sentenced to years of prison in Qatar, but Monday’s ruling means she can finally go home as she will be deported back to the Netherlands as soon as possible. A court official told Al Jazeera that the sentence was lenient, adding: “Had she been a Muslim woman, she would have received at least five years in jail. No one can get out of such charges here in Qatar.”

The case has given rise to strong reactions on social media under the hashtag #freelaura:

Dutch woman faces prison after being raped in Qatar for having "extramarital sex" – this needs to be covered by int'l media asap #freelaura

— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) June 11, 2016

Really #Qatar?! And u wonder why I have NO interest in exploring parts abroad. This! When ur jailed 4 reporting ur own rape #FreeLaura Smdh

— Kween Ka$h (@Kweendom) June 13, 2016

The Syrian man accused of raping her, Omar Abdullah al-Hasan, was sentenced a punishment of 100 lashes for extramarital sexual acts, plus 40 lashes for drinking in public, a severe crime in Qatar and other Muslim countries. He admitted to having had sex with the woman but not that it was by force. He was not charged with rape, and the subject didn’t even come up during the court hearing.

Laura was reportedly out at a hotel bar with a friend when she had a drink that made her feel strange. She said she woke up the next morning in a room she didn’t know, realizing she had been raped and probably drugged. When she went to the police, they arrested her.

The Dutch Embassy was involved at an early stage and has been in close contact with Laura and her family. Yvette Burghgraef-van Eechoud, the Dutch ambassador in Doha, said to CNN: “We will do everything we can to get her out of the country as soon as possible to where she says she wants to go.”

Another reason why we shouldn't play football in #Qatar. It's not safe for women! #freelaura

— Devi Boerema (@DeviBoerema) June 11, 2016

Qatar is set to host the World Cup soccer tournament in 2022, something that has led to protests among human rights activists concerning the death of migrant workers, corruption, and more. It has also caused concerns about how the country will deal with beer-loving soccer fans–and how fans will deal with strict sharia laws.

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 Dutch Woman Jailed In Qatar After Being Raped To Be Sent Home appeared first on Law Street.

Since the Olympic Games were first opened to women in 1900, female athletes have stunned the world with their athleticism and dedication. Like their male counterparts, they train for years–even decades–to achieve perfection in their sport, pushing their bodies to the breaking point in order to bring home a medal for their country. In 2012, Team USA was comprised of more women than men, prompting USA Today to call London 2012 “The Title IX Olympics.”

Yet although we appreciate and applaud our female athletes every four years during the Games, their road to the Opening Ceremony can be significantly rockier than that of their male team members. In fact, 2012 was the first year in which every country in the Olympic Games had female athletes participating–not because not enough female athletes had failed to qualify for the competition but because Saudi Arabia had historically banned female athletes from competing in the Games. After considerable international pressure, Saudi Arabia agreed to send Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani for judo and Sarah Attar for the 800 meter race to the London 2012 Games–the first time in history the nation sent female athletes to the games. Qatar and Brunei’s female athletes at the London Games were also the first female members in the history of their Olympic participation, but in both of those countries, the policies restricting women in sports are significantly less harsh.

However the battle to include female Saudi athletes was hard fought. There was significant criticism when Saudi Arabia originally didn’t include any women–Human Rights Watch called for a ban on the entire Saudi delegation unless it included female athletes. Read on to take a look at the tough fight for gender equality in the Olympics.

The Attention on Gender Equality in the Olympics

History of Exclusion and Inclusion

Today we may take our female athletes for granted, as over 44 percent of the participants in the last summer games were women, but they can face a form of discrimination that their male peers rarely encounter. It has taken decades to open certain sports to women–consider that ski jumping in the Winter Olympics only became open to women during the Sochi 2014 Winter Games. It was not until 1991 that the Olympics officially opened all sports to both genders, but that declaration was undermined by the caveat that sports from the inaugural 1924 Games did not have to be open to female athletes. The rationale behind this ban on women’s participation is tied to the idea that women are at greater risk of physical harm when competing or that they do not have the same physical stamina as male athletes.

Equality?

Even when women are allowed to compete in their sport, there is no guarantee they will have the same privileges that male athletes receive. When the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team filed their EOEC complaint regarding salary earlier this month, they threatened to boycott the Olympic Games unless they received comparable pay to their male counterparts. Under the 1978 Amateur Sports Act, the United States Olympic Committee and its National Governing Bodies are required to operate in a non-discriminatory fashion but not all nations have dedicated the same legal attention to gender parity.

However, no matter what a country’s domestic policy is on women in sports, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has seemingly gone the extra mile to ensure that women can compete at the Olympic level. The “universality clause” states that athletes who do not qualify for an event during the trials can still compete if they are considered critical to the national team “for reasons of equality.” It was under this clause that both female Saudi athletes were able to compete in London 2012.

Case Study: Saudi Arabia as a Last Holdout

Saudi Arabia has effectively placed a blanket ban on women’s sports, even though there is no law preventing women from participating in organized sports (just as there is no official law preventing women from driving). But in order for women to train, they must attend a gym with separate women’s facilities–and only a handful of gyms across the country possess a separate women’s building. Community centers and schools almost never offer women’s training spaces so most women wishing to exercise, let alone train for an organized sport, may have to travel outside of the country to do so. Girls attending government schools are prohibited from taking part in sports. There were discussions in 2014 about allowing physical education programs in public schools but that conversation has stalled and come to naught. Besides being a policy that prevents women from competing in athletics, it can be seen as an incredibly dangerous public health maneuver, considering that 34 percent of Saudi Arabian women are obese and Type 2 diabetes is prevalent throughout the Saudi population.

There is not necessarily a lack of interest in sports among women in Saudi Arabia. In July 2012, a group of citizens requested to organize a women’s sports tournament including volleyball, soccer, and basketball, promising that it would comply with a dress code and would not involve the mixing of genders, yet that request was denied by Saudi officials at the sports ministry. The ministry gave no reason for denying the request. Beyond preventing women from playing sports, the government also generally prevents them from attending sporting events as spectators.

The 2012 Competitors 

Wojdan Shaherkani, the 16-year old judo competitor from Mecca who came to the Games in 2012, lasted less than two minutes on the mat during her first bout at the London Games. Whereas virtually all competitors at the Olympic level have a black belt, Shaherkani had only a blue belt when she entered the Games, having only practiced the sport for two years. Shaherkani was granted no financial or media support from the Saudi delegation. Her match was broadcast on a handful of cable television channels in the Kingdom but was otherwise ignored.

Like Shaherkani, Sarah Attar failed to develop popularity or receive respect from the populace. Attar is from San Diego and holds dual Saudi and American citizenship. Attar is training for the Rio Games at training facility in California, where she is sponsored by Oiselle, a subsidiary of Nike that looks to promote women in sports, and runs without a hijab. She dons the hijab when she races as an Olympian out of respect for Saudi Arabia, a country she hopes to keep representing for the foreseeable future. She may be wearing the colors of Saudi Arabia when she races in the Olympic trials, but some of the population she represents either refuses to watch her run or has labeled her a “prostitute.” She is funded by an American company, not a Saudi one.

Conclusion

As we approach the Rio Games, female athletes around the world are competing in Olympic trials, hoping to represent their nations on the world stage.  Yet not all female athletes compete on the same footing as their male counterparts. Nations such as Qatar and Brunei still have relatively restrictive policies on women’s sports, but at least young girls are given the opportunity to compete and exercise within the borders of their homeland. Qatar is even striving to take more female athletes to the Games in Rio than they ever have before.

However Saudi Arabia still lags behind. Studies have shown that young women who play sports have higher self-esteem, are more likely to do well in school and graduate, and less likely to suffer from depression or have an unplanned pregnancy. Qatar and Brunei have set a positive example by integrating female athletes into their teams, and Saudi Arabia now has the opportunity to follow that example in Rio.

Resources

CNN: Olympic First as Saudi Arabia Names Two Women in London 2012 Team

Feminist Majority Foundation: Equality for Women in the Olympics

The Week: The Olympics’ Longstanding Gender Gap

GOOD: The Women’s National Soccer Team Threatens to Skip the Olympics 

The Huffington Post: As Rio 2016 Draws Closer, When Will Discrimination End For Sportswomen In Saudi Arabia?

Institute for Gulf Affairs: Killing Them Softly 

The World Post: Saudi Arabia’s Olympic Paradox: Insulting Women, Islam and “Prostitutes”

Running.Competitor.com: Q&A with Sarah Attar

The Gender Report: Women Making History in 2012 Olympics

The Guardian: Saudi Arabia’s Judoka Strikes Blow for Women’s Rights at Olympics

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 Is Exclusion Still the Norm? Saudi Arabia and Women in the Olympic Games appeared first on Law Street.

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin has vetoed the much-criticized bill that would have made performing abortions a felony in the state. This is a relief for women in Oklahoma, who nonetheless still face enormous challenges if they make the decision to have an abortion, in a state that is highly conservative.

Oklahoma’s legislature managed to yet again come up with a bill restricting women’s rights, even though a roaring majority of politicians in the state are men. The bill was passed on Thursday and was the very first of its kind, according to abortion rights group Center for Reproductive Rights, in that it not only banned the procedure but also attached a penalty for a physician who performs an abortion.

Oklahoma is not safe for women

— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) May 20, 2016

Governor Fallin had five days to decide whether to approve or veto the bill, which goes by SB1552. She made up her mind faster than that by announcing her veto on Friday, saying in a statement: “The bill is so ambiguous and so vague that doctors cannot be certain what medical circumstances would be considered ‘necessary to preserve the life of the mother.”

