Women's Rights Employment Law Blog

A detailed report on EEOC perspective appears on the National Law Journal.

By Tresa Baldas

The federal government has launched an initiative aimed at cracking down on discriminatory hiring practices in the workplace -- a program that could land unsuspecting employers in court, employment attorneys are warning.

That's what happened to Walgreen Co. this month, lawyers note, when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission hit the national pharmacy chain with a class action alleging widespread racial bias against thousands of African-American workers. EEOC v. Walgreen Co., No. 07-172, (S.D. Ill.).

The suit came one week after the EEOC announced "E-RACE" (Eradicating Racism and Colorism from Employment), an initiative that will have federal investigators paying much closer attention to how minorities are hired and promoted.

FOCUS ON HIRING

Specifically, the EEOC will focus on hiring decisions that are based on names, arrest and conviction records, employment and personality tests and credit scores -- all of which may disparately impact people of color.

For example, an African-American might be denied a job when an arrest record shows up on a background check or if a credit score turns out to be low. Such criteria, which have a disparate impact on minorities, were not considered in the past. But employers are increasingly considering such factors when hiring, and may unwittingly be denying jobs to large classes of minorities.

Many states have laws that restrict employers from asking about or considering criminal records when hiring. The EEOC holds that if an employer denies a job to an applicant because he or she has a criminal record, it could be considered discrimination if the person is a minority.

The EEOC also has a new specialized task force -- formed last year -- that will handle evidence turned up by E-RACE. Regional attorneys and directors will investigate in more detail and attempt to establish a pattern of discrimination within industries or employers, and present it to headquarters for possible litigation.

"I don't want employers to get the impression that they're some kind of bull's-eye," said EEOC attorney Paula Bruner, special assistant to the EEOC chairwoman. "We want them to be aware they need to step up in terms of their compliance with our laws."

According to the EEOC, race discrimination complaints continue to be the number one complaint made to the EEOC. In 2006, a total of 27,238 such complaints were filed. The EEOC also has seen a substantial increase over the past 15 years in discrimination claims based on color, which have soared from 374 in 1992 to 1,241 in 2006.

Continue reading "EEOC Cracks Down on Discriminatory Hiring Practices" »

SHANNON LEDGER in Feministing.com offers a case for her being a feminist--

No matter how far I come to think we have evolved as a movement and as a society, somebody is always there to remind me of just how much work there is still to be done. I am a feminist, no doubt about it. And although I'm fairly positive that this aspect of myself naturally shines through upon meeting someone, I still get that sort of dumbfounded facial expression when this realization occurs, which is almost always followed up with that doubtful, snooty question of "Why?" Why am I a feminist.
Are you serious? You actually need an explanation for my fight for equality?
"But, really, what is there to still be fighting for?" That's another one I've grown accustomed to hearing.

So.

Fed up with being knocked off my feminist high-horse, I've decided to explain myself, once and for all. Please keep in mind that my reasoning is not limited to the following; but rather the following is to serve as a little peek into my mind. Hopefully, it will allow you to see through the eyes of your feminist loved one a little more clearly, or perhaps you yourself can relate to my frustrations and that feeling of reciprocating dumbfoundedness when I am asked, "Why are you a feminist?" Well, here it goes folks. Listen and listen hard, because I refuse to respond to this ridiculous question a second time.

Why am I a Feminist!?

