Calling Out the Global Problem of Sexual Harassment on the Streets

by Nomad

Women as Objects on Display

Jen Corey was no stranger to being looked at and judged by men. The tall blonde was crowned Miss DC in 2009 and made it to the top 10 of the Miss America Pageant in 2010.
Ever since she was a teenager, Corey has encountered overzealous men. However, after an incident in a bar, she decided to use her beauty queen fame to speak out against street harassment.

Corey found that too often people she spoke with dismissed the subject as just part of life as a woman in the city. Cat-calls,  long looks, sexual comments were something women should expect, especially if they dress in a certain way, act in a certain way or walk through a certain neighborhood at a certain time. 

The 2018 Women's March and Beyond: How to Make the Next 300 days Count

by Leadfoot

On November 6 of this new year, we could take back the Senate and the House – which means we could take back the country! November 6 is about 300 days from now. Will you pledge to make at least 10 of those 300 days count?

Forgotten Memorials: The Conscience of Viola Liuzzo and the "Heroism" of the KKK

by Nomad

One state representative in Georgia has drafted legislation calling for the eternal preservation of Confederate monuments, as a testimony to those who "suffered and died for the cause."
Who we select to honor and who becomes our source of pride says so much about who we are as a people.

Cultural Terrorism

The other day I was struck to read about Georgia State Rep. Tommy Benton's proposed amendments to the Georgia Constitution. One of the two amendment aims at protecting the Confederate monuments at Stone Mountain.  The bill salutes the heroes of the Confederacy like Lee and Davis. Monuments dedicated to such heroes of the South, the bill demands, shall never be 

"altered, removed, concealed or obscured in any fashion and shall be preserved and protected for all time as a tribute to the bravery and heroism of the citizens of this state who suffered and died in their cause.”

What cause is he talking about? Nothing less than the overthrow of the federal government.

Republican Benton has called the movement to remove Confederate symbols in the South a form of "cultural terrorism."
Our source tells us:

“That’s no better than what ISIS is doing, destroying museums and monuments,” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). “I feel very strongly about this. I think it has gone far enough. There is some idea out there that certain parts of history out there don’t matter anymore and that’s a bunch of bunk.”

It is a big deal in the South and remembering the Confederate past and the fallen warriors is considered part of the South's cultural heritage. It was literally all the South had left after the crushing defeat.

The problem is, contrary to what Benton says, many in the South would prefer to remember a warped version of their history. A history without shame or misjudgment and effectively free of facts. 

(And not just the long past history, but, as we shall see, the more recent times too.)
For a person that talks about remembering history, Benton seems to forget that it was foolishness of the proud and rather stupid politicians in Georgia and the other rebelling states that kicked off America's greatest and most pointless war. 

The Unsung Heroes: Fannie Hamer and Ella Baker

by Nomad

A photo of two African-American women and the story behind the image. 

Recently, I found this photo while scouring the net, totally unaware that these two women were a lot more than just patriotic Americans. 

They are that, but they are much more too. A bit of research led me to uncover who these women were and the fascinating part they played in struggle for full equality.

According to the caption, Fannie Lou Hamer (holding the flag) and Ella Baker are shown in the photo, attending the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) in 1964. The organization was formed when blacks and whites from that state came together  to challenge the legitimacy of the regular Mississippi Democratic Party (MDP). 

The MDP had refused to allow the blacks to participate even though African American made up around 40% of Mississippi's population.

Such a purposeful oversight could not be ignored. Their solution was ingenious and elegant.  With Robert Parris Moses, Hamer and Baker set up a new and more inclusive organization and called it MFDP.

Progress, Reality and Cynicism: Lessons We Learned From Millennium Development Goals

by Nomad

Back in 2000, the UN brought world leaders together to draw up a plan to make the world a better place. This year, fifteen years later, that effort was analyzed and the results might surprise you.

When the Paris Climate Change Summit came to its conclusion recently, it was easy to be a little skeptical about the level of commitment of the nations that pledged to address climate change. 

Preventing global destruction is not going to be a piece of cake.  

In fact, it will require nothing less than a re-tooling of the world's economy and the energy industry. 
Who knows if it is possible given the time constraints? It's easy to be cynical and defeatist when it comes to tackling such a huge problem. 