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights,  said: “Governor Fallin did the right thing today in vetoing this utterly unconstitutional and dangerous bill.”

But it is still hard for women to access the service of abortion–there are only two clinics in the whole state. Oklahoma has, in fact, been trying to pass laws banning abortions almost every year–and as many as eight of them have been challenged as unconstitutional during the past five years.

Abortion has been legalized nationwide since 1973, and the SB1552 was actually ultimately meant to challenge that, said the bill’s sponsor Republican Nathan Dahm earlier this week. His opinion is that life begins at conception, and it is the duty of the state to protect life from that point on. On Friday, he was reportedly considering taking actions to override the governor’s veto via the legislature.

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 Oklahoma Governor Vetoes Bill That Would Criminalize Abortions 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.

A disgruntled mom of three, Emily Locke, posted a lengthy Facebook status Monday about the experience she had while breastfeeding her youngest child at the Cleveland History Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The family was there for her sister’s wedding and, during pictures, her nine-month old decided it was dinner time. The mother reportedly sat down there in the museum to breastfeed, and it wasn’t long before a museum worker tried to stop her.

“I was approached by a woman who told me ‘you aren’t allowed to do that here.'” Locke says in the post. “I responded that I was actually legally allowed to nurse my child. She said it was against the museum policy and I had to stop. I refused and she said she would have to get her manager.”

The woman Locke assumed was the manager spoke to her as well, informing Locke there were areas of the museum she could “do that” and that she would need to move because it is a “family museum” and they were trying to “protect the innocent children.” Locke repeated her earlier statement that women are allowed to breastfeed wherever they need to, and eventually the manager left her alone.

Locke’s post has been shared thousands of times in the last 24 hours, and many enraged social media supporters have lambasted the Cleveland History Center to express their outrage.

“I was so disappointed and saddened by this,” Locke goes on to say. “I was treated as if I was doing something disgusting and inappropriate. That I was in some way hurting the innocence of children.”

The museum has since come out with an apology, claiming it has no policies against women breastfeeding on its property, and it will be re-training staff on its policies:

This evening, we were made aware of an unfortunate incident over the weekend where a nursing mother was urged to refrain from breastfeeding her child in a public museum area by museum staff.

We offer our sincerest apologies to this mom and her family. Cleveland History Center does not have any policies that prohibit breastfeeding in our public areas. We do not condone the behavior of the staff involved, and have begun taking next steps to address this issue.

Our hopes are that this incident will serve as a teachable moment and an opportunity to improve our guest experience as we continue to provide a safe and family fun environment for all.

This is not an isolated incident. Women are shamed for breastfeeding in public daily, even though 49 states plus D.C. have laws allowing women to do so (with the exception of Idaho — what the hell, Idaho?). Many of those same states also exempt breastfeeding women from public indecency laws.

But just because it’s legal doesn’t mean women won’t get harassed. YouTube social experiments, like the one from Joey Salads below, showcase just how prevalent the misunderstanding about breastfeeding is:

It’s extremely disheartening to see the number of women who shame a mother for breastfeeding, because that means those women have been taught that breasts are something to be ashamed of or to be hidden, when the purpose of a mother’s breast is simply to give sustenance to her child. There is nothing shameful in that. Mothers should know their rights and stand up for them, like Emily Locke did, but they should not be harassed in the first place.

To learn more about breastfeeding laws in your state, click here.

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 Cleveland Museum Called Out For Shaming A Breastfeeding Mom appeared first on Law Street.

Perhaps no public figure has received as much criticism and vitriol over such a long period of time as Hillary Clinton. Clinton has been nationally famous since the 1980s, and internationally famous since her first day as First Lady of the United States. In her stump speeches and TV appearances, Clinton chalks the near-constant mudslinging up to oppositional Republican forces who are threatened by her ability to enact real change. And though it may sound trite at this point in the campaign due to repetition, sexism is still a real and damaging force, and may contribute to some of these efforts. Of course, that can’t be true for every line of attack–not every criticism is a right-wing conspiracy designed to slander the former secretary of state. So which is the truth–or could it be a mixed bag of libelous fiction and legitimate fact? Let’s evaluate Clinton’s history of responding to sexual assault and rape by trying to determine the truth, and what they might mean about Clinton’s candidacy and presidency.

Before I dive in, I’ll try to pre-empt some bias–as it stands, I like Hillary Clinton. I know that for some reason, saying you support the efforts of the frontrunner of The Democratic Party (and the most likely person to be our future president) is a divisive statement, but it’s something I should acknowledge. I wasn’t always set on Mrs. Clinton, and my support isn’t unmovable, but her levelheaded approach to policy reform and breadth of executive experience appeal to me. I like Bernie Sanders, and I respect him as a politician. He’s represented the state of Vermont loyally for decades, but I find myself doubting whether he’d make progress on his lofty plans with Congress, and wonder if he has enough foreign policy clout to serve as our Commander in Chief.

Still, the internet can be a toxic place for a Hillary Clinton supporter. The seemingly cult-like online presence of Sanders fans is suffocating to anyone voicing support for his opponent. In the real world, Clinton leads Sanders nationally, and has fantastic momentum in the delegate count, but the subset of voters who are active online paint a very different picture. Know that I’m not a blind supporter of Mrs. Clinton, and that I believe her to be a flawed person.

Most famously, Clinton’s husband’s sex scandal has also become her cross to bear. It’s no shock to the American people at this point that President Bill Clinton had an extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. At the time that the affair was first breaking to the public, Hillary Clinton argued that the claim was yet another attempt by a “vast right-wing conspiracy” to tarnish her husband’s reputation. Then, as evidence to support Ms. Lewinsky’s claims grew, Clinton told the press that she had been misled by her husband, and she publicly committed to her marriage in spite of her husband’s indiscretions, taking the role of “the good wife.” Whether Clinton was truly unaware of the goings-on between her husband and Ms. Lewinsky, and whether Hillary and Bill are in love and devoted to each other is anyone’s guess. It’s equally reasonable to think that the former President and his wife have successfully moved on from the scandal as it is to think that their relationship is rocky and held together by political promise. Either way, I don’t think that the personal marital strife of the couple reflects poorly on Hillary Clinton’s intelligence or leadership.

The larger concern borne out of the Lewinsky scandal is Hillary Clinton’s attitude toward women leveling accusations against her husband. On the campaign trail these days, she tells crowds that rape victims should be believed and supported.

Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported. https://t.co/mkD69RHeBL

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 23, 2015

That proves troubling when faced with Juanita Broaddrick’s 1978 rape accusations against Clinton’s husband, which came to light two decades later. This created a conundrum for her: if these claims are false, standing by your husband is the right thing to do. If the claims are true, disbelieving a rape victim is heartless, wrongheaded, and reprehensible. The only response from Bill or Hillary to these claims came through President Clinton’s lawyer, who said “Any allegation that the president assaulted Juanita Broaddrick more than 20 years ago is absolutely false.”

A person in a position as powerful as president is a lightning rod for false accusations, but it’s also true that a president’s influence could be used to cover up sexual indiscretions as well as acts of sexual violence. Knowing that both of those things are true, it would be extremely difficult to navigate charges made against your extremely powerful husband. There is no evidence to show that Hillary Clinton threatened or intimidated Broaddrick into silence. At the time, Clinton was supporting Anita Hill during her testimony against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, so it’s tough to argue that Hillary was completely unsupportive of women or even specifically victims of sexual harassment and assault. Many online rags will argue that Hillary personally sicced private investigators on Bill’s accusers, but the only concrete statement on that comes from a 1998 Matt Lauer interview:

I think we’re going to find some other things. And I think that when all of this is put into context, and we really look at the people involved here, look at their motivations and look at their backgrounds, look at their past behavior, some folks are going to have a lot to answer for.

That’s certainly not the “love and kindness” angle that Clinton is espousing now, but it’s not inherently criminal or evil. While false rape accusations are exceedingly rare, they do happen, so though it’s very disappointing to hear Clinton say these things, it would only be truly unforgivable if Clinton knew that these accusations were true, and actively tried to bury them. Criticizing Hillary Clinton for her comments about rape accusers in the nineties is absolutely fair game, and shows pretty clearly that in many areas of women’s issues, Hillary Clinton was certainly part of the problem.

For a candidate whose campaign often puts women’s issues at center stage, Clinton’s comments from twenty years ago show that she has been on the offensive against specific women accusing her husband. Whether she’s learned from the backlash, or simply learned to hold her tongue, her policy decisions and voting record show that she’s been a defender of women for decades, turning the feminist corner and leading the charge among the 2016 candidates. While her record on equal pay legislation, maternity leave, and global women’s rights is something she can proudly tout, some of Mrs. Clinton’s attitudes and comments from the 90s are absolutely disheartening, but not disqualifying.

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 What Should we Make of Hillary Clinton’s Record on Rape Victims? appeared first on Law Street.

Eight men have been arrested following the hundreds of robberies and assaults that occurred on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, Germany. Over 600 criminal reports were submitted regarding New Year’s Eve in Cologne, and over half of those reports involved sexual harassment or assault. A large number of the victims who reported their attacks described their assailants as Middle Eastern, which triggered fears of backlash against Germany’s refugee population. Angela Merkel has remained firm in her commitment to refugee acceptance and integration but the attacks in Cologne may provide a critical groundswell of support for anti-immigration groups. At this time, one 26-year-old Algerian asylum-seeker is in custody for groping a woman and stealing her phone but the refugee status of the other suspects in custody is mostly unknown. Read on for a closer look at the events of New Year’s Eve and what they may mean for Germany in the coming years.