**Because I am still being asked this god damned question.
**Because I have to watch my creeps who prowl the streets at night just waiting to act out their hatred.
**Because almost every profession to date has been, and remains to be dominated by men.
**Because the majority of people on welfare are women who have been left to fend for their families by the fathers of the children. All this in a world that's already doing enough to work against them in the first place.
**Because women-made art is still viewed as an exception to the rule, to the perfection of "regular" man-made art.
**Because a woman's right to control her own fucking body is still a heavily debated issue.
**Because, due to the stigmas that our culture has attached to the idea, many women are still hesitant to stand up for their gender---To say, "Yes, I am a woman and I am a feminist."
**Because women's bodies are used as sexual objects to sell everything from beer to automobiles and everything in between.
**Because many men are still threatened by a woman that's got her shit together.
*Because douche is still on the market.
*Because we as women have yet to vanquish the animosity ---the jealousy--- that we are taught to feel towards one another.
*Because one in four college-aged women has some sort of eating disorder.
*Because the history of women and minorities is still only considered on their designated holidays.
*Because the movement has yet to succeed in meeting the needs of women who are not white and middle class.
*Because men in my past have tried to force me into the role of the damsel in distress.
(a feeble attempt mind you. Raaawr!)
*Because I know what it's like to be mistreated on the job solely based upon my being female.
*Because I can count the men I know who consider themselves to be feminist on less than one hand.
*Because most girls I know won't get in the pit at a show for fear of being pummeled to death by big beefy guys who can't be bothered to notice the human face they just stomped on. Fuck you, We're not your fucking coat racks!
*Because not a day goes by where I don't hear a fellow woman being referred to as a "slut," or some other splendidly humiliating name.
*Because I know what it feels like to be the one in four.
*Because it took a tragedy like 9-11 for the world to consider the Taliban a threat to humankind.
*Because we still live in a world of misogyny.
And because society has yet to give me a reason NOT to be.

That is why I am a feminist. Now, any questions?!?!?!?

Iowa Senate has a heartening news.

By Todd Dorman
Lee Newspapers

DES MOINES - A bill prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians in Iowa won Senate approval Monday over the objections of critics who predicted the measure would harm small businesses and open the door to lawsuits.

Backers of the bill, mostly Democrats, pushed it to passage on a 32-17 vote. They portrayed the legislation as a needed strike against discrimination that would also make the state more economically attractive.

The bill, Senate File 427, would add the words "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the Iowa’s Civil Rights Act, which currently bars discrimination based on age, race, creed, color, sex, national origin, religion and disability.

The act specifically targets discrimination tied to employment, housing, public accommodations, education and credit.

"Today, we have the opportunity to reaffirm that in Iowa, job performance is what counts, not what you look like, not what church you attend, not how old you are or who you love," said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, who led debate on the bill.

"It is difficult to convince a talented young person to come to Iowa or stay in Iowa when they can be discriminated against simply because of who they are," Gronstal said.

Exhausting most other options to rationally forbid abortion, a new law actually ridicules basic minimum standards of empathy. And of women’s rights.

That--after hours of debate--the South Carolina House could approve a bill that would mandate women to see a fetal ultrasound before deciding for abortion, speaks for the dismal state of women in the country today. More disappointing is the manner in which the voting passed the bill: 91-23, clearly indicating a sexist dominance in the juridical mainland.

Opponents of the bill decry it as “emotional blackmail”. The reality is worse than that. Such a bill that aims at controlling women’s freedom to choose--in a supervisory manner exploiting institutionally framed legal and ethical terms—actually throttles women’s freedom.

If only the legislators could wake up to realize that women’s freedoms are indeed human freedoms, such a bill would not have been envisaged, let alone passed.

Detailed story follows:

S.C. House: View fetal image prior to abortion Bill would mandate that women see ultrasound before terminating pregnancy By AARON GOULD SHEININ

Women seeking abortions would have to see a fetal ultrasound before the procedure under a bill given key approval in the S.C. House Wednesday.

After three hours of passionate debate, the House voted 91-23 to require women to sign a statement swearing they had seen an ultrasound image of their fetus before getting an abortion.

A half-dozen other states offer ultrasound images to abortion patients, legislative staffers said. But those states do not require abortion patients view them.

Supporters of the measure hope that image will spur more women to forgo abortion. Opponents called the bill “emotional blackmail.”

Third and final approval of the bill in the House could come as early as today, sending the bill to the Senate. There, the proposal faces stiffer opposition; individual senators hold great power to delay or derail legislation.

Abortion foes celebrated Wednesday’s vote.

