Category Archives: Politics

Thank you grown-ups leading America! Great lesson on conflict resolution

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Here are my daughter’s bags, all packed up to for an overnight trip on the Balclutha boat with her Fifth grade class, a trip they’ve been looking forward to for years. Last night, just after 9PM, we got an email that the trip was cancelled.

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I just went to the Balclutha site to get the link and look what came up.

Because of the federal government shutdown, all national parks are closed and National Park Service webpages are not operating.

I am so disgusted with our so-called government right now. Great lesson for children on how to resolve conflicts. If you don’t like a law– or a rule– throw a tantrum! Jon Stewart explains the situation:

Did you see the Giants game on Sunday? Okay, they lost 31-7. And you know what the Giants didn’t say after that game? ‘If you don’t give us 25 more points by midnight on Monday, we will shut down the [bleep] NFL.

I guess I’ll be showing my daughter this video tonight. It’s clearer on the cause of this shutdown than anything else I’ve seen.

Thanks a lot, grown-ups leading America.

Would you rather your kid see M.I.A.’s finger or underage, half-dressed cheerleaders?

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M.I.A. is refusing to pay the 1.5 million fine the NFL claims she owes after giving the finger during Madonna’s half time show.

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Calling the stiff penalty “corporate dick shaking,” (ha ha, like my world play?) the singer argues that the scantily dressed, teen cheerleaders from Madonna’s show, recruited from a local high school, is worse for kids to see than her raised finger.

 

“Like, is my finger offensive? Or is an underage black girl with her legs wide open more offensive to the family audience?”

 

I have 3 daughters, ages 4 – 10, and I’d rather them see M.I.A.’s middle finger than yet another half naked teen celebrated on national TV for baring her body any day. What about you?
While we’re on this topic, here are two more images of females, one allowed on network TV and one not. Again, I ask parents: Which would you rather your child see?
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The breast feeding picture is the “obscene” one, not even allowed on Facebook. So, please, share it widely. Protest the backwards way we value the female body, and of course, females themselves, in America.
Huzzah to M.I.A. Thank you for making these points that should be obvious yet somehow are not. I hope you never pay that fine. You’re a pussy!

Texas women still recovering from Bush #StandWithTXWomen

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I wrote about the desperate situation for women in Texas for the SF Chronicle 13 years ago when George W. Bush was running for President. Check out the political history of the state under Bush, the ramifications of his policies, and what we’re up against now. Thank you, Wendy Davis for maybe, finally, starting to turn this situation around.

Ask a pro-choice person to explain casting a vote for a pro-life candidate, and the proud response is likely to be: “I don’t support candidates based on just one issue. I care about education, health care, and the economy too.”

Even political savvy supporters of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader aren’t that concerned with the threat to a woman’s right to choose, claiming its one issue among many.

But choice has never been a single issue. Reproductive rights don’t exist in isolation. They have everything to do with women’s economic and political power, women’s access to education and health care, women’s status in society and women’s abilities to take care of themselves and their children.

Birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger once said, “If a woman doesn’t have the right to control her own body, she has no rights.” Choice is a political barometer, indicative of how politicians feel not only about the basic rights of women, but about the role of women in society, abut sex education, health care, welfare, poverty, the economy and the role the government should play in an individual’s life.

A position on choice indicates whether your representative will fight to get your kids vaccinated and to make contraception affordable.

Years ago, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, said that pro-lifers believe “life begins at conception and ends at birth,” meaning pro-life politicians are adamant about protecting the fetus but don’t care much about protecting the child once its born

His notion was rekindled recently when Prof Jean Schroedel of Claremont College came out with a survey examining the relationship between state abortion laws and spending on children. Her research revealed that the states that most severely limit abortion are the same ones that spend the least on foster care, parents who adopt special needs children, and poor women with dependent children. States with strict abortion laws consistently accorded lower political, economic and social status to women. For example, Louisianna had some of the tougest abortion laws and spent $602 per child. Hawaii had some of the most liberal laws and spent $4,648 per child.

Schroedel also discovered that states with restricted abortion laws consistently accorded lower political, economic and social status to women.