The Attacks across the City

Over 1,000 drunken men gathered outside of Cologne’s central train station, adjacent to its famous cathedral, to ring in 2016. It was within that neighborhood that a large part of the attacks took place, as young women emerged from the train station and headed off into the night. Groups of men who were reported to be of “North African/Arab” origin surrounded young women, groping and assaulting them. Dozens of men would circle women, both those walking alone and those in groups, forcing them to “run a gauntlet” to escape. In addition to sexual attacks, hundreds of people reported theft of money, phones, and valuables.

The identities of the attackers were initially unclear but in the days following the attacks, a significant number of the victims described their attackers as young men of Middle Eastern origin. The majority of the women targeted were German nationals. One woman reported that her rapist told her “German women are just for sex.” Media reports of the incidents were initially only running in local newspapers but within a few days, the story of the horrific night had spread worldwide.

The police have stated that they have never dealt with this kind of situation before and had not created a plan of action to combat such wide-scale criminal activity occurring at once. The preceding year, police officers were deployed in the same volume and had no problems with crowd control. However, with the influx of people outside the station, there were so many attacks happening simultaneously around the central station that security forces were essentially powerless to stop them. The violence was not confined to Cologne, as hundreds of other sexual assault cases poured in from across Germany on New Year’s Eve. However, the collective nature of the attacks in Cologne and the authorities’ disturbingly lackluster response on the ground outside the station mark them as unique. In the wake of the New Year’s Eve attacks, several German cities cancelled other winter celebrations out of fear of similar widespread violence.

Unexpected Implications

Continued Anti-Immigration Sentiment

Right wing protesters, already against the influx of refugees, have doubled down on their positions. During a recent protest, they clashed with police in riot gear, screaming at police officers for not defending local women–although it was unclear if they meant defending them from assault or defending them from refugees. One supporter of the anti-immigration Pegida movement went so far as to refer to the attacks as “bad for the women, but good for us, because the people are being woken up.” Anti-immigration rallies were held across the country in the wake of the attacks, with hundreds of people carrying signs reading “Rapefugees Not Welcome.” Although few of the women who were assaulted have come forward with anti-immigrant positions, Pegida and other groups have taken it upon themselves to be their voices.

Unfortunately, many onlookers worry that the transparent racism and xenophobia of Pegida undermines the validity of the victim’s reports. One young woman named Selina publicly discussed her attack and her attackers (men of Middle Eastern descent who spoke Arabic and did not seem to understand German) and was accused of being racist by a variety of internet sources. Women seeking justice for the crimes committed against them should feel comfortable reporting physical descriptions of their attackers but in the case of  the Cologne attacks, where race and violence are inextricably linked, those who report their attack may become targets for the vitriol of those who assume they are prejudiced.

An Attack on Women

Two weeks after the attack, The Irish Times published an editorial on the violence in Cologne which stated that

Perpetrators of sexual assault against women do have one thing in common, and it’s not religion or ethnicity, it’s gender…Perpetrators of sexual assault are typified by their diversity. But the common denominator is men. Until we are honest with ourselves about that, and until prevention focuses on stopping men from assaulting women – not blaming one demographic of men, or outlining ways in which women can avoid potential assault – we are kidding ourselves. What happened in Cologne, that mass act, was primarily unusual in its collective nature. But all over the world, in every village, town and city, mass acts of misogyny are fragmented daily, manifesting as individual assaults. We ignore them, because they are not as newsworthy. Victims of sexual assault are just as diverse. Being raped transcends all demographics.

A majority of news outlets have chosen to classify the attacks in Cologne as an issue of sexual assault and violence rather than an issue of race. Evidence from police data shows that refugees have, in fact, committed less crime than native Germans since arriving in the country, therefore outside of the right wing rallies, few news outlets have traced the crimes to be associated with race. While the German government has prioritized deporting refugees who are found guilty of sexual and physical assault, women’s advocacy groups argue that this is not about immigration policy–it is about protection for women. The events of Cologne are being attributed to a massive spike in the number of young men in Germany, which changes the demographics of security.

Regardless of race or socioeconomic status, men are more likely to commit violent acts than women. Considering that the majority of sexual assault cases involve the assault of women by men, the shifting gender dynamics of Germany may affect the country’s future. Cologne has been labeled a potential watershed moment for legal reform and creating protections for all women against all forms of sexual harassment and abuse. As Germany adapts to its new population, the legal processes and security of the nation will have to change in tandem. The brutality of New Year’s Eve in Cologne may inspire German officials to create comprehensive legal protection for women who are sexually harassed and assaulted.

Conclusion

The attacks in Cologne will be remembered as an unprecedented night of terror but the implications of the attacks go beyond criminal activity. Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome over a million refugees (and potentially more in the coming year) into Germany was controversial and she will likely have to keep defending it for years to come. Asylum seekers engaging in criminal activity only fuels the fears of Germans who were already opposed to the influx of refugees. The entire refugee population should not be held accountable for the actions of a few, but as security services are sorting through hundreds of potential suspects who often match the description of Middle Eastern refugees, right-wing xenophobes are gaining public support. The German police presence will need to adapt and expand to deal with its swelling population if they want to avoid a repeat of Cologne in the coming years but that will require not only a new style of training, but an increase in the number of staff they have available for deployment at any given time. Cologne will not only be an important marker for the history of women’s rights and violent crime, it may serve as the trigger for an new era of policing in Germany.

Resources

CNN: Eight in Pretrial Custody in Cologne New Year’s Eve Mass Robberies, Sex Assaults

CNN: Cologne, Germany: Hundreds of Sexual Assault Charges from New Year’s Eve

BBC: First Suspect Held Over Sex Assault Claims

The New York Times: As Germany Welcomes Migrants, Sexual Attacks in Cologne Point to a New Reality

Huffington Post: Here’s What We Know So Far About The Sexual Assaults At Cologne’s Train Station

Daily Mail: Migrant Sexually Assaulted 25-year-old Victim after Telling her ‘German Women are Just There for Sex’

NBC News: Cologne Sex Attacks ‘Good for Us,’ Anti-Refugee Protesters Say

Breitbart: Cologne Sexual Assault Victim called a Racist and Harassed after Identifying Her Attackers

The Irish Times: Cologne Assaults a Mass Act of Misogyny

The Local: Police: Refugees Commit Less Crime than Germans

TIME: Reaction to Cologne Attacks Should Focus on Women’s Rights

Psychology Today: Male Aggression: Why are Men More Violent?

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 The Impacts of Widespread Sexual Assault in Cologne appeared first on Law Street.

When we take a moment to think about women in combat, oftentimes a picture of the 1997 Demi Moore film, “G.I. Jane” comes to mind with a scene that looks a little something like this:

However, women have not been allowed to work in all combat units despite G.I. Jane’s portrayal implying it was possible…that is, until December 3, 2015.

“There will be no exceptions,” stated Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter in his announcement, during which he informed United States officials and citizens that women would be able to hold positions and jobs within all combat units of the military. Secretary Carter went on to address that women would have these opportunities so long as “they qualify and meet the standards,” marking a significant and positively well-earned turn in the tide for the rights of women within the military.

The breaking and encouraging news comes on the heels of the first two women, Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver, who graduated the grueling Ranger training on August 21, 2015 and were not allowed to join a combat unit following their training and the acquisition of their new titles like their male counterparts. Now, for the likes of women like Ms. Griest and Ms. Haver, they will finally have the well-deserved opportunity to put their training into practical use.

The secretary excitingly highlighted the ability of the military to utilize a level of skill, insight, and point of view that had yet to infiltrate combat units thus far–the sensible woman’s touch, if you will. Secretary Carter was supported by all of the top leaders in the Army, Navy, and Air Force in his decision, but met negotiating terms by the Marines in which he refused to indulge special requests or exceptions, stating that his decision would apply to all branches of the military equally.

General Joseph Dunford, a commandant in the Marines, provided the Secretary with a detailed recommendation and data pertaining to mixed-gender units versus all-male units, showing that women were more likely to get injured in the training process and did not perform better than the men. However, Secretary Carter was not swayed, due to his own “evidence-based” research, and found that mitigating factors during the implementation process would account for any of the issues outlined by the Marines. General Dunford was not present for the announcement, but the secretary assured that the general would take full part in the implementation process.

Image courtesy Of [Utah National Guard via Flickr]

So how exactly will this change be implemented?

That seems to be the question that everyone is pressing Secretary Carter to answer. The secretary has not provided a concrete answer. However, he has provided a timeline: January 1, 2016 is the due date for plans to be submitted on how to open up the combat jobs to women and April 1, 2016 is the date by which those plans have to start being integrated into military procedure. We will have to wait for the start of the New Year to see how plans and integration unfold.

Now up for debate–will women be subject to the draft as a consequence of participating in combat units and what is the constitutionality of the decision if they are not?  Women, ages 18-26, are the only group entirely exempt from the military draft under the Military Selective Service Act–even non-U.S. citizens, such as male refugees between the ages of 18-26, are subject to the draft in a time of war when troops are short-handed. The Military Service Act’s constitutionality was challenged under the Fifth Amendment in Rostker v. Goldberg. The Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality finding that Congress acted within its constitutional authority to raise and regulate armies and navies when it proposed and authorized the registration of men and not women. Justice William Rehnquist, in authoring the opinion, noted that Congress’ decision to exempt women from registering for the draft stood as women were not in combat at the time. Justice Thurgood Marshall dissented in Rostker, stating that the exemption “categorically excludes women from a fundamental civic obligation.” Since the combat restrictions no longer exist, the issue may be revisited in legal dispute as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause within the Fifth Amendment.