Critics claim this is all merely window-dressing. Just a bunch of timid self-serving bureaucrats making useless paperwork that's not even legally binding. There's no way, critics say, to confront and punish violators. 

Of course, this view automatically assumes that global progress can only be achieved by force, by a threat of punishment or by intimidation. 

But, to turn the tables on those critics, where is the evidence that that has ever worked? Simply because something is difficult shouldn't mean we ignore our responsibility. 

President John Kennedy, during one of the darkest periods of the Cold War, once warned about allowing hopelessness and defeatist to overwhelm us. (In this case, world peace.)

Thinking something is impossible makes it that much harder to address in a rational manner. In 1963, he told the graduating class at the American University that we must stop thinking war is inevitable. Mankind is not doomed, and we must not yield to the idea that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. 

"We need not accept that view. Our problems are man-made — therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants.

No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable — and we believe they can do it again."

Even though the dream of world peace has not implemented universally even today, Kennedy's hard-nosed optimism is not wrong. Peace, he once said, is not a warm and fuzzy dream. It is a process. We make things harder by thinking that overnight we can solve all of the problems in the world, just by wishing and praying. 

While that may be a proper point to begin, just wishing for a better world isn't going to be enough.

It calls for a practical approach.

One of the problems is defining what it means when we say "a better world." What does that mean? Much better for a limited few, or slightly better for the majority?

In 2000, the UN General Assembly drafters of the Millennium Declaration had their specific notions and were determined to see progress in fifteen years. In that declaration, the representatives of all of the member nations recognized that:

"...in addition to our separate responsibilities to our individual societies, we have a collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity at the global level. As leaders we have a duty therefore to all the world’s people, especially the most vulnerable and, in particular, the children of the world, to whom the future belongs."

With One United Voice: The First Stirrings of the Women's Rights Movement in 1850

by Nomad

When the Founding Fathers declared that a government earns its true legitimacy from the consent of the governed, they hadn't counted on women taking it to the next logical step.

The 1850 Women's Rights Convention

Recently I uncovered this interesting quote by an early American reformer/activist named Francis Dana Gage.  The name isn't as familiar to the general public as it should be. Even by modern feminists, she is largely forgotten. 

That's a pity.

Dead Woman Walking: The Remarkable Resurrection of Margaret Dickson

by Nomad

The remarkable story of Margaret Dickson illustrates how church and state often worked hand in hand to create untold suffering for women, especially when it came to reproductive issues. Fortunately for all us, we live in a much more enlightened age.

Infanticide in the Age of Reason

When it comes to matters sexual or reproductive, women have throughout history, usually been society's victims. Such is the case of one Scottish peasant named Margaret Dickson.

In order to tell properly her following horrific story, we have to explore the historical background a little.

Before the Age of Reason really got a foothold, one notorious social problem was infanticide- the murder of a child within a year of birth. This type of crime was, as one historian put it, "woefully common." As a crime, it has long been considered the most contrary to human nature since the love of a helpless baby would, on the surface, appear to be ingrained in our maternal instincts and our universal sense of self-preservative.

What kind of pressure could induce any woman to commit such a heinous crime?

Yale history professor Keith Wrightson  sheds a bit of light on the subject:

While it was certainly not a generally tolerated practice, infanticide would appear to have had a considerable currency in the disposal of a minority of unwanted, predominately illegitimate children.

It was unsurprisingly both a capital crime by the state and an unpardonable sin by the Church. And yet, many historians theorize that it was a fairly common practice at that time.

If You Stop and Think About It...

by Nomad

Maybe more than a hundred.

Tourism, Islam, and Bikinis: Culture Clashes on Turkish Beaches

by Nomad

Turkey's culture clash between Islam and the West may have found a new battlefield: the nation's sunny beaches. And women could be caught in the middle.

Money Maker

To say that tourism is a big money maker in Turkey is an understatement. With more than 31.5 million foreign tourists, the nation ranks as the 6th most popular tourist destination in the world. 

This year, according to Turkey's largest travel agency association, it will see tourists spending a staggering US$35 billion. That's nearly a 10% increase in both the numbers of visitors and the amount of revenue. Most of those tourists will come from Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, Georgia, Bulgaria and the Netherlands. 

