Lead Story
♀ Wealth Inequality Is Now As Bad As It Was During The 1920s
Abortion & Reproductive Rights
♀ Abortion Rights at Risk: The GOP Opens a New Front in the War on Women
♀ Petition: President Obama: #HelmsHurts
♀UNINTENDED PREGNANCIES COST FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS $21 BILLION IN 2010
♀I had an abortion because of extreme morning sickness. Spare others that pain –
We need to take hyperemesis gravidarum seriously. When you tell people about it they make it clear they think you are just being overdramatic. GPs need to stop making comments like “it will pass” or, even worse, “it’s the sign of a healthy pregnancy”. It shouldn’t be a lottery whether your doctor’s surgery empathises or not; there should be universal procedures for the condition.
♀Fifth Circuit Court Refuses to Reconsider Ruling Blocking Mississippi TRAP Law
♀Senate ‘Resolves’ Fight over Abortion Provision in Sex Trafficking Bill –
The “compromise,” as the New York Times reports, splits that funding money in two: half of it goes to a general fund and won’t be subject to abortion restrictions. But it also can’t be used for healthcare services of any kind for trafficking victims, only for things like legal aid, shelter, and counseling. The other half of the money can be used for healthcare and medical services, but it’s subject to the Hyde Amendment.
In other words, then, none of the money can legally be used for abortion care. That really doesn’t look like a compromise.
♀Alabama GOP’s new plan to shut down abortion clinics: Treat them like sex offenders
♀NC GOPer compares women’s bodies to real estate as House passes longest abortion wait in country
♀Tennessee Anti-Choice Politician Can’t Decide if Women Are Stupid or Cunning
State Rep. Sheila Butt, not only an unfeeling git, but also an Islamophobic racist.
♀Tennessee Republican: Rape is often ‘not verifiable,’ so no exemption on anti-abortion bill
Animals & the Environment (NEW Section Title!!)
♀Important Information: Humans’ Use Of Pain-Relief Creams Proves Fatal To Felines
♀These Hunters Kill Rare Animals Then Pose For Selfies, Now THEY’RE Being Hunted By Ricky Gervais (IMAGES) – I didn’t used to like his comedy, but now I’ve gotta love him! Go get ’em, Ricky!
♀San Francisco to circuses using ‘wild or exotic’ animals: pack up and leave town – It’s about time and hopefully more cities will follow suit. This type of act is cruel and unnecessary.
Via Columbus Zoo
♀Abandoned Baby Tiger Triplets Thrive with Zoo’s Aid
♀ Animal Waste Will Soon Become Energy at the Detroit Zoo
♀As Louisiana’s marshes erode, so does the Houma Indians way of life
♀Secret Tapes Reveal Contamination a Big Joke to Big Oil
♀Koch-backed group sending ‘real scientists’ to school Pope Francis about ‘Biblical duty’ to pollute – The group refused to identify their two scientists, but I suspect they are no more “real scientists” than the Heartland Institute is real Christians.
♀Obama Just Called Out Florida’s Climate Deniers in Their Own Backyard
Education (NEW Section!!)
♀Pre-K: Where God Dares Not Go
♀12-year-old leukemia patient kicked out of Michigan Catholic school for excessive absences
“These were extraordinary circumstances, but so many accommodations were made we felt eventually it became a point where we really had to help Rose by being able to make sure that she was getting the assistance that she needed and to learn,” said Father John Fleckenstein, with Battle Creek Area Catholic Schools.
And I guess the best way to do that was to toss her out?
♀Student Course Evaluations Get An ‘F‘
♀How The Right Keeps Us Stupid: Bobby Jindal’s Budget Slashes College Funding By 82 Percent
Feminism
♀School’s decision to Photoshop ‘feminist’ off student’s shirt sparks outrage
Gender Equality (or Equal Rights)
♀This CEO Is Doing What Congress Won’t — Making Sure Women Get Paid Equally
♀Petition: It’s Time for the Equal Rights Amendment!
Good Cop (☺)/Bad Cop (☠) (NEW Section Title!!)
(Most cops aren’t bad. Its just my job to point out the ones that are.)