So we wait. We wait for the plans and implementation to unfold and to see if a constitutional challenge is brought against the Military Service Act in light of Secretary Carter’s decision to open combat unit jobs to women.

But while we wait, we can share in Rep. Martha McSally’s (R-Ariz.) sentiments on the underlying change in combat units:

It’s about damn time…Women have been fighting and dying for our country since its earliest wars. They have shown they can compete with the best of the best, and succeed. We are a country that looks at people as individuals, not groups. We select the best man for the job, even if it’s a woman.”

Ajla Glavasevic

Ajla Glavasevic is a first-generation Bosnian full of spunk, sass, and humor. She graduated from SUNY Buffalo with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and received her J.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Ajla is currently a licensed attorney in Pennsylvania and when she isn’t lawyering and writing, the former Team USA Women’s Bobsled athlete (2014-2015 National Team) likes to stay active and travel. Contact Ajla at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Women in Combat: Making Moves Toward Gender Equality appeared first on Law Street.

Women have, for centuries, been fighting a battle to obtain equal rights and autonomy within the patriarchal society in which we live. From voting rights, equal pay, gender equality, and financial independence to stigmatized domestic violence ideologies and highly controversial contraceptive and reproductive rights, women continue to strive toward a gender equilibrium.

While their history is bountiful, reproductive rights–specifically those focused on abortion–have morphed from a religious, hot-button voting issue and politically polarizing topic of interest into a women’s rights and equality war zone, which has mixed reviews even from within. For years, various states have been testing the limitations of abortion laws by trying to implement restrictions to access, mandatory and burdensome requirements, and regulations upon women and healthcare providers. Most have not passed muster, however, in early November 2015, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a major and consequential abortion rights case for the first time since 2007. Read on to learn more about the history of abortion rights, the important facts of Whole Women’s Health v. Cole, and what it could mean for future generations of women.

A “Brief” History of Abortion Rights

Laws pertaining to contraception came to the Supreme Court in 1965 with Griswold v. Connecticut, where the court found that a state statute forbidding the use of contraceptives, punishable by fine and imprisonment, was unconstitutional. Justice William O. Douglas crafted the “penumbra” argument, stating that, “…the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from government intrusion,” finding that “the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms” is not a place that is subject to government control and infringement. Marital privacy was to remain private. The curtain would remained closed on the intimacies of married life.

Image Courtesy Of [Kate Ausburn via Flickr]

In 1973, the Supreme Court decided the landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade. Justice Harry Blackmun, a conservative father to three daughters who served as resident counsel in the Mayo Clinic (1950-1959), authored the weighty opinion. The importance of the right to privacy and a woman’s autonomy over her pregnancy led him and the Court to find the restrictive Texas statute unconstitutional and abortion a private legal matter encompassing a woman’s right to choose. The Court quoted the Texas District Court below, agreeing that the “fundamental right of single women and married persons to choose whether to have children is protected by the Ninth Amendment, through the Fourteenth Amendment.” However, the opinion explained vested interests in abortion proceedings and outlined different levels of state interests in regulating abortion procedures in the second and third trimester.

While 1992 brought United States citizens “Aladdin,” Windows 3.1, and the birth of Miley Cyrus, it also bestowed upon us the sequel to Roe v. Wade in the form of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey—a complex multi-part decision that ultimately addressed what regulations were and were not acceptable by the states regarding abortion procedures under a undue burden/substantial obstacle analysis. The Court reaffirmed its Roe holding by adhering to the three major principles in Roe: 

1. That a woman has the right to abort prior to viability “without undue interference from the State:”
2. That the State has the right to restrict abortions after fetal viability so long as its laws contain exceptions for any pregnancy that endangers the life or health of a woman; and
3. That the State has a “legitimate interest” in the pregnancy to protect the life of the woman and fetus.

Planned Parenthood v. Casey challenged five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982. One required women, prior to getting an abortion, to obtain informed consent. Informed consent is a process in which a woman is provided with the risks of abortion, fetal development, gestational age of the fetus, whether the fetus can feel pain during the procedure, and that personhood begins at conception, etc. The act also require women to wait a mandatory 24 hours following signed consent to proceed with the procedure, obtain parental consent for minors with the allowance of a judicial bypass, and obtain signed spousal consent. Additionally, the act defined a “medical emergency” within the context of abortion procedures and set out specific reporting requirements by the facilities performing abortion services. The Court, in a plurality decision, upheld the central holding in Roe, but did however, overturn Roe’s trimester analysis framework and only found one provision–requiring spousal consent–burdensome and an unconstitutional regulation on a woman’s right to choose. The rest of the provisions were upheld.

Legal discourse pertaining to abortion did not end there.  In 2000, Stenberg v. Carhart surfaced to challenge a Nebraska statute prohibiting and criminalizing “partial birth abortions,” also known as “dilation and extraction” in the medical community. The court’s scientifically detailed opinion ultimately held that the Nebraska statute was unconstitutional and therefore could not be enforced as it did not carve out an exception for the “preservation of the health of the mother.” Additionally, the statute, with its ambiguous wording and terminology, unduly burdened the mother’s ability to choose an abortion, noting that in certain situations and in the presence of specific circumstances, partial birth abortions were “safer” than alternative procedures and methods.

In 2003, Congress and President George W. Bush signed into law the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act which expressively banned the “dilation and extraction” abortion method cited in Stenberg. Advocates that challenged the federal statute in lower courts had the statute struck down, but the challenge to the federal statute did not reach the Supreme Court until 2007 in Gonzales v. Carhart.

The court in Gonzales v. Carhart addressed the issue of whether the federal statute imposed a substantial obstacle for late-term pre-viability abortions and found it to be constitutional. The act directly outlined the procedure prohibited–the delivery of a viable/living fetus to an anatomical landmark which required an additional “overt act,” an act separate from the delivery usually involving piercing or crushing the fetal skull, to be taken in order to kill the partially delivered fetus, hence countering any argument that the statute was “vague.” Further, the court addressed the possibility of other legal abortion options and stated that, “if intact [dilation and extraction] is truly necessary in some circumstances, a prior injection to kill the fetus allows a doctor to perform the procedure, given that the Act’s prohibition only applies to the delivery of ‘a living fetus.'” Here, Congress sought, and the court agreed, to create a hard line between abortion and infanticide.

Since Gonzales, states have taken to further testing the limitations of abortion regulation, introducing “fetal pain” laws. Fetal pain laws proceed to assert that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks of gestation and therefore abortion should be prohibited after 20 weeks of pregnancy, but no challenges pertaining to these laws have reached the Supreme Court yet. In fact, Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole will be the first major abortion case to be reviewed by the Supreme Court since 2007.

Sifting Through Whole Women’s Health v. Cole

In 2013, the state of Texas passed into law House Bill 2 (H.B. 2), in an effort to “raise the standard and quality of care for women seeking abortions.” The statute, which contained four primary provisions pertaining to abortion regulation, is currently being challenged for two of its provisions. The first is a requirement of physicians performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital located within a radius of 30 miles from where the abortion is being performed. The second provision being challenged requires abortion clinics to comply with the same set of standards applicable to ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) along with compliance to standards set for abortion clinics.

The challenger? Whole Woman’s Health, a privately-owned women’s healthcare facility that offers comprehensive gynecology services, including abortion, and provides a holistic approach for the care of their patients. The organization was founded in 2003 by Amy Hagstrom Miller who saw a need in the communities of women to address pregnancy and reproductive choice not only as a medical matter, but also as something that requires a woman to evaluate her identity, goals, and future plans–an emotional and weighty process.  Whole Woman’s Health has seven offices within the United States and assists over 30,000 women per year for a variety of reproductive healthcare reasons.

Image Courtesy Of [Ann Harkness via Flickr]

At the time of trial, seven ASCs, located in five major Texas cities, were licensed to perform abortion services and would be able to comply with H.B. 2. Although Texas had over 40 abortion clinics prior to the law taking effect, it was stipulated that, at most, eight abortion-providing centers would be able to comply with the ASCs provision of H.B. 2, subjecting women exercising their right to choose to increased travel and transportation costs. During trial, the State offered expert testimony to suggest that the regulation would be “medically beneficial,” but did not prove necessity, and as such, the District Court found that the ASC requirement, in its entirety, was overly burdensome. Furthermore, the District Court also found that the physician privilege requirement “was not medically justifiable and that the burdens it imposed were not outweighed by any potential health benefits.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that res judicata barred any facial challenge and as-applied challenge (under a different analysis) on the admitting privilege and ASC compliance provisions of H.B. 2 and that the District Court erred in rejecting the State’s res judicata defense during the motion to dismiss stage of proceedings. Essentially, due to a previous lawsuit that was still pending a decision when Whole Women’s Health challenged H.B. 2 but was shortly thereafter decided, the Plaintiffs could not challenge the bill again as any injury arose out of the same claim and the parties had a legal relationship with one another.

