In a way, the controversies surrounding Ashley Judd’s puffy face has done immense good. Not only have our media exposed themselves as sexist scavengers that perpetuate fascist beauty standards in evaluating women’s worth in our society, but this so-called news update has allowed for an emergence of a much needed dialogue on a much undermined feminist issue. And who better than Ashley Judd herself to confront the pernicious impacts of yellow journalism that comprise mass media selling points today?

Judd raises several critical questions that inform such innocent curiosities of bystanders on puffy faces. Such insulated have we become within ourselves against attacks on our collective human intelligence that we have ended up evaluating each other based on how we measure up against a strict yardstick of beauty that generates advertising money. Such depraved are we today as never before in terms of recognizing our unique selves that we crave to adulate a physical form that requires validation from outside before it can appeal to our inner selves.

Through her powerful, evocative and emancipatory writing in true feministic traditions, Ashley Judd also reminds us of our vulnerabilities of constantly being judged while we accept the assaults silently. If it requires courage, conviction and a public platform for a celebrity of her stature to register a protest, how ridiculously difficult it must be for young children and teenagers today who are constantly subjected to reminders of their less than ideal body image?

Judd compels us to interrogate our shoddy privileges when we denigrate the less ideal bodies and how it becomes more pathetic as women are asked to “better watch out” in fear of the philandering husband. She forces us to reexamine traditional components of patriarchal setups that conveniently blame the men exclusively and she reminds how grim the situation really is today when most women are falling for the sexist spells. That, she was first criticized by women for her looks is no mere coincidence. In fact, like gullible and willful agents of patriarchy – a system mirrored after dominant male perspectives – women unquestioningly look upto and emulate the male priorities and adapt to them as their own. Especially in the entertainment industry, where the male producers amass the wealth, it is the female performers that feel emancipated through approved looks. Ashley Judd minces no words, makes her personal political, and reflects upon her career of approvals that has received significant jolts along the way whenever she has failed to satisfy the conditions fulfilling beauty criterion.

She writes, “this abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women…..In fact, it’s about boys and men, too, who are equally objectified and ridiculed, according to heteronormative definitions of masculinity that deny the full and dynamic range of their personhood.”

Entire article can be found on The Daily Beast.

By Saswat Pattanayak

International Women’s Day is possibly the most progressive annual observation in human history. It is a celebration that is deeply rooted in women’s rights movement, as the foremost catalyst in diversifying Marxist applications, as the primary precursor to the greatest peoples’ revolution of 1917, and as the epic reminder of the most visible inequality in our world today.

More importantly, International Women’s Day (IWD) also marks the first organized anti-war movement in recorded history.

IWD started as the culmination of Russian women’s pacifist stance against the First World War. The very first peace movement led by (Russian) women in 1913 began to make impacts on this important day and spread to several European countries. Subsequently, the four-day women’s strike against the Czar’s militarism and demand for “Bread and Peace” resulted in abdication of the Czar, and the provisional government granting women the right to vote for the first time. And this historic occasion, the last Sunday of February 1917 in Russia (March 8 on Gregorian Calendar) has since been celebrated as the International Women’s Day.

Owing to Soviet Union’s contributions to women’s movements and progressive workers movements world over, March 8 was observed first by several communist countries and subsequently by most of the world. Due to resistance towards the communist bloc, and also owing to disenfranchised women in the western society, March 8 has never really been adopted with enthusiasm in much of the capitalist world, but ignoring such a milestone has never been really possible.

Tremendous pressure on United Nations to recognize such a special day exclusively to celebrate working women of the world finally resulted in the day being thus designated, only in 1975. March 8 used to be observed as the national holiday of only the erstwhile Soviet Union. Today, IWD is an official holiday in Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China (for women only), Cuba, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar (for women only), Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal (for women only), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia.