Her findings support the work of Nafis Sadik, executive director of the United Nations World Population Fund. Sadik has been instrumental in turning the debate over how to limit population growth into a campaign for women’s rights.

She is widely credited with bringing attention to the correlation between over population and the status of women. When women are educated, when they achieve economic independence, when they have access to good health care, when they are valued in society for their intellect and their accomplishments, they have fewer babies.

Unfortunately, pro-life politicians still don’t seem concerned with improving the status of women. One classic example is presidential candidate George W. Bush. Look at his record as governor of Texas.

Texas women had a higher than average chance of living in poverty. The state minimum wage, earned by those in the female-dominated service and domestic workers industries was $3.35 per hour, totaling $6,700 annually for full time employment.

The percentage of women and children without health insurance is the second highest in the country.

Texas ranks 42nd in per capita welfare spending.

Bush made it more difficult for women to obtain abortions in times of crisis, but offered no preventative policy initiatives to reduce unintended pregnancy, no expansion of family planning or funding services, no comprehensive sexuality education program and no insurance coverage for contraceptives.

Texas had the second highest rate of teen pregnancy in the nation.

And the Texas system doesn’t promote sexual health. Texas law requires that sex education courses teach abstinence, but it does not require teaching contraception or HIV/ STD prevention.

Compare that to France where mandatory sexuality education begins when students are 13. Parents are prohibited from withdrawing their teenagers from this program. France’s teenage birthrate is approximately 6 times lower than the rate in the US; its teen abortion rate more than 2x lower, and overall AIDS rate, more than 3x lower.

Conservatives like to say, “The government that governs best, governs least.” What happened to this party? Now, they sound so much more like big government believers.

Many Americans wonder how they came to intrude so much into our private lives, legislating personal choices like whom we should sleep with or pray to.

The reason is because if politicians aren’t going to help to provide access to health care, contraception, STD prevention, access to child care and sex education, and economic autonomy there is nowhere to go but blame pregnancies on loose morals and loose women.

If Republicans acknowledge that women have reproductive rights, they’ll have to acknowledge that women have other rights as well. For Texas, that would mean reasonable funding for family planning and welfare, a higher minimum wage, insurance to cover contraceptives, real sex education and access to heath care.

Pro choice isn’t one issue and it isn’t one choice. Pro-choice means women have the choice to graduate from college, the choice to borrow money to start a business, the choice to get a good job with a fair wage, the choice not live in poverty and keep their kids out of poverty. Choice means that women get to be autonomous citizens, just like men do- with the power to determine their own destinies.

Pro-life candidate George Bush understands better than anyone that choice isn’t just one issue. Before heading to the ballot box in November, Americans need to realize pro-life is really only pro-birth.

The Republicans’ concern for mother and child is severed with the cutting of the umbilical cord.

What can you do now, in July, 2013?

Demand public hearings across Texas

On Independence Day in 2013, Texas women are still fighting for their rights!

Politicians in Austin are blocking Texans from speaking out against harmful legislation that would deny Texas women the right to make their own private medical decisions, and essentially end access to safe and legal abortion in the state.

Last night, during a hearing before the State Affairs Committee, the chairman cut off testimony at midnight, denying more than a thousand Texans who had signed up to testify the opportunity to speak out. This isn’t the fair democratic process that we value in Texas.

Texas legislators must stop playing politics with women’s health. Speak up now — urge legislators to schedule public hearings across the state to support the fair democratic process that Texans value.

 

Please visit Stand With Texas Women to sign your name to this letter going out to decision makers in Texas.

 

Susie Buell wants to know if I’m Ready for Hillary? Yes, I am!

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This week, Hillary Clinton joined Twitter, and look what I got in my email today…

 

Dear Margot,

 

I hope you’re having a wonderful summer and enjoying time with friends and family.

 

Many of you who recall my active participation during Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president have asked me if she will run again. My first instinct is to say I hope she does, but the truth is, I don’t know the answer. Hillary has given so much of herself for so long and I’d like for her to take as much time as she needs to make that decision.