The Court did, however, provide an analysis on the merits as well concluding that:

1. The Plaintiffs failed to prove that H.B. 2 was enacted with an “improper purpose,” mainly to close a majority of abortion clinics in Texas;
2. That the District Court incorrectly analyzed legislative factfinding of information that led to the passage of the Texas law under the “rational basis review,” which solely calls for the court to presume the law in question is valid and inquire whether that law is “rationally related to a legitimate state interest;”
3. The District Court’s analysis and the Plaintiff’s evidence did not satisfy the “large fraction test,” requiring a showing that the law imposes a substantial obstacle on a large fraction of women in Texas;
4. That the abortion services offered at the McAllen Whole Woman’s Health location, a clinic not complying with ASC standards, and lack of a “qualified” clinic for 235 miles created a substantial obstacle for a woman to obtain an abortion and therefore was granted injunctive relief until a licensed facility opened closer to the Rio Grand Valley;
5. That the Plaintiffs offered a considerable amount of evidence showing that the physicians at the McAllen location were denied privileges at the local hospital for reasons “other than their competence,” and were therefore granted injunctive relief enjoining the State of Texas from enforcing the privilege requirement; and
6. That the El Paso clinic was not granted injunctive relief based on an undue burden of women to travel over 550 miles to the nearest Texas abortion clinic in San Antonio because they could travel across state lines to Santa Teresa, New Mexico, which shares a metropolitan area with El Paso to obtain the procedure.

The Fifth Circuit largely upheld the challenged provisions of H.B. 2.

So…What Could That Mean for the Rest of Us?

H.B. 2 showed the level of impact that such abortion regulation could have on the availability of abortion services, bringing down the 40+ available abortion clinics in Texas to a mere 8-10 as outlined in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decision. Such legislation could create a large and costly barrier, not only to the 5.4 million women in Texas, the second largest female populated state in the country, but to all women in the United States.

In four states–Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming–only one abortion clinic remains and it is unclear whether or not those clinics would be able to survive with the Texas-based legislation.

If such regulation passed muster in the Supreme Court, there could be an increase in self-attempted abortion and risky abortion procedures, which was noted, by the Plaintiffs in Whole Women’s Health, as a growing trend after H.B. 2 was passed in Texas. Additionally, costs would increase in travel, transportation, lodging, and in the procedure itself, potentially costing women their actual right to choose. Qualified abortion clinics would be overwhelmed, appointments would be scarce and harder to coordinate with travel and work schedules, and ultimately, those most impacted would be individuals in poverty and those with transitioning immigration status. Such legislation would force an unhealthy psychological effect on woman already making a difficult decision and consequently impose a great burden on a major woman’s right without proof that the abortion clinics functioning today are doing so at a sub-par or dangerous level.

So, one question remains–what’s next for abortion regulations in the United States?

RESOURCES

Primary

FindLaw: Whole Women’s Health v. Cole

JUSTIA: Griswold v. Connecticut

JUSTIA: Roe v. Wade

JUSTIA: Stenberg v. Carhart

JUSTIA: Gonzales v. Carhart

Legal Information Institute: 18 U.S. Code § 1531

State of Texas Legislature: House Bill 2

Additional

The New York Times: Supreme Court to Hear Texas Abortion Law Case

Planned Parenthood: Federal and State Bans and Restrictions on Abortion

Linda Greenhouse: Becoming Justice Blackmun

Guttmacher Institute: State Policies in Brief – Counseling and Waiting Periods for Abortion

USA Today: Idaho First State to have Fetal Pain Law Rejected

National Public Radio (NPR): High Court’s Pass on ‘Fetal Pain’ Abortion Case Unlikely to Cool Debate

Whole Woman’s Health

Bloomberg: The Vanishing U.S. Abortion Clinic

Ajla Glavasevic

Ajla Glavasevic is a first-generation Bosnian full of spunk, sass, and humor. She graduated from SUNY Buffalo with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and received her J.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Ajla is currently a licensed attorney in Pennsylvania and when she isn’t lawyering and writing, the former Team USA Women’s Bobsled athlete (2014-2015 National Team) likes to stay active and travel. Contact Ajla at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Gloria Steinem is in her eighties and is still a trailblazer for feminism.  Many know her from her work for gender equality in the 1960s and 70s, when she wrote radical articles about women’s reproductive rights, led protests, and was pegged as a leader of the feminist movement. She only recently shared the story of her amazing life in her new memoir “My Life on the Road,” which she discussed with “PBS NewsHour” this week. In the interview, she also said that young women shouldn’t listen to her.

“Here’s my advice. Do not listen to me,” she said to the interviewer. “Really… I want to support their listening to themselves.”

That is actually really great advice, and supports the idea that, as women, we should all be encouraging each other in our life choices. Young women can look to icons like Steinem for inspiration, but we do not, and should not, base our lives on hers. We each have different passions and goals.

Steinem went on to explain: “They know their own life and situations. I’m here to support that and say…Okay, you’re not more important than somebody else, but you’re not less important either.”

And that’s the very basis of feminism: everyone is equal. So why, over 40 years after Gloria Steinem got her start as a journalist, are we still fighting the same battle?

Steinem was thought of as “radical” in the 60s for her views on contraception and reproductive rights, on women having to choose between a family and a career, and on the widely-accepted and normalized misogyny of American society (she was, after all, the woman who went undercover as a Playboy Bunny). Now it is almost 2016, and we are still in the midst of the same battles. Reproductive rights are a hot-button item on the campaign trails of political candidates, women who want children aren’t given the necessary leave to maintain a healthy family in addition to a career, and that misogyny still runs deep–evidenced by the fact that men like Donald Trump have large followings of people who actually respect their oppressive viewpoints.

Why is it, that over 40  years after Gloria Steinem began spearheading the fight for women’s rights, those rights are denied again and again, often at the hand of conservative America? To quote another well-known feminist, Senator Elizabeth Warren: “Do you have any idea what year it is? Did you fall down, hit your head, and think you woke up in the 1950s? Or the 1890s?”

Yes, women can wear pants without being reprimanded and we can vote, but in so many other things, true equality across all genders and races, is still unrealized.

But we should not take up Gloria Steinem’s torch. No, she is still carrying that proudly onward. What we can do is light new torches with her support, and with the support of each other; start new stories inspired by but not copied from women like her. Maybe in our lifetime it won’t be “women’s rights,” but simply “rights.”

Watch the full PBS NewsHour interview below:

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.

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How do Millennials help America build a better future? With over 1,200 business-casual-clad young activists and leaders packed into a chilly ballroom washed with blue stage lights, Generation Progress rallied Millennials in Washington, D.C. at its national summit on Thursday in an attempt to find out.

Now in its tenth year, Generation Progress’s “Make Progress” National Summit offers young people a day packed with well known speakers, inspiring dialogues, and stimulating buzzwords. With keynote speakers on the main stage and breakout sessions on topics ranging from diversity in public office to sexual assault prevention and student debt, attendees throughout the day were empowered through education on critical issues. Through communal support and prodigious encouragement from American leaders, the mood was alive with the goal of the day: creating progress.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren opened up the summit with an invigorating speech that earned dozens of standing ovations. Reverberating energy, Senator Warren spoke about college affordability, diversity, and social change inspired by activism. During one pause, an audience member yelled out “Run for president!” to which the Senator responded with a big grin and a chuckle, while everyone else jumped to their feet and erupted in approving cheers and applause. Her most applauded statement was that the progressive Supreme Court decisions over the past weeks were the direct result of young activists who dedicate their lives to fighting for social justice, stating, “We get what we fight for. Are you ready to get out there and fight?”

This morning I told young people at #MakeProgress: You get what you fight for. pic.twitter.com/JhwTtTzGBa

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 16, 2015

Michele Jawando, Vice President for Legal Progress at the Center for American Progress, later took the stage for a sobering panel on reforming the criminal justice system. She expressed her belief that young people putting pressure on their elected officials and demanding change is critical, and commended the Millennial generation for its high level of engagement with issues of importance, simultaneously striking down the notion that our generation is unengaged or uninformed.

After asking the audience to “stand up if you have participated in a march, a protest, or an online day of action in the past six months,” more than half of the room was standing. Jawando stated, “the only time Congress pays attention is when there is enough action that forces them to pay attention.” She praised those who partake in activist movements, particularly the sit-ins that forced members of Congress to face the consequences of adverse decisions, and encouraged all to become involved. The discussion then led to a breakdown of the 1994 crime bill that increased mandatory minimums for those sentenced to prison, created the “tough on crime” rhetoric that is only recently beginning to be critically questioned, and created a definition of criminals as young people of color. Jawando said that many current members of Congress were members in 1994 when this draconian bill was passed and that “some of those members don’t really want to concede, they don’t want to admit they were wrong.” She then expressed that while discussing reform is important, action needs to be immediate. “Yeah we are tweeting about it, we’re writing about it, we’re marching in the streets…But we still have to pass a bill y’all.”

Jawando made a few key remarks that resonated deeply with the young, social justice-minded audience; first, that there is a strong connection between the people who are elected and the changes we see in society. Second, that humanizing issues and telling personal stories of injustice is the most powerful way to inspire change. And third, that there is a dangerous misconception that people who are in prison always deserve to be there; Jawando stated that this mindset of “otherization,” or the “us versus them” mentality, will continue to act as a barrier to change until these divisions are broken.

.@MicheleJawando shares her personal experience on discrimination & the criminal justice system #MakeProgress pic.twitter.com/43TsktDXrl

— LCLAA (@LCLAA) July 16, 2015

My favorite breakout panel occurred in the afternoon: “It’s On US: Advocates Creating Cultural Change” featuring keynote speaker Tina Tchen. Tchen, Assistant to President Obama, Chief of Staff to Michelle Obama, and Executive Director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, gave an inspiring and informative speech on Generation Progress’s national campaign to prevent sexual assault. One in five women on college campuses will be sexually assaulted or experience some form of sexual violence by the time they graduate college. “We know, and you know, that this is a crisis on campuses,” Tchen said. The It’s On US movement on college campuses aims to fundamentally change the environment of rape culture and shift the conversation to be empowering for survivors and encouraging for those who have the ability to intervene in situations that could end in assault. “We are fundamentally on our way to a society that recognizes and supports survivors,” Tchen said over snaps and applause. Panelists encouraged students to join or start It’s On US on their respective college campuses, and to take the pledge to end sexual assault.