“It was better than I expected,” Rep. Greg Delleney, R-Chester, said after he and other lawmakers, mostly Republicans, beat back a series of amendments from Democrats.

“Many of the pro-life groups contacted people around the state, and people were praying about this. Hundreds, if not thousands, were praying for it.”

Debate was impassioned.

Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, railed against Republicans for opposing his amendment to exempt victims of rape and incest from the required ultrasound viewing.

Forcing a victim of a crime to see the results is tantamount to forcing her to relive the ordeal, Rutherford said. “You all are doing it to her once again.”

But Delleney said the fetus is no less precious.

Rep. Bob Leach, R-Greenville, accused Rutherford of manufactured indignity. “I’ll be nominating you for actor of the year,” Leach said.

When Rutherford raised his voice in response, Speaker Pro Tem Doug Smith, R-Spartanburg, had to quiet both men and remind them to debate with civility.

Rep. Cathy Harvin, D-Clarendon, said the 111 men in the 124-member House never could understand the dueling emotions the issue raises.

“There are 111 of you in this body who will never be able to know the joy a woman experiences when she discovers she is with child,” Harvin said. “There are 111 of you who will never know the horror, that experience, that horror of being impregnated when it’s not something they desire, and then be taken and forced to observe the evidence of the crime.”

Theology, Scripture and wrenching personal stories poured from the podium through much of the debate.

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, quoted the book of Micah to bolster her argument against the bill.

“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice?” Cobb-Hunter quoted. “Love kindness and walk humbly with your God.”

Abortion-rights opponents used the same sentiment later Wednesday to suggest the bill is a mistake. In a news release after the bill passed, the Columbia Christians for Life said the bill “may reduce abortions, but it will also prolong the practice of ‘legalized’ abortion.”

“God’s requirement in the case of murder is justice, not regulation,” the release said.

"Violence against women has yet to receive the priority attention and resources needed at all levels to tackle it with the seriousness and visibility necessary."

UN Secretary-General’s in-depth study on violence against women (2006) (A/61/122/Add.1)

Before we reach another consensus on violence against women, let us examine the existing differences. For, whereas it is far easier (because it is pacifying) to share the knowledge that violence against women continues to exist, it is rather discomforting (because it is agitating) to throw lights on why it is so.

Like every year, academic and administrative reports of all kinds will be generated to commemorate March 8. After all, since we have a non-profit United Nations and we have corporate profiteers, we will eventually need to reach a consensus on issues such as violence against women. And amidst the thousands of articles and hundreds of televised tear-jerkers we will encounter in the coming month, the information overload would have done the damage, if we do not stay alert about few conditions that need addressing:

1. Suspect the Messengers: The kinds of messages about women may be misgivings. Indeed, most channels that provide news about women’s progress and violence are owned and controlled by men. Whereas it is undoubtedly true that many men are truly understanding of their gender positions and many women are too willing to play the assigned roles, it is still wise to suspect the men in the month of IWD message boards.

2. Women’s Rights are Universal Rights: Some will talk about women’s rights as a domain that applies to women only. Indeed, women’s rights are women’s prerogative only as a practice, but everyone’s concern as a scope. Just like they fool us by writing different history books for African-Americans, and the Americans as though American history does not include the minorities, it is highly suspect that women’s rights are not matter of concern for men.

3. Workplace for women vs Women for workplace: Most arguments about women’s rights focus on necessities to prepare the women for the workplace. Its like Amartya Sen saying that the question should not be if democracy is good for a country, but it should be directed towards making the country good for a democracy. Well, frankly speaking, he could be wrong. Just as JFK was while demanding that people give to the country without asking what the country can do for them. That’s the populist tone. The reality is women don’t need to be prepared for workplace. Workplaces need to be geared to serve women.