Predictably enough, most countries even today which enthusiastically observe IWD are either communist nations or formerly were members of the communist bloc. However in the western world, feminists have also joined voices with their comrades abroad to formulate IWD’s agendas. On International Women’s Day in 1970, the Berkeley Women’s Liberation Front circulated a pamphlet “Vietnamese Women: Three Portraits” to stand in solidarity with the communist women of Vietnam. The pamphlet asked “What does the Vietnamese war have to do with women’s liberation?” It is an important question considering many western white feminists were either being rejected as racists or irrelevant by women of color in the United States. In the true spirit of an International Women’s Day as envisaged by revolutionary feminists associated with Bolshevik Revolution, the Berkeley front replied:

“Everything! Women in the movement here are talking about the essential right of people to live full and meaningful lives, demanding an end to the way women, throughout history, have been objectified and dehumanized. How then can we not recognize these same claims that are being made not only by the oppressed in our own country, but by those who are oppressed by this country abroad?”

Ruth Rosen in “The World Split Open” mentions that although IWD used to be celebrated only in the communist countries, on International Women’s Day in 1969, about fifty women marched through Berkeley. On March 8, 1970, thirty other towns and cities of America celebrated the day. By the end of the seventies, nearly all schools and cities in the United States commemorated it.

Philip Foner in “Women and the American Labor Movement” describes how the lesser known history of this communist celebration is, in fact, deeply rooted in the labor movement of the United States as well. This is possibly the biggest coincidence that could have cemented the friendship between working peoples of the USA and the USSR, had the western history textbooks and institutional censorships not prevented generations of people from realizing the common causes between women world over. If March 8, 1917 was the day when Russian women started their revolution to acquire right to vote, it was a historic coincidence that on March 8, 1908, women workers in the needle trades had led a massive demonstration in New York demanding democratic unionism. 15,000 women marched through New York City to demand for shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. Such was their impact that, only two years later, on March 8, 2010, German communist Clara Zetkin moved a resolution to honor these American working women and demanded that March 8 be dedicated to fighting for equal rights for all women in all countries.

Coalitions of Labor Union Women in America also found resonance on March 8. In 1975, more than a hundred women unionists from over 55 international AFL-CIO unions, the UAW, and the Teamsters’ Union urged CLUW chapters to participate in observances on March 8, aimed at combating unemployment and to deal with “faltering economy”. Inspired by socialist experiments abroad, women unionists demanded “jobs for all” on this day.

International Women’s Day is losing its relevance due to the anticommunist culture that refuses to acknowledge the role, class conscious women have historically played. On the contrary, with the gradual demise of labor movements in this country, and with growing capitalistic takeover in much of the remaining socialist societies, women are increasingly being silenced via mass media coverages and their demands for unique rights remain at the mercy of handfuls of powerful legislators.

This is a day that is not only historically relevant to understand how March 8 could have very well united women from America and Soviet Union in common cause, but it is also a magnificent reminder of what lies ahead :: the pressing need to recognize unique civil and human rights of women. It is not just a day to celebrate women, but more importantly, a day to recognize tremendous struggles and resistance registered thus far by women’s movements worldwide.

A group of moms have brought city’s attention to the manner in which Facebook confirms to the otherwise sexist norms in our society when it comes to breastfeeding rights.

Although the protests took place at Facebook office lobby at 335, Madison Avenue, Facebook officials did not feel it necessary to address the gathering, or more importantly, the issue. Emma Kwasnica, the woman who launched this global movement against Facebook believes that the employees of this powerful corporation are “running rougue” and deleting images owing to their personal sensitivity. However the reality is, by turning indifferent to her protests, Facebook has been consistently adhering to the patriarchal standards. And there lies the greater crisis.

The online moral czars have flexibilities otherwise deemed illegal. For instance, in public, a women in New York has the right to breastfeed her baby in any public or private place where she has a right to be. This includes stores, day care centers, doctors’ offices, restaurants, parks, movie theaters and many other places. No one can tell her to leave any of these places because she is breastfeeding, and no one can tell her to breastfeed in a bathroom, a basement or a private room. Likewise, at work, the employer cannot discriminate against a woman for choosing to breastfeed her baby or for pumping milk at work.

Facebook and other social media which self-regulate for the most part, need to be not just politically correct, but more importantly, socially responsible by following women’s rights laws. Or stricter regulations need to be in place for private corporations, irrespective of whether they claim to be freedom loving virtual/social media networks.