"It's not just about stopping sexual assault on campus. That is just the start."-Tina Tchen at #MakeProgress @ItsOnUs pic.twitter.com/apyLvEcAlR

— Chante Harris (@chante__harris) July 16, 2015

The final speaker of the day, and the most anticipated, was Vice President Joe Biden. All smartphones were whipped out to welcome the Vice President and most summit-goers found themselves on tiptoe in their chairs to catch a better glimpse of the esteemed guest. Mr. Biden gave a powerful, insightful, but occasionally lighthearted speech, that felt much more like sitting down for an after-dinner conversation with an affectionate grandfather than an address by the Vice President. The VP touched on a range of topics, from the need to create affordable education, to climate change, to closing the expanding wage gap in the country. He even called on politicians to resist donations from millionaires and billionaires to fund their primary election campaigns, potentially an allusion to Senator Bernie Sanders who also cares deeply and advocates against the privatization of political donations.

"If you could do only 1 thing to increase equality what would it be?" @VP asks the #MakeProgress crowd. "Get private money out of politics"

— Generation Progress (@genprogress) July 16, 2015

The Vice President expressed his sincere appreciation and confidence in the Millennial generation, stating “There’s more reason today than ever before to be idealistic, optimistic, tenacious, passionate, and principled.” The most prominent message Mr. Biden delivered during his time on stage was that passion, just like the passion in the room before him, is what generates social change and makes progress.

"I applaud your passion. Never apologize for it. Never explain it away." @JoeBiden at @genprogress #MakeProgress pic.twitter.com/T5cowdiCLT

— Emily Dalgo (@DalgoEmily) July 16, 2015

Generation Progress’s Make Progress National Summit concluded with a slew of selfies with Joe Biden and a ballroom full of young activists stepping back into the D.C. sun with newfound inspiration and admiration for the causes they believe in. The summit, though only one day long, has the power and the potential to ignite young minds for years to come. Make Progress is proof that Millennials do care about the issues. They are engaged, they’re active, and they’re ready to fight. Outside, the only audible sound was of heels clicking and dress shoes clacking on the sidewalks as the attendees trickled out of the summit. But one sound still echoed in everyone minds: applause and cheers for change, for action, and for progress.

Emily Dalgo

Emily Dalgo is a member of the American University Class of 2017 and a Law Street Media Fellow during the Summer of 2015. Contact Emily at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision is a victory for women’s rights, reproductive rights proponents, and physicians. It’s also a failure for hypocritical, radically immoral Republican men in North Carolina.

The court decided today to avoid reviewing a law that would force doctors to show and describe a fetal ultrasound to a patient immediately before an abortion, even if she resists. A U.S. District Judge previously struck down the law in 2014 for violating the First Amendment, but state officials filed an appeal to overturn this decision. The law was again branded unconstitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In March of this year, North Carolina officials petitioned the Supreme Court in the hopes that the highest court would uphold their woman-hating law. Luckily, SCOTUS has better cases to review than this one, so the previous decisions to reject the law stand.

What’s so disturbing about the ultrasound law is that it symbolizes the too-widely-accepted belief that women are not able to make informed decisions about their own bodies. Lawmakers in North Carolina argued that this law was a protective measure under the umbrella of “informed consent” and that the law simply ensured that women made a “mature and informed” choice about the matter. But forcing doctors to deliver anti-abortion messages on behalf of the state, even when a woman does not agree to hear the information, isn’t consent.

The law used very detailed language that legally bound physicians to tell their patients about alternative options to abortion, such as “keeping the baby or placing the baby for adoption.” It also forced doctors to place the ultrasound image in front of the woman’s face and describe the “anatomical and physiological characteristics” to the patient before permitting an abortion. The law applied to women who were survivors of rape and incest, and those who discovered severe fetal abnormalities. Even more frustrating is the lawmakers’ incorrect assumption that women are inherently uninformed. Sixty-one percent of abortions are undertaken by women who already have one or more child, so they aren’t naïve about the implications of pregnancy or the responsibilities of parenthood. They don’t need the “help” of male lawmakers telling them that their decisions are invalid.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit included the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Last year, they argued in their brief that the law:

Commandeers unwilling physicians to use their own voice and expressive conduct to communicate the state’s message against abortion.

The brief further argued that:

It commandeers physicians to convey this message in a uniquely intrusive way — during a medical procedure while the patient is vulnerable and disrobed on an examination table with an ultrasound probe inside or on her.

The Supreme Court’s decision to deny another review of this law may be a victory today, but there are more anti-abortion laws making headlines that the justices will likely have to address soon. For example, an abortion regulation law in Mississippi threatens to close the last abortion clinic in the state. In a similar vein, a Texas regulation currently making its way through the legal system requires clinics to meet the same building equipment and staffing standards that hospitals must meet, reducing the number of abortion clinics in the state. The Texas law is particularly concerning, as it will cause nearly one million women of reproductive age to live more than 150 miles from an abortion clinic, making abortions even more inaccessible to women of limited income or those who have no disposable time to travel the obscenely long distances to a clinic in order to have the procedure.

Reproductive rights are women’s rights, not North Carolinian, lawmaking men’s rights. I’m glad to see that the Supreme Court, if even just passively, recognizes that.

Emily Dalgo

Emily Dalgo is a member of the American University Class of 2017 and a Law Street Media Fellow during the Summer of 2015. Contact Emily at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Thanks SCOTUS: A Victory for Reproductive Rights 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.

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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.

India has long been an important nation on the international stage; its massive population and rapidly growing economy have the potential to propel it forward even further. While there have been ebbs and flows–the recent recession strongly impacted the sub-continent–things may be looking up. There’s a new Prime Minister and India is on the rise yet again. Read on to learn about India’s growth, the relationships it has with other nations, and the challenges that the country will face in coming years.

A Look Into the Past

Like China and Mesopotamia, India is often considered one of the birthplaces of civilization. The first civilization in India was founded over five thousand years ago. Since then, India saw the rise and fall of countless empires, invading forces, and ideas. Buddhism and Hinduism were also founded in India; and Islam, when it reached the area in the eighth century, came to exert a powerful influence, as well.

The story of modern India however, picks up at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the declining Mughal Empire was conquered piecemeal by the British East India Company. The British outcompeted their French rivals and bit by bit took over the sub-continent. Yet British rule was not to last either, with a large-scale mutiny in the middle of the nineteenth century hinting at the rise of Indian nationalism.

This came to fruition after years of protest that featured leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi when India finally achieved independence in 1947. This independence, however, did not come about smoothly. The same year India became independent, it also broke into two separate nations, Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. As many as 12.5 million people migrated to one country or the other depending on their religion. Up to one million people died in the ensuing chaos.

Rise of Modern India

After the end of colonial rule, India initially adopted a planned economic approach. The idea was to increase consumer savings, which would then lead to greater investment in the economy and growth. The plan was to create a prosperous India that was financed by its own economy and not beholden to outside forces.

While the plan had some success, however, growth remained limited in India at an average of four percent annually in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. The plan was also plagued by unbridled population growth and inequality. The proverbial corner was turned beginning in the late 80s and early 90s when the economy was finally opened up. Growth shot up to over 6.5 percent annually, while the service sector in particular began to take off.

Move to a Market Economy

The key to the turn-around for India economically was when it moved from a series of five-year plans, as part of a planned economy adopted from its then-ally, the Soviet Union, to a market economy, which is similar to those of Western nations. Originally India adopted a socialist model as the means to improve its economy. This meant most industry, licensing, and investment infrastructure was controlled by the government. The whole idea behind this logic was to build strong home-grown industries in India, and in the process prevent the inequality notorious in capitalist societies from spreading there.

The planned economy proved ineffective. This was mainly due to low growth rates and the failure to generate high savings rates. In fact the state, far from succeeding in building up savings, actually began running up higher and higher deficits as its programs proved ineffective. Thus, spurred by this ineffectiveness and a rise of the price of oil as a result of the first gulf war which nearly caused the country to default, India made a change. The government did a complete 180, reducing state control and planning, liberalizing trade and investment, and reducing the deficit.

Following the success from the 1990s and with continued reforms, the Indian economy continued to hum along in the first decade of the 2000s, averaging greater than six percent growth annually. Rapid growth stalled, however, as it did in much of the rest of the world, following the Great Recession.

The reason that India was hit so hard was because of a failure to further liberalize policy concerning labor, energy, land reform, and infrastructure improvement. Namely the issue was in many ways the same that had been affecting India during its planned economy, despite the reforms the country had enacted in the past two decades. First labor laws were still very restrictive so it made it hard for people to move around in search of jobs.  Secondly, the infrastructure was not adequately developed in India so that its manufacturers could easily export their products. Third, the country was still plagued by shortages in essential goods, such as energy. This was all compounded by the government’s vain effort to prop up the country’s currency, the Rupee.  Not only has this led to a higher deficit, but also inflation, which eats away at people’s savings and makes them poorer. This led to growth rates closer to four or five percent during the recession.

After the Recession

Nevertheless, India’s economy has rebounded in the last two years and in 2014 outpaced China for the first time. This was due to several improvements. First, both the manufacturing and financial sectors improved dramatically. In addition, new Prime Minister Modi and other political leaders have worked diligently to reduce debt. Lastly, the drop in the price of oil has dramatically helped India, as most of its import deficits were due to the importation of oil to fuel its growing need.