4. International Woman has a meaning: It means, women identify with each other across different boundaries. This identification has an undertone: that is, they accept the differences across cultures. To be truly international means understanding that there are differences across nations, and hence across women from different nations. There is no place for homogenization of women as one entity. So yes, White women are different from Black women are different from Asian women are different from Latina women are different from Muslim women are different from Hindu women are different from Swahili-speaking women who are different from Greek women. Women have different social locations among themselves, and hence understanding them holds the key. Let no one lead us into an essentialist notion of women’s problem. Different women face oppressions of different nature. The similarity is the most striking: that women are oppressed simply because they are women.

5. Are women human?: MacKinnon’s question is still valid. No amount of cultural excuses (from first world pornography to third world dowry) makes all women full human today. Ruling classes of the world still consider women as accessories to either their power ladder, or to their social justice tokenism. Their domestic adornment or cheap working class market value. Their television anchoring revenue system or their make-up kit industry. Just as Aishwarya Rai cannot be allowed to cry in public because Revlon will probably run into losses, Tamara MaidenName cannot challenge her greedy boss for uneven wages because he will merely retaliate.

International Women’s Day must not be allowed to promote card and gifts companies to indulge in exhibitionism of annual love to the mothers and sisters and wives and friends. It is rather a day to remind all of us in the world that a separate battle is on. This one is a battle of all. A battle that is waged by the true majority of the world, the women. A battle, that addresses the core inconsistencies of capitalism.

How aware are the liberals when it comes to queer culture? Alternet takes a stab.

Queer 101: A Guide for Heteros By Cameron Scott, AlterNet. As last November's election neared and a Democratic victory appeared more and more likely, Republicans warned that Speaker Pelosi would impose her "San Francisco values" on average Americans. Americans to the right of the left coast felt in their gut that San Francisco values were a shameful thing, without really knowing what they were.

Even San Franciscans scratched their heads a bit. The local paper's sex columnist, Violet Blue, pointed out that it meant sex. She argued that the twist in conservatives' panties resulted from San Franciscans' sex-positive outlook. Blue offered a paean to some of the city's sexual rituals, several of which, such as the Folsom Street Fair, are primarily gay.

But even Violet Blue didn't tell the whole truth: The phrase "San Francisco values" came directly from the right's well-worn gay-baiting playbook. In a story called "San Francisco Values Front and Center," the right's faithful warrior Bill O'Reilly shifts from talking about the city's ousting of ROTC clubs from several high schools into a discussion of gay marriage. He includes standard playbook comparisons of gay unions to polygamy, "triads" and incest.

So why hasn't anybody called a spade a spade? Many in Middle America have come to believe homosexual values must be abhorrent, based on the right's insistence that all homosexuals are radical perverts.

Blindness to difference has allowed the right wing to invent a sinister stereotype of "homosexuals" that has only tenuous links to reality. Radical right groups generate bogus statistics by conflating gay men and lesbians (the claim that homosexuals are more likely to have STDs should more accurately say that lesbians have the lowest rates of STDs of any group) and gay men and men who molest boys (imagine if they consistently referred to men who molest girls as "straight men"). The right gets away with their smears because they have persuaded Americans that sex and desire have no role in polite society.

Continue reading "Queer 101 for the Liberals" »

Taking yet another lead on creating a safer space, New Jersey state has a progressive ruling on school sex harassment scenario.

N.J. High Court Applies Hostile Work Environment Standard to School Sex Harassment
Henry Gottlieb
New Jersey Law Journal

School districts can be held liable in damages for student-on-student gay bashing and other forms of sexual harassment if teachers know about it and fail to react promptly, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled last week.

At the same time, the court declined to impose strict liability. Instead, liability will depend on how well educators respond to such situations.

"When a student is subjected to severe or pervasive bullying on the school bus, in the classroom, or at the playground and a school district fails to adequately respond to that misconduct, that student has a right to redress," Chief Justice James Zazzali wrote for the unanimous court in L.W. v. Toms River Regional Schools, A-111. "However, school districts will be shielded from liability, when their preventive and remedial actions are reasonable in light of the totality of the circumstances."

