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

#YesAllWomen

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

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

— Tessa (@TessaKerlin) May 27, 2014

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

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

— Karin Robinson (@karinjr) May 25, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

Calling out catcallers became an internet phenomenon

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beyonce’s Feminist Performance

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

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

-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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

Emma Watson’s UN Speech

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

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

Male feminists on the rise

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

The number of women in Congress shot up

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

Morgan McMurray

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Easy enough.

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

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

You would think so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Knock it off.

—

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

Featured imaged courtesy of [Andre Benedix via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

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

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

“Rape culture” is a term coined by feminists in the late 1970s to describe the way that society blamed rape victims and normalized male sexual violence. It described how our culture condoned physical and emotional harm toward women. It showed that we allowed women to get raped and men to get away with it. And sadly, the phrase is still apt throughout the globe today, 50 years later.

Yesterday, hundreds of people in Bangalore, India demonstrated outside a public school where a six-year-old girl was raped.

The incident happened at Bangalore’s Vibgyor School in early July, but it was only brought to light last week. No arrests have been made, but it has been reported that police have detained eight suspects in the case.

The pressure from the people of Bangalore is commendable, without their effort the Indian police force would not have taken this issue as seriously, and the girl’s rapist may have never been caught or even investigated.

We’ve come along way since the 1970s. It was in ’77 that Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl before fleeing to France without serious public uproar.

Since then, there have been major advances in the feminist movement, and people are finally starting to change the way they think about rape. Here are some examples of how people are have started to change the way women can protect themselves:

• A trio of Indian students created “anti-rape underwear” that delivers shocks and alerts the police to potential assaults. The device is cleverly named Society Harnessing Equipment (SHE), and is equipped with a GPS system and pressure sensors that make it capable to send a 3,800 kV shock.

• A group of Swedish girls designed an “anti-rape belt,” also referred to as a “reverse chastity belt.” It has a complex labyrinth of a latch that the wearer has to unlock, which is impossible to do without two hands. “The rapist can’t hold you down and open it at the same time. It takes a while to figure it out if you don’t know what you’re doing,” one of the creators said.

• A South African doctor designed a condom called the “rape-axe” that is designed to dig into a rapist’s penis upon penetration. The jagged hooks cling on to the offender’s penis and create enough pressure to prevent the man from being able to urinate.

• Inventors added a little twist to the rape whistle: now there’s a keychain-like security device that sounds a loud alarm when pulled. The device is meant to scare the attacker while also alerting bystanders that you are in need of help.

• Two students at India’s National Institute of Fashion Technology created a jacket that is supposed to prevent sexual assault. The jacket discharges 110 volts of electricity when it detects unwanted pressure. A button is pressed by the person who is being assaulted, which then signals the jacket to stun the aggressor and temporarily disable him.

• A group of inventors created a test called Pd.id that determines whether or not your drink has been drugged. “The lighter sized sensor is dipped into your drink and performs electrical conductivity tests, temperature measurements, and spectroscopic analysis to determine the molecular makeup of your beverage.” If it does detect something, the sensor alerts the user with a red LED light.

So as you can see there is a lot being done to prevent girls from being raped, and while all these inventions are spectacular and innovative, there’s still one thing wrong; we’re placing the responsibility on women and girls. These inventions send out the message that prohibiting rape is up to the female, and that it is their own duty to make sure that they do not become a victim. Instead, we should be holding our men accountable and teaching our boys that it is their responsibility to respect women.

Many of our conversations these days focus on preventive behavior, telling women not to get drunk, what not to wear, when and where to go out. This is rape culture.

Rape culture is telling women to “be careful” when they leave the house, or to put on something “less revealing.” Rape culture is shaming women for who they sleep with, how they walk, how they talk, what they drink, where they go. Rape culture is protecting our men, and condemning our girls; and I think it’s about time we change that. Not all men sexually assault women, but at one point or another in their lives, most women will be sexually assaulted by a man. We’ve been to the moon, cured numerous diseases, taken flight, and beaten our preconceived prejudices. I think we’re advanced enough to stop shifting the blame off men, and start respecting our women. I think it’s time we stop accepting rape culture, and start refuting it. Don’t you?

Mic Drop

—

Trevor Smith

Featured image courtesy of [Chase Carter via Flickr]

Trevor Smith

Trevor Smith is a homegrown DMVer studying Journalism and Graphic Design at American University. Upon graduating he has hopes to work for the US State Department so that he can travel, learn, and make money at the same time. Contact Trevor at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Yes. All. Women. appeared first on Law Street.

One out of every five cases of violent victimization in America is domestic violence. You read that correctly — one out of five, according to the latest National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Published in April, this report illustrates a disturbing yet unsurprising state of affairs.

Just over half of all domestic violence cases involving intimate partners or immediate family members during this period were reported to police (56 percent), while just under half of cases of victimization by other family members were reported (49 percent). In addition to the 23 percent of domestic violence victimizations, another 32 percent were perpetrated by “well-known/casual acquaintances.” More than half of all violent victimizations, then, are committed by offenders known by the victim. In general, violence is not random.

Violence Against Women 

When all violent crimes are considered, men are slightly more likely to be victimized than women. However, in terms of domestic violence women are more often the victims, making up 76 percent of all such incidents. This is especially the case in intimate partner violence (IPV), which shows an even larger gap: an 82-18 percent disparity between women and men, respectively. IPV is also the most prevalent and injurious form of domestic violence.

The recent campaign “Bring Back Our Girls” has been powerful in that it created rallying cry, worldwide, against the discrimination of women. While the energy behind it is purely positive, I think that America forgets about its own issues too often. We take pride when scolding other nations for their de jure systems of oppression. As a recent World Bank report illustrates, it is not a crime to restrict women in many countries. Rather, their restriction is a part of the legal system. Active government constraint of the freedoms that women deserve is not (as) prevalent in the United States. But it remains shameful, or criminal, that our government can ignore domestic violence to the extent that it does.