Following news reporting by Cassandra Garrison for Metro details the protest, and its impact –

An international movement landed in NYC this morning as a small group of women carried their young children inside the building that houses Facebook’s NYC office, demanding that the social networking giant leave their breastfeeding photos alone.
The “nurse-in” was planned after Vancouver mom Emma Kwasnica launched an online campaign, calling on Facebook to stop deleting images of mothers nursing their children. Kwasnica said Facebook removed her photos numerous times, despite the company’s claim that it does not delete images unless they show an exposed breast that is not being used for feeding.
The group of moms who attended the NYC “nurse-in” insist that even though the photos are acceptable by Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, they are continually removed. They met in the lobby of 335 Madison Avenue, the building where Facebook operates on two floors. The small contingent was first asked to leave but later returned to the lobby where security allowed them to stay. The moms nursed their children and chanted lines like, “Facebook, Facebook, don’t be mean — breastfeeding is not obscene.”
“People view breasts as this sexual thing,” said Wendy Ledesma, an Astoria mom who has a 17-month-old son. “We need to get over that as a society and realize that breastfeeding is normal, natural, beautiful and important.”
No one from Facebook came downstairs to address the moms, but a spokesperson blamed the deleted photos on human error. Each photo that gets flagged as offensive is reviewed by an employee who then decides whether the photo will be deleted and the user’s account frozen.

At Women’s Rights NY, we have awarded our Annual “Women of the Year” recognition to the following four exemplary feminists –

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the 24th and current President of Liberia won a decisive victory in the reelection of 2011. She has the distinction of being the first and currently the only elected female head of state in Africa.

She received the African Gender Award in 2011, and was the co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her “non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”

Ellen Sirleaf has in the past represented Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Pan-African anticolonial agency that supported, trained and provided weapons and military bases to colonized nations fighting for independence. It was thanks to OAU that South Africa during Apartheid was expelled from World Health Organization.

When Sirleaf was elected in 2005, she had promised to rule just one term, but she decided to contest again last year and continues to rule Liberia as its most illustrious of presidents. As the president, she has had enormous success in fronts of national debt relief. She has criticized international military interventions in Libya, and has led historical investigations into national civil conflicts in Liberia with an intent to identify the people associated with former warring factions.

However, not everything is rosy with Sirleaf’s growth and progress. She has been viewed as pro-western in many instances. Her opponents claim that the Nobel Prize was awarded to her a couple of months before the election so as to ensure her re-election. Her first foreign visit was meant to restore friendship with Côte d’Ivoire, a traditionally pro-capitalist member of the former OAU. Under pressure, she also agreed to withdraw her stance regarding Libya and joined the chorus in calling for Gaddafi’s head.

Notwithstanding controversies, being an African woman leader, she has been acknowledged by Newsweek magazine as one of the top ten best leaders of the world. Time magazine paid her tribute as one of the top ten female leaders.

Lidia Gueiler Tejada

Lidia Gueiler Tejada

Lidia Gueiler Tejada died on May 9, 2011. She was Bolivia’s first female president and only the second female president in the entire western hemisphere (if at all Argentina’s Isabel Pero’s widow-card is accounted for).

Unlike any other female political leader in the Americas, Lidia Gueiler was fiercely revolutionary in her politics. She joined the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR) in 1948, the most important political party in the 20th Century Bolivia.

Lidia Gueiler’s contributions to feminist causes in Latin America are unparalleled. Three years after she joined the Revolutionary Left Movement, she became the most formidable social rights activist in Latin America when she led 26 women on an eight-day hunger strike to win the release of their sons and husbands, who were being held as communist political prisoners.

After the MNR was toppled from power in 1964, Gueiler spent many years in exile. She was elected president of the lower legislature in Bolivia upon her return. After a series of military interventions and nationwide labor strikes, Gueiler was appointed president of Bolivia by the Bolivian congress in 1979.

A lifetime campaigner of women’s rights and progressive causes, she publicly supported the socialist leader Evo Morales in 2005 election.

Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy turned 50 in 2011. But more than this incidental turn of event for her, there was a more conscious decision taken by the Booker Prize winning progressive writer. She declared herself to be “a Maoist sympathizer”. In an interview to The Guardian, she endorsed any means possible to bring about revolutionary changes.

Guerrillas use violence directed against the state forces and at times innocent civilians sustain injuries and deaths. When Roy was asked to clarify if she condemned such violence, she was forthright: “I don’t condemn it any more. If you’re an adivasi [tribal Indian] living in a forest village and 800 CRP [Central Reserve Police] come and surround your village and start burning it, what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to go on hunger strike? Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation.”

Betty Ford

Betty Ford

Betty Ford died on July 8, 2011. She was more than a First Lady. Through her contributions to women’s rights movements, she set precedents as a First Lady unafraid of taking on politically sensitive issues.

Betty Ford raised awareness about breast cancer following her mastectomy in 1974. She also drew from her personal experiences to politicize issues when she raised awareness of addiction following her battle with alcoholism.

As a pioneering feminist of her time, she actively supported Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), equal pay, and women’s right to abortion. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Betty Ford to the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year. She opened the National Women’s Conference in Houston, Texas where she helped create the National Plan of Action.

When in 1978, the deadline for ratification of the ERA was extended from 1979 to 1982 it resulted in a march of a hundred thousand people on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. Several leading feminists including Bella Abzug, Elizabeth Chittick, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem joined Betty Ford in registering protest.

(The List: Edited by Saswat Pattanayak)

Wall Street has been occupied by those representing the 99%. But what about the top 1%? How do they fare? They might be throwing cakes at the hungry masses down below, but how do they share their pies? They might be unleashing atrocities upon the huge majority of people through criminal manipulations, but how fairly do they treat each other?

A look at their annual salaries points to crucial factors of inequality and biases within the top 1% themselves. The masculine, patriarchal and sexist nature of corporate greed duly relegates its women accomplices to the inferior salary brackets. No matter if the women are in the same ranks of CEOs or Presidents, they are just paid way less. In fact, the highest paid woman Safra A. Catz (President, Oracle Corp.) earns less than any of the first 12 highest paid men! And the second highest paid woman Wellington J. Denahan-Norris (COO, Annaly Capital Management) earns less than any of the top 25 highest paid male executives.

The cumulative total earning for the first 9 months of last year was $381,105,205 for the highest paid male executives, while the cumulative total earning for the highest paid female executives for the said period was $118,233,692.

When such disparities in pay across genders have been normalized within the top echelon, it is no wonder the financial bosses of the Wall Street do not think twice about the increasing class society afflicting America today.

Here, then, is the breakdown (first 9-month period, 2010) -

Top 5 Men

Philippe P. Dauman
President and Chief Executive Officer
Viacom, Inc. (VIAB)
2010 Total Compensation: $84,469,515

Mark V. Hurd
President
Oracle Corp. (ORCL)
2010 Total Compensation: $78,362,540

Lawrence J. Ellison
Chief Executive Officer
Oracle Corp. (ORCL)
2010 Total Compensation: $77,556,015

Ray R. Irani
Executive Chairman
Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY)
2010 Total Compensation: $76,107,010

Thomas E. Dooley
Chief Operating Officer
Viacom, Inc. (VIAB)
2010 Total Compensation: $64,610,125

Top 5 Women

1. Safra A. Catz
President and Chief Financial Officer
Oracle Corp. (ORCL)
2010 Total Compensation: $42,095,887

2. Wellington J. Denahan-Norris
Vice Chairman, Chief Investment Officer and Chief Operating Officer
Annaly Capital Management, Inc. (NLY)
2010 Total Compensation: $23,634,800

3. Carol Meyrowitz
Chief Executive Officer
TJX Companies, Inc. (TJX)
2010 Total Compensation: $19,252,740

4. Susan M. Ivey
Former Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Reynolds American, Inc. (RAI)
2010 Total Compensation: $16,823,900

5. Marina Armstrong
Senior Vice President and General Manager
Gymboree Corp. (GYMB)
2010 Total Compensation: $16,426,365

Sources: Equilar & CNN Money.