The plaintiff was a Toms River, N.J., student who complained to authorities in grammar, middle and high school that his peers abused him for years with anti-gay comments like "homo" and "faggot" and occasionally assaulted him -- treatment so bad that he felt compelled to miss classes and avoid school buses and after-school activities.

Administrators tried to deal with the problem with lectures, detentions and an occasional suspension to tormentors without effecting an end to the problem until the plaintiff transferred to an out-of-town school.

In response to a suit, the state Division on Civil Rights found that the Law Against Discrimination covered the case and it imposed $60,000 in fines on the school district.

The state Supreme Court agreed that the case was covered by the LAD and the leading case on hostile work environment sexual harassment, Lehmann v. Toys 'R' Us, Inc., 132 N.J.587.

The LAD permits a cause of action against a school district for student-on-student harassment based on an individual's perceived sexual orientation if the school district fails to reasonably address that harassment, the court said.

Continue reading "NJ Court rules against hostile schools" »

Just how difficult it is to be a mom in a postfeminist era? Or are the mothers going to redefine the movement now? New York Times probes into the new shift.

By KARA JESELLA

A BABY was passed around like the hors d’oeuvres — in this case, bruschetta, a fruit plate — among the 10 mothers who crowded into Ann Clark’s Sacramento home on a Tuesday night this month. No matter if the baby was crying; this was a child-friendly crowd.

The mothers all held jobs outside the home (pastry chef, singer in a band, lawyer, hairstylist, nanny) and many had flexible schedules to make it easier to care for their children. Like hundreds of others who have gathered over the last nine months, they huddled around a television to view “The Motherhood Manifesto,” a documentary about the obstacles still facing working mothers, including many of those in the room.

“I’m home with a 2-year-old, so there may be an interruption,” said Ms. Clark, 35, a social worker with two children and a three-day-a-week office job, as she recounted the viewing party the next day and talked about how she related to the mothers in the movie. Like them, she said, her financial situation felt precarious. She wasn’t sure she could count on keeping her part-time position next fall.

“These are issues I’m aware of and feel strongly about,” she said of the movie’s focus on subjects like universal child care, maternity and paternity leave, and workplace discrimination against mothers. That is why she joined MomsRising.org, the mother’s advocacy organization that made the documentary. “It’s a great opportunity to connect with friends — mothers — and together have a chance to change things,” she said.

For years, mothers have been taking to the Internet to blog or post messages about the travails of motherhood, commiserating, fuming or laughing about their shared lives. But in the last year there has been a marked increase in those who are going beyond simply expressing their feelings. In a throwback to their mothers’ — or was it their grandmothers’? — time, they are organizing about family and work issues.

A generation of mothers who are largely perceived as postfeminist in every way, from sex to economic discrimination, has begun a consciousness-raising that is almost old-fashioned were it not for the technology involved. Raised to believe that girls could accomplish anything, these women have reached parenthood, only to find they faced many of the same pay, equity and work-family balance issues that were being fought over decades before. From that awakening, they say, has come the inkling of a new movement.

Continue reading "Moms Rising: A new feminist shift" »

Connecticut lawmakers are considering a bill prohibiting transgender discrimination.

(Hartford-AP) State lawmakers are again considering a bill that would prohibit discrimination based on gender identity.

One transgendered woman told the legislature's Judiciary Committee of how she struggled to find a job, despite having a PhD in chemistry. Time after time, she would apply for jobs, only to be turned down after the interview.

The bill adds gender identity or expression to the law that prohibits discrimination based on race, gender, religion, age and other characteristics.

Although the same legislation passed in the Judiciary Committee last year, it died later in the legislative process. Advocates hope this will be the year that the bill finally passes.

Three years ago, the state's hate crime law was expanded to protect transgendered people, who identify and express themselves as the opposite sex.

A uniquely inspiring narration about the travel from the "world of religion" to the "world of reason", Infidel has been reviewed by NY Times. The book written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali is poised to receive the kind of attention that Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran did. If Nafisi found inspiration in Austen and Nabakov to write about women plights in Iran, Hirsi Ali took cue from Nancy Drew mysteries to sketch emancipation of Muslim women from Somalia to Netherlands. Worth a read. At least William Grimes recommends it highly.