 

In the meantime, I’m sure by now you have heard about Ready for Hillary. It is an organization dedicated solely to building and supporting the national grassroots effort that today’s political campaigns demand. Ready for Hillary is doing this work now — giving Hillary the time she needs to make her decision. In fact, the reach Ready for Hillary has built on Facebook already has people paying attention. In a few short months, they have amassed a following of more than 200,000 supporters! We all watched President Obama’s campaign change modern politics. It showed the power of local organizing and the importance of investing in the use and development of new technology. We also cannot overlook the way the Obama campaign amplified its message using social media platforms. Should Hillary decide to run for president in 2016, her campaign is going to need us to use these strategies to win.

 

But the kind of infrastructure that powers a successful campaign requires an investment of money and time to build. It simply isn’t possible to grow a list, do the necessary analytics, organize activists on the ground, and maximize a return on social media overnight, in a week or even a few short months. This is why those of us who want to see Hillary run again need to support Ready for Hillary now. You can give $25, or $50, or $100 or more. I am wholeheartedly supporting this grassroots effort as I believe that Ready for Hillary will be a crucial element to ensuring that, if Hillary decides to run for president in 2016, her supporters will be organized and ready to hit the ground running from day one. I have made a financial investment in this effort and I hope you will join me in making a contribution to Ready for Hillary. Any amount you’d like to give will help and will be much appreciated. I’m ready for Hillary. Are you? If so, click here to contribute today.

 

With warm regards and appreciation,

 

Susie Tompkins Buell, San Francisco, CA

STB is probably the most passionate, clued in Clinton supporter I know of. This email tells me, more than any hint so far, that Hillary is running for President in 2016. Am I donating? Oh, yes, I am. I hope you do too.


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Facebook helps debunk myth of America’s ‘post-feminism’

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YAY! Facebook FINALLY recognizes: misogyny exists. It’s real, FB says, and that’s a giant social media step in the right direction. In 2013, gender-based hate and violence is epidemic and still, for the most part, accepted as normal.

I’m  44 years old, a member of the notoriously apathetic Generation X. Since I started speaking out about feminist issues, back in my twenties (not lazy or apolitical, by the way, didn’t really know anyone who was) I’ve been told sexism doesn’t exist. We live in a post-feminist world. What could American women, not to mention white, educated, privileged ones, possibly be whining about? We weren’t under Taliban rule for goodness sake. Not that college kids, all of us so well versed in South Africa’s racist history, had any clue about the gender apartheid of the Taliban. And if we had known of it? Gender bias, while kind of a shame, was just a cultural difference, not a political issue. “Relative ethics” was the term my sociology professor taught us for female genital mutilation: Who were we, in all our privilege to judge?

So for years, Facebook has been receiving reports on posts depicting gender based violence. While the company actively bans religious or racist hate speech, here’s just one example of its past response to misogyny.

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(via Amazing Women Rock . If you go to the link, and you have a strong stomach, you can see many more.)

So why did Facebook change its tune, pledging to take misogyny seriously? Obviously, in no small part, because of a well-run, well organized campaign by Women, Action, and Media. THANK YOU WAM and thank you to all of you who responded. In days, 5,000 emails and 60,000 Tweets went to Facebook’s advertisers who started to take their ads off the site. Facebook, if anyone could, saw where all this viral action was headed. Women have been using social media to change the world for some time now.

In the Nation, Jessica Valenti writes :

Jaclyn Friedman, executive director of WAM… points to the outrage over the social media-documented rape in Steubenville, gang rapes in India and the suicides of several young rape victims as indications that Americans may have had enough of the consequences of rape culture. While she’s still unsure that the country is ready for widespread change, she believes “there’s a critical mass right now; it could be a tipping point moment”…

But this glaring, in-your-face misogyny may be the spark that pushes culture forward—there’s no arguing with these images, these court cases, these stories. Maybe it needed to get a lot worse—or more visible—for it to get better. For years, the most common anti-feminist talking point has been that American women don’t have it all that bad. That we should stop complaining and focus on women in other countries who are “really” oppressed.