In some of the touristic resorts, summer in Turkey means fun and frolic, a lot of youthful (and not so youthful) wildness. Most of this frivolity involves rivers of alcohol. That situation has left some resorts with a bad reputation with tourists because of the general "anything goes" atmosphere. 

But then, drunkenness, occasional fights or public indecency have always been written off as just part of the drawbacks to mass tourism.

Interestingly, according to the association, this year there will also be a significant increase in the number of Iranian tourists. Given the diversity of cultures, you'd think it would be a challenge to accommodate every taste. Well, it often is.
Surprisingly it hasn't as a major problem as you'd think, mainly because of Turkey's high level of hospitality and tolerance.. and patience.

For Iranian tourist, the main attraction is, in a word, shopping. Iranians can buy hard to find brand names in shopping areas in Istanbul and other major cities that would be impossible to buy in Tehran. That's very good news for the Turkish economy.

As far as Turkish businessmen, Iranian visitors, generally speaking, have an excellent reputation. And they do not tax the patience of the natives like many overzealous Europeans do.

Iranian tourists are well-liked, not just because they are big spenders but because they are polite and rarely make trouble. They generally travel as families, not as gaggles of friends, and a loud, drunk Iranian would be highly unusual sight.

Be that as it may, Turkey has to constantly walk a fine line to please everybody.

The Long Struggle for Wage Equality for Women and Republican Road Blocks

by Nomad

Wage equality for women has been a long and difficult road, dating the Roosevelt era and before. Down through the years, step by step, progress against pay discrimination has plodded along, despite the numerous obstacles.

However, that struggle came to an abrupt halt last April when Republican Senators decided to shut down legislation to curb pay discrimination based on gender.
But the question is: will they pay a price in November?

In April of this year, Senate Republicans voted unanimously to block debate on proposed legislation aimed at closing the pay inequality between men and women. The GOP shut down a motion to proceed on the Paycheck Fairness Act with 53 votes for, and 44 against. That count fell short of the 60 needed to defeat a filibuster. 

As a result, the legislation was pronounced DOA and it marked the third time this particular proposal has failed. 

For Republicans, it was risky - some would say suicidal- thing  to do with the midterms coming up. However, in a marvelous bit of spin, Kentucky Senator and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the legislation was.. 

"just another Democratic idea that threatens to hurt the very people that it claims to help. ... We've already seen what five and a half years of Washington Democratic control has meant. More poverty and lower wages for women."

McConnell is facing Democratic opponent Alison Lundergan Grimes in the mid-terms. A new Republican poll has found that Grimes is leading McConnell by three points. The gap is even larger among women voters in his state. And that's no wonder: on a variety of women's issues, McConnell's voting record is hard to defend.

Exactly how tightening prohibitions against sex discrimination in the payment of wages, adds up to poverty and lower wages for women, is part of the magical thinking of the conservative GOP. Fortunately well-financed (think corporate funding) organizations are quick to plug up any logical leaks in the sinking ship.

For example, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an influential conservative think tank, claimed in an op-ed piece for The New York Times that:

"discrimination plays little role in pay disparities between men and women, and it threatens to impose onerous requirements on employers to correct gaps over which they have little control."

That's not too surprisingly an allegation for AEI.  That organization has long promoted the "advancement of free enterprise capitalism." Its board of trustees is literally a who's who of leading business and financial executives. Hardly what one would call a disinterested party. 

But for the Republicans, it is a link to the kind of power player that can finance re-election campaigns.

On the other side of the political aisle, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told reporters, "For reasons known only to them, Senate Republicans don't appear to be interested in closing the wage gap for working women."

A Look Back

Turning back the clock 78 years, we see this June 1936 editorial cartoon in a New York newspaper. The cartoon shows an exhausted bedraggle cleaning women holding a note that reads:

Any wage they can get away with.

"It's Constitutional!" was the title. What could the cartoon be referring to? 

Because it seemed so timely, it sparked my curiosity. 

Just a two days before the publication of that cartoon, the conservative Supreme Court had handed down one of its most startling and most unpopular decisions.