♀(☠) Cop Ignores 911 Call To Eat Lunch, Woman Dies
♀(☠) Mentally Disabled Black Man Tasered To Death In Louisiana For Wearing Sagging Pants (VIDEO)
♀ (☠) Cop Ruptures Man’s Spleen, Fellow Cops Laugh, Take Pics, as He lays Dying, Begging for Help
♀ (☠) Lawsuit over naked crime scene photos headed for trial
♀Pseudoscience in the Witness Box
♀Michigan police chief quits after officer charged in beating
♀ (☺) Swedish Cops On Vacation Break Up Subway Brawl Better Than NYPD (VIDEO)
Good News For A Change (NEW Section!!)
♀CEO Who Set Minimum Wage at $70K is Swamped With Business Now
Gun Violence
♀Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence Presents Republicans With ‘NRA Lapdog’ Awards (SCREENSHOTS)
♀This New Ad Perfectly Points Out The Danger And Stupidity Of Open Carry (VIDEO)
Harassment
♀Women are silenced online, just as in real life. It will take more than Twitter to change that
In Memory
FILE – In this May 22, 2002 file photo, Mary Doyle Keefe poses at her home in Nashua, N.H., with the May 29, 1943, cover of the Saturday Evening Post for which she had modeled as “Rosie the Riveter” in a Norman Rockwell painting. Keefe died Tuesday, April 21, 2015, in Simsbury, Conn., after a brief illness. She was 92. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)
♀Mary Doyle Keefe, model for Norman Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter, dies at 92
♀Dr. Irwin Schatz, the first, lonely voice against infamous Tuskegee study, dies at 83
♀Victim of Southold fire renowned feminist Sidney Abbott
♀Feminists Mourn the Loss of Activist Grace Mann
LGBTQ
♀Gay Man Called ‘F*ggot’ By McDonald’s Employee, Served Uncooked Meat
♀“How are all black men not crazy?”
“How are all black men not crazy at this point? How have they not been driven insane by racism?”
This was the unexpected lesson that Kortney Ziegler, a black transgender man, learned after he transitioned to living as a man. He’d experienced racism when he lived as a woman — but he found himself facing considerably more suspicion as a man.
“People are visibly uncomfortable around me,” he said.
Chase Culpepper. (Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund/Reuters)
♀How a transgender teen got South Carolina to change its license photo policy
♀Report: LGBT people of color at high risk of poverty
♀Pennsylvania high schoolers wear matching flannel, hang hateful posters on ‘Anti-Gay Day’
As a fat gay man who has never felt like I belonged, discovering this niche of online dating should have felt liberating but instead made me feel like a slab beef hanging on a meat hook. My memories of growing up fat in St. Joseph, Missouri start with a shirts-versus-skins basketball game in fourth grade. After being picked last for the skins team and removing my shirt, all of the boys laughed at me and pointed out my “titties.” On my fifth-grade football team, a boy shouted, “Hey Haskey, I bet you make your dick by rolling up your jelly rolls!” I can laugh at the absurdity of those moments today, but the repression and anxiety they created are very real, and the internet is the best place to hide your anxieties behind a wall of anonymity.
♀9 transgender people talk about when they knew, coming out, and finding love
Marriage Equality
♀Michigan Oozes Closer To Adoption Discrimination Against Same-Sex Couples (VIDEO)
♀Hail Mary from homobigot lawyer: Trying to argue same-sex marriage causes abortion – Don’t think about it for too long. It’ll just make your head hurt.
♀Why the Constitution Trumps Any State’s Ban on Same-Sex Marriage
♀Support for Gay Marriage Reaches Record High (POLL)
Racism
♀Michael Brown’s family files lawsuit against city of Ferguson
Sexual Assault & Rape Culture
♀Will it really take a man’s word for people to believe rape victims?
The broader message of his book –that women are raped and then not believed, that the men who do it often face few consequences – is one that women and feminists have been ringing the alarm bell about for decades.
This leaves me wondering if we’re really only willing to trust that women are raped when it’s a man telling us.
♀ A rapist’s “parental rights” really shouldn’t be all that complicated
It seems to me that if your child is the result of your rape of his mother you are probably not the kind of role model from which your child would benefit. Waiting until he’s 18 to establish a relationship is probably the best you should hope for. Using the legal system to harass your victim after the fact should not be permissible in a civilized society. Or America either, for that matter.