But today, telling women that sexism doesn’t exist anymore is a really hard sell. Thanks to the Internet and the speed at which stories move—not to mention the vile sexism in most online spaces—any American woman who spends more than five minutes onlines hears about or experiences misogyny every day.

 

I started this blog, Reel Girl, because I have 3 daughters, and I was so horrified by the gender stereotyping marketed to kids like it’s okay, like it’s normal, and then how everyone participates in it. It’s so sad that sexism, packaged and sold to kids, is so ubiquitous that, paradoxically, it’s become invisible. I feel like 90% of my work is just pointing out that sexism exists. I’ve posted this a couple times, but here it is again:

Violence against women is epidemic. A first step to abuse is always dehumanizing the victim. Propaganda, in the form of images and narratives, effectively dehumanizes on a mass scale. Here’s some propaganda marketed to kids:

 

Images/ narratives of Jews circa 1938

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Africans circa 1931

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Females circa 2013

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It’s easy to look back on history and wonder: How did people ever put up with that? I’d never buy into it. But what are you participating in right now that is completely accepted, not to mention celebrated, by our culture?

 

Since my post, I’ve gotten comments asking how dare I compare sexism to racism and antisemitism. I’ve been rebuked for taking sexism seriously for a long time. When I was a senior in high school, I was talking to a good friend of mine about sexism, and he said to me, indignantly, “A woman has never been lynched for being a woman!” Maybe, maybe not, but women have been murdered throughout history for being women. Does getting raped or sexually assaulted qualify as pretty bad treatment?

Here’s a classic comment from Chinwe:

What I find embarrassing, shameful, and flat out appalling is you comparing the current state of girls in 2013 to the days that Blacks and Jews were stereotyped, discriminated, and killed in the early 20th century. Girls and women have gained so many rights in the last 40+ years and you compared its ”oppression” to Blacks and Jews in the 1930s.

Really?

That’s absolutely and utterly lazy comparison and analysis.

Years ago, the Wall Street Journal used to have a Bad Writing Contest where readers can submit writing that’s truly awful. Too bad they don’t have this contest because I would personally submit this post–and your blog–to judges of the Bad Writing Contest and you would win hands down.

Honestly, you need a new hobby because you come across really immature, out-of-touch and bitter towards the world. Once again, do yourself a favor and enroll in an English 101 class at your local community college and learn how to write. Everytime I see a new post, 1) you are embarrassing yourself and 2) you put yourself further down the cultural rabbit hole by making piss poor arguments.

*waiting for your condescending reply*

You are pretty predictable, ya know

Huh, think Chinwe heard about the three women sexually assaulted for 10 years in Cleveland? How their captor, Ariel Castro, got out of domestic abuse charges years earlier because his ex-wife’s lawyer didn’t even show up to prosecute? Or perhaps Chinwe knows that in America, 3 women are murdered by a domestic partner every day? And still, our congress fought over passing the Violence Against Women Act?

I guess that’s my sarcastic, predictable, and, of course, poorly written reply.

We don’t live in a post-feminist world. We never have. According to the Geena Davis Institute, at the rate we’re going, will might in about 700 years. Don’t you think that’s too long for your children to wait?

 

 

 

 

If Castro forced Knight to give birth 5x, another kind of hell

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A couple days ago, shocked that psychopath Ariel Castro might be charged with murder, I posted on Reel Girl: Focus on the torture and rape of 3 women, not fetuses

Here’s what I wrote:

Multiple news sources are reporting that prosecutors may seek the death penalty against Ariel Castro, bringing aggravated murder charges in connection with 5 pregnancies that he terminated by starving and punching Michelle Knight. A murder charge would be a terrible mistake in bringing Castro to justice. Castro raped and tortured three women. Isn’t that evil enough? That the prosecution would shift the focus to fetuses to bring the worst charges against Castro mitigates the value of the lives of these women and sickens me.