In the case of Morehead vs. New York, the court struck down a New York minimum‐wage laws for women and children. 

Blaming the Victim: Republicans and America's Rape Culture

by Nomad

Recent remarks by a Wall Street Journal commentator reveal that there are still people who are confused about the subject of rape. A high level of intoxication of both the victim and the rapist, he claimed, makes them both responsible for the crime. 

The Sheikh and the Outrage

Let us start in another country and another culture, not to pass judgement but to reveal a widespread mentality in its most obvious expression.

For hundreds of years, the West has always held a peeve with the way strict Islam deals with its female followers. This is particularly true when it comes to the burka or the scarf-like hijab.
When a prominent Muslim scholar Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly made a remark about immodestly dressed women were inviting trouble. During a Ramadan sermon in a Sydney mosque, Sheik al-Hilali implied that a group of Muslim men recently jailed for many years for gang rapes were not entirely to blame. 

According to one article:

There were women, he said, who 'sway suggestively' and wore make-up and immodest dress "and then you get a judge without mercy and gives you 65 years. But the problem, but the problem all began with who?" he said, referring to the women victims.

"If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."Women, he told his followers,  who do not cover themselves are like 'uncovered meat' who attract sexual predators.

So, by the Sheikh's reckoning, it is the men who are prey to those predatory temptresses with their pretty naughty traps. Women, the Sheikh also stated,  were 'weapons' used by Satan to control men.

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside... and the cats come and eat it... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat."

As soon as these words hit the tabloids, there was the predictable outrage throughout Australia and eventually the globe. It was tainted with that kind of attitude we often hear when discussing other cultures.
It runs something like: "It's an outrage! At least, we are better than that!"

In any case, it also sold lots of newspapers. And while the Sheikh eventually apologized but it's hard to believe he thought what he said was absolutely wrong. And why should he apologize, it is after all a standard teaching of the religion.

(It is normally not stated in such graphic terms.)

In the Islamic publication, "Could Not Answer" it says:

The harm given to youngsters, to people and to the State by women who go about naked, and with strong smells of perfume, and wanton ornaments is worse and more threatening than that of alcohol and narcotics. Allah has commanded that women and girls to cover themselves lest His born servants fall into disasters in this world and vehement torments in the hereafter.

Many Islamic scholars have an elaborate (some would say labored) rationale. Women, they would say, are precious that they must be protected. Putting their bodies on display for all the world to see is a form of disrespect for women. 

For example, another cleric in Copenhagen created his own storm by carrying the teaching to the next level when he told his followers:

“Women are not entitled to respect when they walk around without a Hijab. They are to blame for it when they are attacked”

He also said:

“All the crimes that occur against women is because they are not covered. When they are not covered, you have no respect for them.”

It is the West that disrespects women by allowing them to prance around, swaying and all, revealing their bare midriffs, or wrist, or chins. 

It is probably not all that shocking to learn that this particular cleric was reportedly later arrested for sexual assault, accused of pulling his penis out and chasing a 23-year-old woman around in a park in Sweden. I wonder how this woman brought this attack upon herself. (That's sarcasm, by the way. )

In any case, according to this line of thinking, women who do not cover themselves reduce themselves to irresistible temptations for hapless men who are unable to control themselves.
As I said, that's another culture and does not represent mainstream Muslim culture. But what about American culture? Are there really some people who still hold women responsible when they become victims of rape?

The Gender Gap: Why Women Voters will Reject the GOP in the Midterm Elections

by Nomad

In red states like Kentucky, women voters may just turn these states to blue in the upcoming election.  If that state is any to go by, Republicans are going to be in big trouble. And when it comes with women voters, the party has nobody to blame but itself.

According to an article in the LA Progressive, a recent non-partisan poll shows that Democratic candidate Alison Grimes has a four-point advantage over Mitch McConnell, the senate minority leader and long time incumbent. While four points may not make Grimes a sure thing, the poll also reveals something that must be even more disturbing for Republican strategists. Grimes has a 12 point lead among women surveyed. That's right, a full twelve points.

And women- as a voting block- make up a full 53 percent of all registered voters in Kentucky. 

The bottom line is: Losing women voters means losing an election.