The fact that possibility of government shutdown is squarely dependent upon the abortion issue is less about budgets, and more about the sexist society we collectively have fostered in this country.

A bunch of conservative men across political and socio-economic spectrum have somehow taken up the mantle of deciding what is appropriate for women when it comes to their most fundamental right – the right over their body.

Were men capable of reproducing, a question over abortion would never have become a public debate. It is only a “white knight” society that would presuppose the men have inbuilt intelligence superiority when it comes to mapping out not only what women are capable of doing, but also what they must be allowed to imagine of doing.

Contrary to popular discourse, abortion issue is not a legal question. Anti-abortion campaign is a social fix that heralds patriarchy, one that renders women as baby-producing machines, and worse, one that looks upon at women as a child-rearing gender. A glorification of motherhood, a sanctity upon women as gendered creatures that are born to reproduce to male whims, and a mandate that demands women to comply to male standards of family roles. Women in effect must turn into dishwashers, washing machines, microwaves, and mothers.

It is not merely unfortunate that the United States is at a crossroads over a most fundamental human right that uniquely belongs to women. It is in many ways, a predictable continuation of a strand of worldwide reactionary movements serving as backlash to feminists everywhere.

And most importantly, the possible government shutdown is a crucial reminder that the most pressing issue in front of the world is the one involving women’s reproductive rights, the ones being controlled thus far by the men. It will only be fruitful a debate if the President and rest of the politicians reach a consensus that it is not about federal budgets. It is about patriarchy. There is no telling how both Republicans and the Democrats contribute to the gender status quo.

If Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. feels the nation is full of cowards when it comes to holding honest discussions about race, the reality is when it comes to women’s reproductive rights and human rights of LGBT, the country is full of stinking shit. And despite what happens at the Capitol Hill today, cleaning up the shit takes more than a bunch of sexist pigs.

In fact, quite the contrary.

What is most noteworthy is the fact that in the three most respected professional fields – law, medicine and business – women are treated most abysmally. Despite the stringent manners of admissions into professional schools that awards degrees in these coveted areas of expertise, and the accompanying social status that identifies virtues of honesty and integrity with these specializations, it so appears – from the latest US Department of Labour statistics – that the most esteemed professional fields are also the most exploitative ones as well. At least so far as gender inequality is concerned.

In legal occupations, American women earn 56 cents per dollar that the men earn. Legal professions include the jobs of lawyers, judges, magistrates, other judicial workers, paralegals, legal assistants, and miscellaneous legal support workers. Likewise, in the medical profession, among the physicians and surgeons, women earn 64 cents per dollar the men earn. Third highest hall of shame is reserved for business management executives. Female financial managers earn 66 cents per dollar their male counterparts earn and women human resources managers earn 69 cents per dollar.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women still lag far behind men in almost all the industries. The inequality exists most clearly for instance among physicians and surgeons (women $1,228, men $1,914), loan counsellors (women $754, men $1,118), purchasing managers (women earn $1,029 weekly, men earn $1,383), claims adjusters, investigators (women $845, men $1,128), computer programmers (women $1,182, men $1,267), lawyers (women $1,449, men $1,934), postsecondary teachers (women $1,030, men $1,342), retail salespersons (women $443, men $624), real estate brokers (women $745, men $939), inspectors, testers (women $513, men $754), financial services sales agents (women $798, men $1,237), etc.

Among several hundreds of jobs that were surveyed, women were found to be earning slightly more than the men only in the fields of bartending and baking.

As we begin the Women’s History Month, the above serve as timely reminders as to how the history needs to be revisited and radical feminist movements be reintroduced.