While India has seemingly regained its status as a rapidly growing emerging market, this also comes with caveats. First, the growth figures that show it outpacing China had to be recalculated due to some errors, so many economists are treating them with skepticism. Secondly, according to a New York Times study from 2011-2012, 30 percent of Indians still live in extreme poverty, which translates approximately to 363 million people. That is more people than live in the United States. Thus, although India may recoup its status as a major, up-and-coming economy, there is still room for improvement. The following video gives an outlook on the impact reforms could have on India’s economy.

India’s Friends and Enemies

Pakistan

When discussing international concerns for India, the discussion always starts with Pakistan. The two nations were founded at the same time when British rule in India ended; however, the division of the two countries was plagued by extreme violence and a persistently strong feeling of animosity. The situation has in no way improved by the three wars and ongoing proxy war being waged over Kashmir. The conflict in Kashmir stems back to the separation of India and Pakistan.

At the time of independence, there were 562 princely kingdoms that were independent from either country and could choose which one they wanted to join. Both countries therefore were eager to recruit these principalities–Kashmir was one of the most coveted. Pakistan seemed to have the upper hand, as 70 percent of the population was Muslim; however, at the time, the ruler was Hindu so India claimed the area on that argument and still occupies it to this day. Aside from the direct conflicts there, Pakistan has also waged a guerrilla campaign to free the territory from India and incorporate it into the Muslim state of Pakistan.

On top of all that, both countries possess nuclear weapons and flaunt their capabilities, an example of which was the corresponding nuclear tests during the 90s. The video below provides a summary of the two nations’ conflict.

Nonetheless, hopes for thawed relations came when Prime Minister Modi was elected last year–one of his campaign promises was to improve relations between the two countries; however, lately Modi’s speeches have been full of aggressive rhetoric and the Pakistani military continues to support anti-India terror groups so change has yet to come. An example of this is when he suggested Pakistan was, “waging a proxy war” in Kashmir. He has also canceled several meetings with Pakistani officials, including one potential rendezvous at the United Nations.

China

India’s other major neighbor in Asia is China. Like Pakistan, India also fought a brief war with China in 1962 and has since maintained a relatively tense border with the country in the Himalayas. Tthe relationship with China has steadily improved in other areas as the countries have signed a number of trade agreements. The relationship was tested in 2013 with a Chinese incursion into Indian territory; however, no apparent serious harm came of it.

The lack of consternation may be rooted in how the countries view each other. In India, China is seen as a chief rival and also a source of emulation economically. For China, which is stronger militarily and economically, India is not regarded as much of a rival.

United States

Like its relationship with both Pakistan and China, India’s relationship with the U.S. is complicated. The countries originally shared strong ties, with the U.S. aiding India during the conflict with China. Relations were strained following America’s decision to side with Pakistan in its 1971 war with India. Things were further exacerbated by an arms treaty signed between India and the USSR and India’s testing of nuclear weapons in the 70s.

Relations seemed to be improving in the 1990s as India opened up its economy and moved to a free market approach. But once again ties between the nations weakened in 1998 when India again tested nuclear weapons, which drew condemnation and sanctions from the U.S. The sanctions were quickly repealed though and the two nations became close once more over a commitment to combat terrorism. The two sides have continued to grow closer since then, signing everything from trade to weapons agreements. In 2013 an Indian delegate was arrested for committing visa fraud, causing major waves. The two sides have seemed to yet again overcome this hiccup though, following the president’s recent trip to India where he reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to friendship.

The relationship with the U.S. also seems likely to continue to improve, despite numerous setbacks, many of which were over nuclear policy that now seem settled. While the U.S. may want to utilize India against a rising China, the two sides also value each other as trade partners. The relationship is further enhanced by the U.S.’s further distancing itself from Pakistan.

Domestic Concerns for India

While India navigates the dangerous game of international politics, it has internal issues to consider, as well. First and foremost is the status of women. While seemingly no country in the world can boast of total equality between men and woman, the situation is especially bad in India. While some women may enjoy access to lucrative lifestyles, there is a virtually systemic oppression of women in education, marriage, and the economy. A grisly example was the gang-rape of a woman by six men in Delhi in 2013 that resulted in the woman’s death. While four of the men were eventually sentenced to death, their crime highlighted a culture where women are often blamed for rape and where the courts are slow to act.

Women, of course, are not the only group to be institutionally marginalized in India. The caste system has existed for a long time. In this system people are born into and can expect to rise no further than a particular caste or class, which is often associated with some type of profession. While some efforts have succeeded at down-playing caste origins in jobs, castes still play a large role in social interactions and romantic relationships.

The persistence of discrimination, both against women and people of lower classes, speaks to the issue of inequality in the country. According to a report from the United Nations – Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (UNESCAP), income inequality actually increased in India from the 1990s to late 2000s.

India’s population is the second largest in the world at more than 1.2 billion people. With birth rates still outpacing death rates, that number is only going to continue to increase until it is expected to plateau in 2050. The population of India is also expected to surpass that of China for the world’s largest along the way, in 2025. All these extra people mean more food, housing, and jobs for a country that is already hard pressed to generate them at current levels. The accompanying video highlights the issues with poverty in India.

Domestically, though changes have been made incrementally, the sweeping changes necessary to fix many of India’s societal ills seem unlikely. As the infamous Delhi rape trial showed, while courts can be forced into action when thrust into the spotlight, they have been very slow to protect women. This also speaks to a problem of institutionalized marginalization for a large chunk of society, which has lasted for many years and thus is unlikely to simply go away now. Couple these issues with continued population explosion and the poverty that haunts India is likely to continue. Particularly with inequality rising and wealth being consolidated into the hands of the elites, much as it is in western nations.

Conclusion

After initially struggling following independence, India has enjoyed strong recent growth. While that growth was threatened by the great recession, India was able to pull through and even outpace China, if the numbers are to be believed. Going forward, Asia’s other potential superpower has many issues to deal with. Internationally, serious issues still exist concerning the relationship between India and Pakistan. India’s relationship with Asia’s affirmed rising super power is also in question as India moves closer to fellow democracy in the United States, while China seemingly drifts closer to fellow autocrat Russia.

Domestically it is more of the same, with concern over the economy dominating. Yet other issues also exist, namely an entrenched class system and the low status of women. Thus, while India has come very far, there is still a long way to go. Therefore while it is still possible for India to act on its superpower potential and one day rival China as Asia’s premier power, reforms and improvements are likely required along the way.

Resources

Primary 

Indian Embassy: U.S.-India Relations

Additional

Forbes: India Growth Now Beats China

Diplomat: India and Pakistan: A Debilitating Relationship

National Interest: China and India: The End of Cold Peace?

Council on Foreign Relations: Timeline U.S.-India Relations

Centre for Economic Policy Research: India’s Growth in the 2000s: Four Facts

Economist: How India Got Its Funk

BBC News: India Growth Figures Baffle Economists

The New York Times: Setting a High Bar for Poverty in India

Asia Society: India-Pakistan Relations: A 50-Year History

Saarthak: Women’s Situation in India

World Post: India Gang Rape Case: Four Men Sentenced to Death

Economist: Why Caste Still Matters in India

Financial Express: Income Inequality: Poor-Rich Gap Growing in India, Asia-Pacific

International Business Times: Partition of India and Pakistan: The Rape of Women on an Epic, Historic Scale

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Since its appearance on the web at the end of October, a video produced by Hollaback! has gone viral and caused a lot of controversy. Hollaback! is an organization dedicated to ending the unfortunate cultural phenomenon of street harassment, more commonly known as “catcalling.”

The video features a young woman dressed in black jeans and a black t-shirt, who walked through the streets of New York City for ten hours while someone walked ahead of her with a hidden camera. The result was a disturbing PSA that highlights exactly how bad street harassment can be. If you haven’t seen it, take a moment to watch the video below.

As always, when the subject of catcalling comes up, it splits viewers into one of two camps:

1. Confusion: Some viewers did not understand what the big deal was, because shouting your appreciation for a stranger’s appearance is a compliment right? Why can’t girls just take the compliments, say “hello,” smile, and move on? (FYI that was sarcasm). Others took note of the fact that white men seem to be absent from the video, and cited it as an example of racism.

2. Outrage: Some viewers identified with the woman’s experience in the video, or maybe never experienced that level of harassment, but declared their support of the organization’s mission.

@iHollaback @staceysager7 The video was shocking! I had no idea how pervasive that problem is. What really disgusted me were the comments.

— Carl Weiner (@carlweiner) October 28, 2014

Street harassment is a form of violence against women. Period. http://t.co/6Ql7qGthxk #VAW @TheCurrentCBC @iHollaback @FeministaJones — Ernestine’s WS (@ErnestinesWS) October 31, 2014

They should remake that catcalling video, starring my Twitter inbox.

— YAYzorblades (@YAYzorblades) November 2, 2014

The point of the video is not to target one race over another as the source of catcalling. It was to show that street harassment is not just men saying “hello” or “hi there” to women passing by, but rather objectifying them regardless of what they are wearing, what race they are, or if they know them. These are not compliments, they are an example of men perceiving themselves as entitled to women’s bodies. Saying “hello” is one thing, but it is rarely just “hello” or “good morning.” No one, man or woman, walks down the street wishing a stranger would talk to them and give them lewd glances or stares.

And catcalling is definitely not a problem restricted to New York City or minorities. A woman who lives in Minneapolis began a campaign called Cards Against Harassment this summer after becoming fed up with the amount of catcalls she and her friends received in the Twin Cities. She even recorded herself handing the cards out to the men who catcall her, informing them that their attention was unwarranted and unwanted.