No Rest for a Feminist Fighting Radical Islam By WILLIAM GRIMES

Ayaan Hirsi Ali came to the attention of the wider world in an extraordinary way. In 2004 a Muslim fanatic, after shooting the filmmaker Theo van Gogh dead on an Amsterdam street, pinned a letter to Mr. van Gogh’s chest with a knife. Addressed to Ms. Hirsi Ali, the letter called for holy war against the West and, more specifically, for her death.

A Somali by birth and a recently elected member of the Dutch Parliament, Ms. Hirsi Ali had waged a personal crusade to improve the lot of Muslim women. Her warnings about the dangers posed to the Netherlands by unassimilated Muslims made her Public Enemy No. 1 for Muslim extremists, a feminist counterpart to Salman Rushdie.

The circuitous, violence-filled path that led Ms. Hirsi Ali from Somalia to the Netherlands is the subject of “Infidel,” her brave, inspiring and beautifully written memoir. Narrated in clear, vigorous prose, it traces the author’s geographical journey from Mogadishu to Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya, and her desperate flight to the Netherlands to escape an arranged marriage.

At the same time, Ms. Hirsi Ali describes a journey “from the world of faith to the world of reason,” a long, often bitter struggle to come to terms with her religion and the clan-based traditional society that defined her world and that of millions of Muslims all over.

Ms. Hirsi Ali, now 37, belongs to the Osman Mahamud subclan of the Darod clan. Its members, by tradition, are born to rule, which may explain the author’s self-possessed, imperious gaze on the cover of her book. Her mother came from a family of nomads, and Ms. Hirsi Ali grew up listening to desert folk tales narrated by her grandmother, who, like many Somalis, followed a “diluted, relaxed” version of Islam that included traditional magic spirits and genies. It also required that young girls undergo genital mutilation, which Ms. Hirsi Ali, a victim of the practice, describes in horrific detail.

Somalia’s troubled politics provided Ms. Hirsi Ali with an eventful childhood. Her father, an opponent of the country’s Soviet-backed dictator, spent years in prison. The family, living on clan charity, moved to Saudi Arabia, where Ms. Hirsi Ali recoiled at the local interpretation of Islam, and later to Ethiopia and Kenya, where Ms. Hirsi Ali added Swahili and English to her growing list of languages. Without knowing it, she was becoming a permanent outsider, a misfit wherever she traveled.

Continue reading "Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Journy of an Infidel " »

Purdue students perform 'Vagina Monologues' to benefit YWCA domestic violence prevention program

Provocative, controversial, emotional and hilarious -- all can be used to describe Eve Ensler's critically acclaimed play The Vagina Monologues.

For women in Greater Lafayette, the play can be described as a lifesaver, too.

For the past five years, Purdue University students have organized productions of The Vagina Monologues on campus. Proceeds of the almost-always sold-out shows have gone to Greater Lafayette's YWCA Domestic Violence Intervention and Prevention Program. In the past two years, the YWCA received about $20,000 from Purdue's productions.

"The money goes to the women's shelter," said Nohemi Lugo, Hispanic advocate in the domestic violence program. "The money provides women with food, clothing and legal issues like child custody and divorce. It also goes to our staff, support groups and reflections groups, parenting classes and anger management classes."

The 2007 Purdue edition of The Vagina Monologues will be at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 6 p.m. Feb. 11 at Loeb Playhouse inside Purdue's Stewart Center.

This production of The Vagina Monologues is the first at the 1,000-seat Loeb Playhouse. The play started out in the small Matthews Hall, Room 215, for three years before moving on to the large lecture hall in the Class of 1950 building. Sold-out shows and lackluster acoustics have brought the play to its largest venue yet.