By PEGGY ORENSTEIN

A friend of mine’s 12-year-old daughter has taken to wearing a bracelet, one of those rubber, Lance Armstrong-style affairs, that says on it, “I ? Boobies.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, vaguely, when questioned about it. “It’s for breast cancer.”
Really?
It’s hard to remember that, not so long ago, the phrase “breast cancer” was not something women spoke aloud, even among themselves. It wasn’t until the early 1970s, with the high-profile diagnoses of the former child star Shirley Temple Black, the first lady Betty Ford and Happy Rockefeller that the disease went public. A short time later, Betty Rollin, an NBC-TV correspondent, published the groundbreaking memoir “First You Cry.” Back then, her grief over losing her breast and the blow cancer dealt to her sex life was greeted with hostility by some critics and dismissed as frivolous. Mammography was just coming into use to detect early-stage tumors. The American Cancer Society was still resisting the idea of support groups for post-mastectomy patients. A woman like Rollin, some said, was supposed to be grateful that she qualified for a radical mastectomy, stuff a sock in her bra and get on with it.

Fast-forward to today, when, especially during October, everything from toilet paper to buckets of fried chicken to the chin straps of N.F.L. players look as if they have been steeped in Pepto. If the goal was “awareness,” that has surely been met — largely, you could argue, because corporations recognized that with virtually no effort (and often minimal monetary contribution), going pink made them a lot of green.

But a funny thing happened on the way to destigmatization. The experience of actual women with cancer, women like Rollin, Black, Ford and Rockefeller — women like me — got lost. Rather than truly breaking silences, acceptable narratives of coping emerged, each tied up with a pretty pink bow. There were the pink teddy bears that, as Barbara Ehrenreich observed, infantilized patients in a reassuringly feminine fashion. “Men diagnosed with prostate cancer do not receive gifts of Matchbox cars,” she wrote in her book “Bright-Sided.”

Alternatively, there are what Gayle Sulik, author of “Pink Ribbon Blues,” calls “She-roes” — rhymes with “heroes.” These aggressive warriors in heels kick cancer’s butt (and look fab doing it). Like the bear huggers, they say what people want to hear: that not only have they survived cancer, but the disease has made them better people and better women. She-roes, it goes without saying, do not contract late-stage disease, nor do they die.
That rubber bracelet is part of a newer, though related, trend: the sexualization of breast cancer. Hot breast cancer. Saucy breast cancer. Titillating breast cancer! The pain of “First You Cry” has been replaced by the celebration of “Crazy Sexy Cancer,” the title of a documentary about a woman “looking for a cure and finding her life.”

Sassy retail campaigns have sprung up everywhere, purporting to “support the cause.” There is Save the Ta-Tas (a line that includes T-shirts and a liquid soap called Boob Lube), Save Second Base, Project Boobies (the slogan on its T-shirts promoting self-exam reads, “I grab a feel so cancer can’t steal,” though the placement of its hot-pink handprints makes it virtually impossible for them to belong to the shirt’s wearer). There is the coy Save the Girls campaign, whose T-shirt I saw in the window of my local Y.M.C.A. And there is “I ? Boobies” itself, manufactured by an organization called Keep a Breast (get it?).

Sexy breast cancer tends to focus on the youth market, but beyond that, its agenda is, at best, mushy. The Keep a Breast Foundation, according to its Web site, aims to “help eradicate breast cancer by exposing young people to methods of prevention, early detection and support.” If only it were that simple. It also strives to make discussion of cancer “positive and upbeat.” Several other groups dedicate a (typically unspecified) portion of their profits to “educate” about self-exam, though there is little evidence of its efficacy. Or they erroneously tout mammography as “prevention.”
There’s no question that many women, myself included, experience breast cancer as an assault on our femininity. Feeling sexual in the wake of mastectomy, lumpectomy, radiation or chemo is a struggle, one that may or may not result in a new, deeper understanding of yourself. While Betty Rollin acknowledged such visceral feelings about breasts, she never reduced herself to them. And in the 1990s, the fashion model Matuschka’s notorious photo of her own mastectomy scar (published on the cover of this magazine) demanded that the viewer, like breast-­cancer patients themselves, confront and even find beauty in the damage.

By contrast, today’s fetishizing of breasts comes at the expense of the bodies, hearts and minds attached to them. Forget Save the Ta-Tas: how about save the woman? How about “I ? My 72-Year-Old One-Boobied Granny?” After all, statistically, that’s whose “second base” is truly at risk.
Rather than being playful, which is what these campaigns are after, sexy cancer suppresses discussion of real cancer, rendering its sufferers — the ones whom all this is supposed to be for — invisible. It also reinforces the idea that breasts are the fundamental, defining aspect of femininity. My friend’s daughter may have been uncertain about what her bracelet “for breast cancer” meant, but I am betting she got that femininity equation loud and clear.