The only way to stop the epidemic of violence against women in America is to empower them financially, physically, socially, culturally. Charging Castro with murder of fetuses does the opposite. If Castro can be charged with murdering fetuses, than a woman getting an abortion, even if that woman was raped Michelle Knight herself, she, too, would be “murdering” fetuses. Castro tortured, raped, and assaulted these women in multiple, horrific ways. Keep the focus on the women, not the fetuses, and bring Ariel Castro to justice for his evil crimes.

Since that post, I have been unliked, unfollowed, and only further convinced that prosecuting Castro for murder is the wrong crime and fails to do justice to these women. There’s a post on Slate with a similar argument: “Should Ariel Castro Be Prosecuted for Fetal Homicide? Maybe. But we should focus on the harm he did to the women he’s accused of abducting.” Writer Emily Bazelon argues:

I still think, though, that there would be something very strange about executing Castro for the harm he did to fetuses, as opposed to the harm he did to three living and breathing women.

And what if Castro had allowed the fetuses to live? What if Michelle Knight had been forced to give birth 5 times in captivity to babies fathered by a rapist? That would have been its own hell. But would that use, manipulation, and violation of Knight’s body be recognized by our legal system beyond rape charges?

A regime, whether enforced by a government or a madman, that forces women to have abortions is the same regime that can force them to give birth. Reproductive rights are human rights, and violating them ought to carry the severest of penalties. But when will violating the human rights of women be recognized by the U.S. legal system as the heinous crime it truly is?

Focus on torture and rape of 3 women, not fetuses

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Multiple news sources are reporting that prosecutors may seek the death penalty against Ariel Castro, bringing aggravated murder charges in connection with 5 pregnancies that he terminated by starving and punching Michelle Knight. A murder charge would be a terrible mistake in bringing Castro to justice. Castro raped and tortured three women. Isn’t that evil enough? That the prosecution would shift the focus to fetuses to bring the worst charges against Castro mitigates the value of the lives of these women and sickens me.

The only way to stop the epidemic of violence against women in America is to empower them financially, physically, socially, culturally. Charging Castro with murder of fetuses does the opposite. If Castro can be charged with murdering fetuses, than a woman getting an abortion, even if that woman was raped Michelle Knight herself, she, too, would be “murdering” fetuses. Castro tortured, raped, and assaulted these women in multiple, horrific ways. Keep the focus on the women, not the fetuses, and bring Ariel Castro to justice for his evil crimes.

Rep. Jackie Speier takes the lead to stop sexual assault in the USA

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The United States is failing half of its citizens. There are four stories in the news this week highlighting the epidemic of violence against women in America:

(1) 3 women were sexually assaulted for 10 years. The perpetrator had domestic violence charges against him dropped when the lawyer for his accuser failed to show up in court.

(2) Sexual assault survivor Elizabeth Smart says abstinence only education made her feel like a “chewed up piece of gum” and prevents victims from trying to escape from captors or seek help.

(3) U.S. military releases report that there were an estimated 26,000 sexual assaults in our armed forces, up from 19,000

(4) Man in charge of preventing sexual assault in the U.S. Air Force is charged with sexual assault

I posted yesterday asking who in the U.S. government is going to do something to end the violence against women?

Obama’s reported reaction?

“The bottom line is, I have no tolerance for this,” Obama told reporters after he was asked about several recent military scandals, including the weekend arrest of the Air Force’s chief for sexual assault prevention on charges that he groped and attacked a woman in Northern Virginia. “If we find out somebody’s engaging in this stuff, they’ve got to be held accountable, prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged — period.”

Strong words but what will be the actions behind them? Why did he wait until he was asked to say something? Why doesn’t he take more of a lead on stopping the violence against women in the USA? When will he link up the stories and speak to the epidemic? What is his plan to end the violence against women in America?

Today, I got an email from Rep Jackie Speier asking me to sign a petition. Here it is:

Dear San Francisco MoveOn member,

Sexual violence in the U.S. military is a crisis. The Pentagon estimates that in 2010, there were 19,000 sexual assaults in the armed forces.

Making matters worse, each branch of the armed forces has its own judicial system, and it’s currently legal for base commanders to overturn a conviction at Aviano Air Force Base.