Leslie Foutz, a junior studying English, was one of the thousands who caught The Vagina Monologues in the Class of 1950 building. The show and Ensler's words resulted in her participation this year. Foutz said The Vagina Monologues is presented in a fun, entertaining manner while it touches on serious, emotional topics such as domestic violence, rape, torture and other grievous human rights violations toward women around the world.

"You're crying and laughing at the same show," Foutz said.

Foutz is one of 21 women who will perform in this year's show. The number of actresses has been around 20 for the last few years, said director Kelly George, a senior majoring in psychology and women's studies.

What started as a one-woman show by Ensler in 1996 quickly grew to small productions featuring three women usually dressed in black and sitting on stools. By 1998, Ensler created the V-Day celebration and allowed her play to be performed to benefit non-profit organizations. The playwright made her work more inclusive with much larger casts.

"Everyone who wants to be in the play, can," George said.

With 23 monologues in the play, most performers will do one monologue each, George said. The women are standing behind one of three microphones. The pieces are memorized or on notecards. Some works are "choral" and utilize the voices of multiple actresses. The core monologues including "I Was Twelve, My Mother Slapped Me," "I Was There in the Room," and "Because He Liked to Look At It" are the same each year, but many of the pieces are revised annually. There are several "optional" monologues and a brand new one called "2007 Spotlight Monologue." The new work speaks on the 2007 V-Day theme of "Reclaiming Peace."

"With so much conflict going on around the world, especially with America and Iraq, women are being greatly affected in combat zones," George said. "The monologue talks about the correlation of violence in the street leading to violence in the home."

George and her cast hope for a large and diverse audience. They believe women and men will be enlightened by the topics in the play.

"Everyone benefits from this show. I have no problem asking my students to go," said Adryan Glasgow, a post-colonial literature graduate student and four-time cast member.

The YWCA will benefit financially from the show. Lugo is impressed and thankful of the Purdue students' efforts.

"I think it's awesome that they're doing this," she said. "It speaks a lot about the youth and it's great they're helping us out and believing in our cause."

In her column “Broadly Speaking”, Adda Birnir compares sexism with racism in an instructive manner, while making the intersections appear as relevant as they actually are:

Sexual harassment is tricky because of three considerations: the nature of the activity, whether the action is welcome and, most importantly, the context. Noam Rudnick, writing for the Hippolytic blog, compared Schlessinger’s actions to instances of unwanted sexual advances perpetrated on a female undergraduate by a male undergraduate at Toad’s Place. But unwanted sexual advances and sexual harassment are not the same. A guy inappropriately grabbing a girl at Toad’s is not an example of sexual harassment because Toad’s is a social space where it is reasonable and expected that people are making sexual advances toward one another. Because of its context, such an action is harassment of a sexual nature, not sexual harassment.

Basha Rubin, writing for the Broad Recognition blog, countered Rudnick’s comments by saying that it does a disservice to women in the workplace to compare Schlessinger’s actions to sexual advances at a nightclub, because it gives credence to the idea that a male boss who sexually harasses a female employee is simply incapable of controlling his sexual desire. The workplace is not a space where it is typically appropriate to express one’s sexual interest. For this reason, harassment at the workplace is critically different from harassment at Toad’s.

So if sexual harassment is based on a drive for power, why does it so often take a sexual form? I find that comparing sexism to racism is instructive because it allows for a case study in which sexual desire is not a factor. To answer this question, I would like to compare these instances of sexual harassment to the Michael Richards case. This past November, Richards, who played Kramer on “Seinfeld,” gained notoriety for shouting racist slurs at audience members during a stand-up comedy performance. Apparently frustrated by what he deemed to be rude interruptions by a group of black male audience members, Richards stopped his act to yell angrily at the men, calling them all sorts of names, including the N-word.

Continue reading "Sexism’s power struggle mirrors historical racism" »

Goodyear Tire company has settled a gender discrimination case.

