Feminist Griote:
With everyone talking about same sex issues and the rights of LGBTQ persons, I am still not fully satisfied, with where the conversation is going. As a lover of pop-culture, I would love to see Beyonce, Rihanna, and Niki Minaj come out and support same sex issues, and all issues that plague the LGBTQ community. There is no question that these ladies music and style is heavily influenced by gay culture and that gay culture is also influenced by these pop-stars.
After all when Bey says, “snap for the kids” we know exactly who she is referring to. Interesting that Beyonce’s husband has verbalized his support, but not Bey herself. Minaj and RiRi definitely like to give the allure that they can be swayed into bisexuality with their risque lyrics and well photographed girl-on-girl antics, but yet and still those antics never translate into political action.
the rest is at the link!
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Our President, ladies and gents. (via pantslessprogressive).
(via cheatsheet)
#BlackGirlsAreFromTheFuture #BlackGirlsChangeTheWorld
(via notesonascandal)
“We need to fight the patriarchy, not men.”
- Nesrine Malik, in ‘Do Arab men hate women? It’s not that simple.’
She replies to Mona Eltahawy’s controversial article in Foreign Policy magazine about the treatment of Arab women. Read her piece here.
I’m glad SOMEONE wrote a response to that nonsense.
as I read on that instead of unravelling and unpicking the usual stereotypes which pepper the plethora of commentary on Arab women and exposing missing nuances, the author simply reinforced a monolithic view – holding the argument together using rhetoric, personal anecdotes and a rhythmic punctuation with her main theme – that all Arab men hate Arab women.
there is so much money to be made with putting sensationalized stories of brute POC on the front page magazines. Interesting that its on the cover of Foreign Policy even, is this a subliminal “intervention in these areas is necessary because, look how terrible and much worse than us they inherently are” kind of thing?
The Violence Against Women Act is up for reauthorization this year, and despite overwhelming bipartisan support in the past, Republicans have expressed concerns over new provisions in the bill.
Here’s what you need to know about it in one infographic.
How unequal pay is even more unequal for some women.
quick summary
white men - 1 dollar
white women - 75 cents to every dollar?
Everyone else (every single woman AND Man of color? way much less)
Why do we keep saying the gender pay gap is only 1 dollar to 75 cents? I guess everyone else just doesn’t exist.
Currently Reading: Brand Aid - Shopping Well to Save the World
Book Description:
“Has there ever been a better reason to shop?” asks an ad for the Product RED American Express card, telling members who use the card that buying “cappuccinos or cashmere” will help to fight AIDS in Africa. Cofounded in 2006 by the rock star Bono, Product RED has been a particularly successful example of a new trend in celebrity-driven international aid and development, one explicitly linked to commerce, not philanthropy.
In Brand Aid, Lisa Ann Richey and Stefano Ponte offer a deeply informed and stinging critique of “compassionate consumption.” Campaigns like Product RED and its precursors, such as Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong and the pink-ribbon project in support of breast cancer research, advance the expansion of consumption far more than they meet the needs of the people they ostensibly serve. At the same time, such campaigns sell both the suffering of Africans with AIDS (in the case of Product RED) and the power of the average consumer to ameliorate it through familiar and highly effective media representations.
Using Product RED as its focal point, this book explores how corporations like American Express, Armani, Gap, and Hallmark promote compassionate consumption to improve their ethical profile and value without significantly altering their business model, protecting themselves from the threat to their bottom lines posed by a genuinely engaged consumer activism. Coupled with the phenomenon of celebrity activism and expertise as embodied by Bono, Richey and Ponte argue that this “causumerism” represents a deeply troubling shift in relief efforts, effectively delinking the relationship between capitalist production and global poverty.
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Elon James White on affirmative action, via the Melissa Harris-Perry Show, MSNBC (via seriouslyamerica)
just watched this on TV actually. Right before they discussed affirmative action, they talked about The Help and the disney-fication of the jim crow south and the commodification of black woman’s suffering.
Gee, she must have a pretty low opinion of male soldiers. And women. But as we found out, she didn’t have those problems when she was a “combat” reporter in Vietnam.
Clicking the link to get context only makes the story even more sickening. In response to offering services to PROTECT those in service “That’s funny, I thought the mission of the Army, and the Navy, and four services was to defend and protect us, not the people who were fighting the war.” wow - the mission of the Army & Navy is to defend “american interests” (whatever that means) at all cost - even at the expense of the people who signed their life over to fight… because they’re just pawns in the game right?
I’m so glad the army recruits so hard in low-income areas & schools just for their recruits to continue to be treated like second class citizens breaking their backs for the benefit of the rest of America…
Who’s using birth control? Oh, right, almost every single woman in America.
REPORT: By a nearly 2 to 1 margin, cable networks call on men over women to comment on birth control
Voter ID laws are popping up all over the place recently. Just in time for the 2012 presidential candidates, many are moving to pass random voter identification laws that will only make it harder for members of already under-represented and marginalized groups to vote. When it comes to Minnesota, the people behind these measures have a lot to gain from silencing this demographic of constituents. This is a classic example of the haves structuring the political process in their favor at the expense of the have-nots…
From Colorlines:
The perennial swing state of Minnesota is the latest to be enthralled in debate over Republican-led efforts to create new voting restrictions that civil rights groups say will undermine voter access for low-income people of color, the disabled, youth and immigrants, among others. And a new watchdog report argues this week that the wealthy one percent of Minnesota are behind those efforts.
The report, by the group TakeAction Minnesota, describes how Minnesota’s wealthiest finance institutions and their executives, lobbying groups, PACs and the chamber of commerce have been pooling funds together, sharing resources, and in some cases sharing office suite space in a collective effort that’s at least partially responsible for a Republican takeover of the state legislature in 2010.
Says the report, the banks’ “executives and board members have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to candidates who will make it harder for members of the 99 percent of the population to vote.”
What TakeAction Minnesota is asking of its report’s readers is to accept the idea that voter ID rules widen the disparities between those with power largesse and those with power limited by suppressing the one democratic franchise all citizens possess: voting.
— Judge Stephen Reinhardt, in a federal appellate court’s majority opinion overturning the notorious California anti-gay marriage law. (via motherjones)
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Mitt Romney being Romney.
The host even asks him to clarify, because a lot of people would say “that sounds very odd.” Romney happily obliges…
(via think-progress)
yeah, he explains that the poor are fine because there is a safety net in place. lets totally gloss over the fact that when people fall into safety nets, that USUALLY denotes that something is already wrong with the system. But hey, in Romney’s America, safety nets are the first line of defense when it comes to the struggling poor.