Reactions to Cards Against Harrassment were much the same as the reactions to Hollaback!’s recent video. Men and women alike questioned why the woman bothered doing this, or why she didn’t just take the compliments. The consensus seems to be that yes, catcalling exists, but there is no way to stop it so why try?

I absolutely hate that mindset. If something is wrong, shouldn’t we do everything in our power to change it?

Catcalling and street harassment is annoying, uncalled for, and in some cases dangerous. Greeting a stranger on the street is one thing, but commenting on her appearance, telling her to smile, shouting profane names at her or otherwise objectifying her is unnecessary. When in the history of the world has a catcall ever gotten the catcaller positive attention from the victim?

Unfortunately, street harassment is a deeply ingrained part of our male-dominated society. It will be extremely difficult to eradicate, but it is possible. As organizations like Cards Against Harassment and Hollaback! have shown, awareness of the issue is growing rapidly and the more people see it as wrong the more likely it will be that it disappears.

There are, in fact, areas of the world where street harassment doesn’t really happen. Take this video shot in Auckland, New Zealand, in which a model tries to replicate the Hollaback! PSA.

Aside from a request for directions and one man trying to talk to her, the model received hardly any reaction from people as she walked down the street. The same model has said that she has resided in New York City before, and the catcalling there “was extreme … I don’t want, or like the attention at all. It’s not a compliment.”

If the New Zealand video should show us anything, it is not that catcalling doesn’t exist, but that it does not have to exist. 

Men and women of the world, take note: shouting at strangers on the street is never wanted. Women don’t go out wishing random men would tell them they’re pretty, just as men don’t walk around expecting women to tell them they’re handsome. Stop catcalling, and the problem stops.

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 Just Stop it With the Street Harassment Already appeared first on Law Street.

If you hadn’t heard — meaning of course you had no access to television, internet, mobile data, or human contact — we had an election on Tuesday. The headlines were predictable in their predictions, telling the nation which party would most likely win the U.S. Senate. Yesterday we were accosted with news stories of the Republican takeover, states legalizing marijuana, and a few stories made their way to the front pages about the states that raised their minimum wages (finally). What the hundreds of news outlets covering the election failed to mention, though, is that women are still losing in the battle for equal rights in 2014.

Tennessee, North Dakota, and Colorado all had proposed amendments that would outlaw abortions of any kind — even those that would save a mother’s life. These measures in North Dakota and Colorado also would have banned the use of birth control methods like the pill or intrauterine devices. Had those measures gone through, women would not have access to life-saving medication or procedures. Unfortunately in Tennessee, the abortion service restrictions were approved, and by all accounts will become stricter.

Yet again, the nation has focused on abortion as a hot topic — endangering women’s health in the constant struggle between a majority of white men.

What about women’s rights?

In 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have given women equal rights under the constitution, was introduced to Congress. It was not until 1972 that it passed through for ratification, and by 1982 only 35 states had ratified it. It has been introduced to Congress again and again since then, never reaching the point of ratification in that body.

Now in 2014 we are still waiting for the Equal Rights Amendment to become law. Meanwhile, only one state in the entire United States — Oregon — had a women’s rights act on the ballot. And guess what? It went through! But where in the hundreds of news stories on major news outlets are the stories about that? And why is it that in the year 2014 only one state proposed equal rights for women? Many states have equal opportunity employment clauses, but where is the nationwide call for women’s rights?

But hey, at least we know which party controls the senate.

How is it, that for a country that claims to be so forward-thinking, we can be so backward? How is it that women are still considered less than men in the eyes of society and in the eyes of the law? When will we, as a nation, get over the petty rivalries that keep opposing political parties in the news rather than the important issues that would make America better?

Stay tuned.

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 Women Still Losing the Battle for Equal Rights in 2014 appeared first on Law Street.

Monday night I was watching Late Night with Seth Meyers  with the hilarious Bill Hader and Representative Nancy Pelosi as his guests. The House Minority Leader is no stranger to late night television, especially in recent months as she has been interviewed not just by Meyers but also by Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher.

One of the agendas Rep. Pelosi talks about in most interviews is her economic plan for women under the slogan, “When Women Succeed, America Succeeds”. I love this for several reasons, but most of all because we have the most powerful woman in American politics promoting equal rights for all genders. She shows that it is not only possible for women to succeed, but also that once they do, they have the platform to promote women’s rights on a larger scale.

My favorite quote of hers from the night was:

“Whether it’s about respect for women, a woman’s right to choose…equal pay for equal work… whether it’s protecting women from domestic violence, violence in the military, violence on the campus; all of it is about one word, and that is respect. The opposite is disrespect, and that’s what we have to fight.”

Nailed it!

Rep. Pelosi is not the only woman in congress promoting women’s rights, but as the first female Speaker of the House and current leader of Democrats in the House, she certainly has a larger following. According to the Center for American Women and Politics however, in 2014 women hold only 18.5 percent of the seats in Congress.

While 18.5 percent is leagues ahead of where women were 50 years ago, it is not very reflective of the American population. Women make up 51 percent of American citizens, yet we hold less than a fourth of the seats in the national government? No wonder women’s rights continue to simmer on the back burner!

The list of excuses for this imbalance is long and varied. Growing up in a conservative small town, I heard numerous insults thrown at women who dared to go for higher political office. They ranged from “Well, women just aren’t interested in politics” (FALSE) to, “If Hillary Clinton wins, I’ll see you all in Canada!” to “Think about what would happen when Aunt Flow comes to town!”

Yes, because every woman would be so emotionally unbalanced during her period days that she would no doubt get mad at some country for a minor slight and end up starting a war.

As silly as some of these sound, they reflect a long-running and deep-set opinion that women are somehow unfit to hold public office. We still see the disconnect between male leaders being “powerful” or “strict” to female leaders being “bitchy” or “emotional.” As Rep. Pelosi so sagely put: “All of it is about one word, and that is respect.“

Look at it this way. On the Forbes list of most powerful women, American politics are hardly represented. Rep. Pelosi shows up, as she should, along with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and First Lady Michelle Obama.

Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Courtesy of Shawn via Flickr.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Courtesy of World Bank Photo Collection/Simone D. McCourtie via Flickr.

First Lady Michelle Obama, Courtesy of Barack Obama/Christopher Dilts for Obama for America via Flickr.

Whether you agree with them or not, all three of these women have been fundamental in promoting women’s health and equality. It should also be noted that all three are part of the Democratic Party. There are definitely women who hold office as conservatives, but in a party notorious for blocking women’s rights, they cannot hope to rise very far.

Many other American women on the list are part of the entertainment, technology, or business industries, and foreign women in politics, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel who ranked number one, outrank American women across the board. Does this show that other countries, especially those in Europe, have a higher respect for women? Absolutely.

Disrespect for female leaders runs deep in American politics, but as those like Pelosi, Clinton, and Obama show, it is possible and necessary for women to keep fighting that disrespect. Our goal should be equality, because without it we will always be considered the lesser sex.

—

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 [Nancy Pelosi 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 It’s All About Respect: We Need More Women In Politics appeared first on Law Street.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’ve thought this through.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hannah R. Winsten

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He responds:

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

Featured image courtesy of [jm3 on Flickr via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

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

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

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

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

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

1. They seek unsafe abortions.

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

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

2. They buy abortion pills on the black market.

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

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

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

3. They cross borders to get unsafe abortions.

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

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

Once again, abortions continue to happen.

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

5. They wind up unable to conceive later.

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

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

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

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

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

Hannah R. Winsten

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

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

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.

—

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.

A Brooklyn woman, Jessica Krigsman, asserted her right to be topless in public last July at Calvert Vaux Park in Gravesend; however, two police officers still arrested her and she is now suing NYC for the arrest. While sitting topless on a park bench, Ms. Krigsman was approached by two officers who instructed her to put her shirt back on based on a complaint that they received. She promptly informed them that it has been legal to be topless in public since 1992, eliciting the response from the officers to “stop mouthing off” or be arrested.After refusing again and pointing out that such an arrest would be illegal, the cops handcuffed her and threw a shirt over her head (roughly, she claims). Although the charges were dropped in October, it apparently did not make up for the five hours Ms. Krigsman spent sitting in a jail cell on charges of “obstructing a sitting area.” She is seeking unspecified damages for civil rights violations, in addition to claiming assault and battery and malicious prosecution. Ms. Krigsman’s lawyer, Stuart Jacobs, attributes this behavior towards topless women in public to a knee jerk reaction to nudity. He claims that police wrongfully harass women who choose to be topless in public based on an instinct that a topless woman in public is instinctively wrong. So he is pretty much saying that if you tell a cop you have a right to walk around topless in public, they have this reaction:

Sad to say this hasn’t been the only nudity-related injustice in the Big Apple. In 2008, sun bather Phoenix Feeley was arrested twice for being topless (the second time was leaving the county jail, shirtless, in protest of her first arrest). She was eventually fined $816; however, she was recently arrested again due to her failure to pay the fine.

Sir Ben Kingsley has a point. Although we can applaud Ms. Feeley’s Rosa Parks-esque stand for topless women everywhere, she should have just paid the fine. However, the cops who arrested Ms. Krigsman went against NYPD orders to stand down on arrests of women for “merely exposing their breasts in public.” This should be an interesting case to follow, however I remain skeptical about what damages she actually suffered in those five hours she was detained. Let’s get the Keep A Breast organization on this with their “I Love Boobies” campaign.

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 The Right to be Topless in Public – Clothes Are Optional NYC appeared first on Law Street.