That doesnt guarantee Grimes an easy victory, of course. Naturally, she has done her best to highlight McConnell's poor record on issues women care about.
Said a Grimes spokesperson Charly Norton,

“McConnell’s votes against the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act, and the Violence Against Women Act appear to be a serious drag on his ability to win over Kentucky women. Unless McConnell explains why he has voted against women’s interests time and time again, he will fail to gain an ounce more of support.”

States like Missouri and Indiana have also shown that Republican candidates have lost women voters by a wide margin. 

It's hard not to see that when it comes to women voters, the Republican Party is still in disarray. They may know what the problem is but is it possible that the Republican Party cannot change? Is its attitudes toward women, toward gays and lesbians, toward the poor actually the cold heart of the GOP?  

The Bread and Roses Strike of 1912 : The History and the Song

by Nomad

The story of the Lawrence Mill Strike of 1912 has - like most of the history of the labor movement- received very little coverage in the mainstream media.  

With that in mind, I offer this summary of the events that occurred over one hundred years ago in the mill town of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

History always provides both interesting parallels and contrasts to our own age. Before we look back, therefore, let's take a quick examination at our own times as a kind of reference.

Betty Friedan: True Personhood Means Self-Control Over One's Body

by Nomad

Today marks the anniversary of the death of one of the leaders of the feminism movement, Betty Friedan. 

On this date, eight years ago, Betty Friedan died. It was also her 85th birthday. The name may not be familiar to many young women today. That's a shame. 

Friedan's Legacy
Her 1963 book,  The Feminine Mystique, is considered to be the catalyst for the American feminism movement of that decade. It remains one of the most powerful works of popular non-fiction written in America. 

In 1966, Friedan founded and was elected the first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), which aimed to bring women "into the mainstream of American society now [in] fully equal partnership with men." 

"Binders Full of Women": Shredding Mitt's Myth

by Nomad

C

ourtesy of The Atlantic, this photograph from last night's 90-minute debate at Hofstra University in Hemptstead, N.Y seems to capture the inner truth about the candidates.

One exchange during the debate which emerged as an online talking point was Romney's remark on hiring women. 

Here's is a transcript of that segment:

CROWLEY: Governor Romney, pay equity for women?

ROMNEY: Thank you. An important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men.

And I -- and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are -- are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we -- can't we find some -- some women that are also qualified?"

And -- and so we -- we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet.

I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women.

I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my Cabinet and my senior staff, that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America. Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort.

His statement seems to contradict his already foggy stand on Affirmative Action. After all, why is hiring from a pre-selected category any different? How is a binder full of women any different than hiring from a binder full of blacks or a binder full of Hispanics? His statement doesn't make sense because, as we shall see, it is based on a misrepresentation of the facts.

Romney Campaign Retro

The 7 Lessons the GOP has Failed to Learn from the Sarah Palin Blunder

Sarah Palin's vice-presidential candidacy was controversial from the moment it was announced. For an assortment of reasons, many thought she was totally unqualified to be second in command. After a disastrous campaign, in which the McCain and his running-mate seemed to be conducting separate campaigns, many lessons should have been learned. Apparently nobody has learned anything at all.

The way the GOP has handled the Sarah Palin problem - from start to finish- says so much about what is wrong with the party. 

Even now, as the presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney, heads toward the convention to be crowned (despite some serious concerns about his suitability) the Republican leadership seems to have learned nothing.

A Message to Women

Feel free to download and distribute. 

Related articles

• Here We Go Again: Planned Parenthood Targeted for Wingnut Sting? (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• [Blisstree] Judge: Sorry, Rick Perry, You Can't Ban Planned Parenthood From Helping Women (blisstree.com)
• Planned Parenthood finally is beginning to lose its influence (cincinnatipoliticalactivism.wordpress.com)

Ladies, Listen Carefully: A Free Poster

I based this poster design on some of the old war posters.  I thought that don't-mess-with-this-gal look fit the bill quite nicely. "Bent on revenge" is how I would describe that expression on her face. This poster is free for anybody who wants to download it. 

There are only 203 days left until the next election. Some people are counting on the public (and especially women) to be forgetful or distracted by the time November rolls around. It's possible but I hope not.