Action For Women

IPV can be associated with poverty. As the World Bank report states, “Intimate partner violence (IPV) is more frequent and severe among poorer groups across such diverse countries as India, Nicaragua, and the United States.” Our lawmakers can do something by restructuring the tax code and revitalizing government programs. Getting rid of loopholes while lowering all brackets’ rates could actually increase revenue and make room for stronger assistance programs. Of course this means that reforming welfare and SNAP will have to be taken seriously.

Undocumented citizen status may also exacerbate IPV. As SafeHouse Denver describes, there are a host of methods used by aggressors against immigrant women to keep them from reporting domestic violence. Our lawmakers can do something by reforming immigration laws, reducing harsh enforcement, and making the path to citizenship more accessible. In turn, that would make it more difficult for abusers to discourage immigrant women from seeking help.

IPV can turn into homicide when firearms are involved. The annual “When Men Murder Women” report by the Violence Policy Center shows the relationship between firearm homicide and domestic violence. Our lawmakers can do something by mandating tougher restrictions on guns, which may reduce the number of domestic violence cases that become fatal. Because fatal domestic violence cases go unrecorded by the NCVS, this issue is even greater than the recent report may suggest.

Ending the Trend

Cultural change has the power to reshape the way we raise our children, it has the power to reshape the way partners treat each other, and it has the power to reshape how students behave on college campuses. However, we cannot rely solely on social movements. The political structure and our government’s actions must reflect, and catalyze, the social shifts on the ground. Yes, we need to advocate for cultural change. Yes, all women. Yes, all men. But it would be remiss to not demand policies that can diminish IPV. If we are to truly champion the end of domestic violence, the end of sexual assault, and the end of a system that leaves so many women battered, it will be necessary to call on our government to make changes. Especially when solutions would be beneficial in so many other policy areas, it is criminal that our politicians are not doing more to combat domestic violence.

___

Jake Ephros (@JakeEphros)

Featured image courtesy of [US Military via Wikimedia]

Jake Ephros

Jake Ephros is a native of Montclair, New Jersey where he volunteered for political campaigns from a young age. He studies Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy at American University and looks forward to a career built around political activism, through journalism, organizing, or the government. Contact Jake at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Domestic Violence: Ending the Trend appeared first on Law Street.

Since the shootings at the University of California Santa Barbara carried out by Elliot Rodgers, the internet has been pretty much inundated with opinions on what happened to make a young man go on such a vicious rampage. The hashtag #yesallwomen was born, and I’ve spent a decent amount of time reading the responses, realizing that I can relate to many. News outlets, conservative and liberal alike, have responded to the tragedy, positing their theories for why it happened or what to do next. We’ve even had substantial chatter here at Law Street, including from our new blogger Allison Dawson who talked about it in her excellent post “The Shooter Alone is to Blame for Santa Barbara Slayings.”

I don’t want to discuss this tragic event, because in the past three days I’ve read dozens of different takedowns, analyses, and examinations of the event and I, quite frankly, don’t feel like I have anything else to add. And no matter what we blame it on, and my personal feelings aside, we’ll never be able to figure out exactly why it happened. It’s probably some combination of all the different root causes that analysts have mentioned — but it’s not going to bring back the people that Rodgers murdered.

Now I’ve always been a supporter of substantive online discussion. A few months back I wrote about the power of hashtag discussions, and I stand by the fact that they can add real value to our cultural and societal discourse. But part of me also feels really sad, because as great as the discussion has been, I’ve seen it all before. Every single time something like this happens, we talk about it, we dig into societal concerns and gun laws, and then nothing ends up changing.

I love words, but actions speak louder. And we need to start taking action. I don’t want to politicize the issue because it was a genuine tragedy and those who lost loved ones deserve their time to grieve. But it’s already been politicized over and over and over again because this is all anyone will talk about. For god’s sake the politically irrelevant dusty relic that is “Joe the Plumber” has chimed in, telling parents of the victims that “your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights.” Great.

So now that this discussion (and hashtag) has been talked to death and there’s really nothing left to say, I am going to tell you all in a vaguely hypocritical fashion, that I think we need to all shut the hell up unless we’re going to do something about it.

I don’t care what you do about it. Go with whatever theory you have for why you think that tragedies like this happen and do something.

So if you think it’s about misogyny and cultural problems, fine, understandable. Go raise your sons to be better than some of the men of this generation. Open up discussions with the men in your life. Teach women to stand up for themselves.

If you think it’s a mental health issue, encourage more investment into mental health services at your university or at your child’s school. Fight to end the stigma of talking about mental health issues.

Or guns, If you think it’s about guns, lobby for stricter regulations. Encourage the development of technologies that make guns safer. Vote for candidates who attempt to implement legislation restricting gun access.

I don’t care what you do. I don’t care why you think this happened. But I’m begging you, do one of these things or come up with your own. I already did mine. I just donated a few dollars to a candidate whose views on this whole issue I support. And I know politicians aren’t going to solve all problems and probably will barely make a dent. But at least I’m taking an action I can believe in. And I want you to all do it with me, no matter how big or small it is.

I’m tired of being scared that I will someday senselessly be targeted by someone like Elliot Rodgers. It seems like every other week there are mass shootings, or attempted mass shootings. And I don’t care what we do to fix it, I don’t care if my theories about what happened are vindicated or not. I would just like it to stop.

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

Featured image courtesy of [Ryosuke Yagi via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

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

The post It’s Time to Stop Talking About Gun Violence and Do Something appeared first on Law Street.