Updates
♀Ex-Montana judge who sentenced teacher to 31 days for rape to be honored
News that Baugh, who retired from the bench in December, was due to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Yellowstone Area Bar Association in Billings drew criticism by women’s rights activists, who had led a campaign seeking his ouster.
“The association’s decision to honor Baugh is disrespectful to women and children. The bar association is endorsing behavior by a judge that has forever cast a shadow on the state’s legal system as it relates to women,” said Marian Bradley, regional director in Montana of the National Organization for Women.
♀Dallas cops will not face charges for shooting and killing mentally-ill man holding a screwdriver – Did you really expect this outcome to be different? Sadly, I didn’t.
Violence Against Women
♀Report: Latinos Standing Up to Domestic Violence
War On Mothers
♀Why women are afraid to tell employers they’re pregnant
♀“What a horrible mother:” How a call from a “good samaritan” derailed these mothers’ lives
♀Popeyes offers job back to manager fired after refusing to reimburse cash stolen in armed robbery
War On The Poor (NEW Section!!)
♀America’s Disgusting, Boundless Hatred for Poor People
Many Americans fundamentally believe that one’s income bracket should determine one’s access to fun, pleasure, and entertainment. The resentment and the lack of empathy that undergirds most of the social policy that emerges from the right prove just how out-of-touch and mean-spirited such social policy is.
♀How the New Flexible Economy Is Making Workers’ Lives Hell
♀Minnesota House passes minimum wage cut for tipped workers — including 8,000 women over 30
♀Tax Cuts For the Rich Made Kansas Broke — So Now Republicans Move to Raise Taxes on the Poor
♀Workers Say Walmart Closed Stores to Retaliate Against Activists
Women In Politics
♀NYC Speaker: State Paid Leave Easy to Implement
♀Female DEA Chief Resigns After Blamed For Not Fixing ‘Good Old Boy’ Culture
♀Loretta Lynch confirmed as US attorney general after delay ‘to spite Obama’
♀Elizabeth Warren Fires Back at Obama: If You Want a Trade Deal, ‘Let Us See It’
♀Hillary Clinton: The International Neocon Warmonger
As the National Journal reported in 2014, even the pathetically weak anti-war left is not ready to reconcile with Hillary given her warmongering as Secretary of State. And with good reason. Scratching just lightly beneath the surface of Hillary Clinton’s career reveals the empirical evidence of her historic support for aggressive interventions around the globe.
♀Hillary Clinton Swings For Left Field With First Campaign Speech On Women’s Rights
♀8 things you need to know about Hillary Clinton and climate change – A mixed bag of facts, I’m afraid. I have a goodly few concerns about Clinton, but she will, at least, be far and away better than any of the Republican pack.
Women’s Health & Image
♀Going without make-up isn’t a radical act. It’s just being yourself
♀Thanks, Jamelia, for your nasty judgment of fat people. We’ve heard it all before
Via The Daily Dot
♀Pink has the perfect response to body-shaming Web trolls
♀Early Period is Red Flag for Teen Girls’ Health
♀Cancer fear prompts FDA to warn of common uterus procedure
♀New Study Shows MMR Does NOT Cause Autism: Anti-Vaxxers, Can We Put This To Rest Now? – Apparently not – Anti-vaxxers Liken ‘Forced Penetration’ Of Childhood Vaccines To Rape In Disturbing Ad (IMAGE)
Women’s Rights
♀Why is it okay to discriminate against women for religious reasons?
My encounter came to mind again as I pondered recent stories of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men refusing to take airline seats next to women. Several cases were reported in the New York Times this month. Others have appeared in the Israeli press as far back as 2012.
On some flights women reportedly moved when asked. Some men switched places with women to eliminate the adjacency problem. Some flight attendants assisted the Orthodox men in relocating. Yet when others did not, some flights were delayed as men refused to be seated. The incidents have spawned lively discussions among Jews and non-Jews alike.
Yet I wonder: Why are we even discussing this?
World News
♀ Petition: No Trade Deals With Anti-Woman, Anti-LGBT Sultan of Brunei!
♀Four Women Were Just Approved to Join the Cabinet of Afghanistan’s Unity Government
♀France honours gender studies
On A Lighter Note
♀Whoever Put Up These Hysterical Flyers Is A Brilliant Mastermind