I hate to be a buzz kill, but breast cancer is just not sexy. It’s not ennobling. It’s not a feminine rite of passage. And, though it pains me to say it, it’s also not very much fun. I get that the irreverence is meant to combat crisis fatigue, the complacency brought on by the annual onslaught of pink, yet it similarly risks turning people cynical. By making consumers feel good without actually doing anything meaningful, it discourages understanding, undermining the search for better detection, safer treatments, causes and cures for a disease that still afflicts 250,000 women annually (and speaking of figures, the number who die has remained unchanged — hovering around 40,000 — for more than a decade).

As for me, I bear in mind the final statement that a college pal of mine who was dying of breast cancer (last October, in the midst of all that sexy pink) made to her younger brother. She was about to leave two young sons to grow up without a mother; her husband to muddle through without his wife. She could barely speak at the time, barely breathe. But when her brother leaned forward, she whispered two words in his ear: “This sucks.”

A lawsuit filed by a student at L.A. City College who claimed a professor violated his right to free speech by stopping him from finishing a speech against gay marriage was dismissed Friday by a federal appeals court.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned a lower court decision allowing Jonathan Lopez’s lawsuit to go forward. Lopez, a self-described Christian, claimed a professor stopped him mid-speech, deeming his words sexual harassment under the Los Angeles Community College District’s code of conduct. He sued the district in February 2009 in Los Angeles federal court, claiming the code was so broad that it limited his right to free speech.

U.S. Circuit Court Judge Sandra S. Ikuta wrote in the opinion handed down today that Lopez, “failed to make a clear showing that his intended speech on religious topics gave rise to a specific and credible threat of adverse action from college officials under the college’s sexual harassment?policy.” Lopez gave his classroom speech just weeks after California voters approved Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in November 2008.

By TOM LLAMAS
For NBC New York

It’s not a crime to be beautiful or dress well, but if you ask 33-year-old Debrahlee Lorenzana they both can cost you your job.

“They pulled me aside and said I could not wear pencil skirts, turtlenecks, I cannot wear business suits that were fitted. Basically they said it drew too much attention,” says Lorenzana.

The single mom used to work for Citibank as a business banker at their branch inside the Chrysler building. She says her outfits for work were deemed “too distracting” by her male managers. They allegedly pointed to her rear and said her pants were too tight.

“Very uncomfortable,” is how Lorenzana describes those confrontations.

She says when she complained to human resources, her managers retaliated. According to her lawsuit Citibank gave her targets she could not meet because she was not properly trained. Citibank cited her work performance as a reason for termination. Left without a job Lorenzana struggled to pay the bills

“It was very hard,” says Lorenzana who fought back tears when describing a recent Christmas she celebrated with her son with no presents.

Her lawyer Jack Tuckner says at its base this case is about gender discrimination.

“It was about her being too good looking for us to bother to contain ourselves. So that’s shirt’s gotta go,” says Tuckner hypothesizing what Lorenzana’s managers thought about her clothes. “Why should we have to deal with what a babe you are? Fix it.”

In a prepared statement Citibank tells NBCNewYork:

“We believe this lawsuit is without merit and we will defend against it vigorously. We do not condone or tolerate discrimination within our business for any reason.”

Citibank also points out that all workers who face employees are given dress guidelines.

When Lorenzana was hired she signed a contract which prevents her from directly suing Citibank. So an arbitration hearin will be held. It could be months if not years before a decision is made. She is seeking future earnings, back pay, and damages for mental and emotional distress.

Tuckner says if the roles were reversed it would be very difficult to see a man being asked to changed his wardrobe for dressing and looking well in his opinion.

“Maybe they were uncomfortable with her because they didn’t feel like they could not hit on her over long periods of time. So instead they wanted her to wear a tent or a Burka,” says Tuckner.