Goodyear Tire Company agreed to a $925,000 settlement to be disbursed among some 800 women who were not hired for entry-level, tire-building jobs at the company’s plant in Danville, Virginia. The lawsuit, which was filed by the US Department of Labor on behalf of the complainants, alleged that the company practiced gender-discriminatory hiring from January 1998 to June 1999.

Because Goodyear is a federal contractor and therefore prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, or national origin, the Department of Labor brought the case against the company. Charles E. James Sr., deputy assistant labor secretary for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, said the settlement serves to put "federal contractors on notice that the Labor Department is serious about eliminating systemic discrimination," Women's eNews reports.

In addition to the settlement sum, Goodyear will also offer entry-level jobs to as many as 60 women who meet the company's employment requirements, the Beacon Journal reports.

The Supreme Court is currently reviewing a second gender-discrimination lawsuit against Goodyear Tire Company, in which the plaintiff allegedly worked for the company for 19 years for a salary that was significantly less than that of her male counterparts who had the same or less experience.

Opulence of wealth has truly married the filth of mind in an extravaganza that ridicules the last remnants of decency in our vulgar capitalism. As a result, even the age-old diplomacy that shrouded the despicable aspects of money market has given way to a new exhibitionist class society, and to that effect, New York Magazine has begun to celebrate classism and sexism.

An event titled “Natural Selection Speed Date—Rich Guys and Hot Girls” is being organized by Pocket Change and New York Magazine. Scheduled for February 7th, this Darwinian slip unashamedly declares that “Women want money in a man, men want beauty in a woman – this is a factual force of nature.”

Yes, you read it right. The Pocket Change event goes on to celebrate what it finds desirable, in its own words: “This genetic cleansing is how the wealthy stay beautiful.” Not only the event not finds such “genetic cleansing” criminal by intent and design, but it also decides to rejoice over the sordid class difference to commemorate the wealthy men, and their prize catches.

New York Magazine/Pocket Change may have found this beautiful and desirable, but we are sure for millions of sensible people, this is outright ugly, hideous and mocking. What’s worse, such an event is sexist to its core and inhuman in its essence.

In conversation with Womensrightsblog, a Pocket Change newsletter subscriber Patricia Delhannon reverberated the views of most readers that were suppressed by mainstream publications such as New York Magazine in the due course of their decision to go ahead with such an event:

"I am personally a realistic woman, I recognize gender differences and I have never really called myself a feminist. I do however believe in the strength of women and (find) this is offensive and I feel offended as a woman. I'm not really experienced at any type of social action, but thought at least something should be done. I think as women, we can't support this or even allow this type of thing to take place.”

The leading precept of this event is that men who will enter into this exclusive contest will be solely judged by their wealth. Each must have all the following properties: a minimum of half a million earning, with invested assets of more than 1 million and trust money worth more than 4 million dollars.

What happens to women who want to enter the contest? Do they also need to be “successful”? Hell no. They are not expected to be working. They should only be rich in their “beauty”, which will be judged by celebrity matchmaker Janis Spindel.

So we are back in the ages where men are supposed to earn and women to be their slaves. Precisely, going by this “Natural Selection” event that will judge the “Rich Guys and Hot Girls”.

Readers of such media are bound to get shocked in a city that witnesses deaths due to winter, homelessness and lack of health coverage. But are the media any more bothered? Hardly, saving a few.

Faking Good Breeding has covered the story. So has Sex and The Upper East Side. And finally, Feministing has a compelling note.

But that’s mostly about it. Have we just been rendered less sensitive or are we choosing to get less educated? Jack Tuckner of Tuckner, Sipser, Weinstock & Sipser, LLP, says:

“Ideally, our corporate media should find interest in running this sordid story, and that would be wonderful; but decisions are often made to run stories for their own pecuniary reasons that have nothing to do with its newsworthiness or utility. This is the world of Girls Gone Wild shown increasingly on network television. This is the world where a nanosecond of Janet Jackson's breast is considered scandalous but Viagra advertisements depicting men staring lasciviously at women's lingerie are shown during the same Super Bowl presentation with nary a whimper of protest.”