The STOP (Sexual Assault Training Oversight and Prevention) Act takes the prosecution, reporting, oversight, investigation, and victim care of sexual assaults out of the normal military chain of command—which has proven grossly ineffective—and places jurisdiction in an autonomous Sexual Assault Oversight and Response Office.

That’s why I started a petition to the United States Congress, which says:

I stand with Congresswoman Jackie Speier in support of the Sexual Assault Training Oversight and Prevention Act (STOP Act) to end military rape.

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Thanks!

–Congresswoman Jackie Speier

 

I am so happy that Speier is calling a crisis and crisis and taking the the initiative to do something about it.

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It make sense that it Speier would be a leader here. I first heard about Speier years ago on an issue that may seem trivial. Speier noticed that when women went to the the dry cleaner, they were charged more than men to get the same garment cleaned. Speier called this out for what it was: gender discrimination. She spoke to how this institutionalized sexism, is one of the many ways women are manipulated into shelling out huge amounts of money for their appearance.

Fascinated, I found out more about Speier and she became one of my heroes. Here’s just part of her bio today:

Jackie Speier (pronounced SPEAR) has lived her entire life inside California’s 14th Congressional District and in April 2008 was elected to represent the district in Congress…

 

Nationally, Jackie is best known for her passionate and compelling speeches on the House floor, such as her spontaneous response to a congressional colleague who trivialized women who – like her – have had medically necessary second trimester abortions. She routinely speaks on the House floor about men and women in our armed forces who have been raped or sexually assaulted while in the line of duty. She has also taken a lead role in working with the veterans organizations to improve delivery of VA benefits to Bay Area veterans. In 2012 Newsweek named Jackie to its list of 150 “fearless women” in the world.

Locally, Jackie is known as a fighter. In 1978, as a staff member to then-Congressman Leo J. Ryan, she was shot five times while trying to rescue constituents from the People’s Temple compound in Jonestown, Guyana – an attack that left Congressman Ryan and six others dead and was followed by the mass murder-suicide of more than 900 Temple followers. Jackie tenaciously hung onto life for 23 hours on a dusty airstrip before aid arrived. It is this fighting spirit that defines her to her constituents at home…

 

Jackie was the first California state legislator to give birth while in office and, during her time in Sacramento, she authored more than 300 bills signed into law by both Republican and Democratic governors. These bills included the nation’s strongest financial privacy law and measures that expanded women’s access to reproductive health services and vastly improved collection of delinquent child support payments. She also led high-profile investigations of fraudulent and wasteful government spending and prison corruption, ultimately saving millions of taxpayer dollars…

I know you have a lot to sign and a lot to share, but please sign this petition. If you are disgusted and appalled by the violence against women in America, this is an action you can take to help stop it. This is a beginning. I believe that Jackie Speier will continue to be a leader on this issue and not let it go until the violence against women is over.

 

 

 

Ex-wife of Ariel Castro charged him with domestic violence, case dropped

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In 2005, Grimilda Figueroa, the ex-wife of Ariel Castro, the man who imprisoned, beat, and sexually abused three women for ten years, brought domestic violence charges against him. Court documents state that Figueroa suffered two broken noses, broken ribs, a knocked-out tooth, two dislocated shoulders, and a blood clot on the brain.

Jezebel reports:

However, nothing could be done to protect Figueroa and her children as her lawyer didn’t show up for the court hearing, and the case was dropped. Apparently her counsel cautioned her against speaking for herself, and she didn’t make any objection to the judge’s decision to dismiss the protection order. Both Figueroa and Castro were judged to have “waived their right to any further hearing”, the case’s final document stated. Tragically, Figueroa died last year.

How did the judge decide to dismiss such a case for something so simple as a lawyer not showing up? Why don’t we have better legal resources for victims of domestic violence? How ill-equipped, poorly run, understaffed, and overworked must our legal system be to let a case like that slide? It’s infuriating and heartbreaking to yet again witness the ease with which such cases are dismissed.

 

America is failing half of its citizens. This violent man, Ariel Castro, was more protected by our legal system than the women he abused. In 2013, there is slavery in America’s backyard and we look the other way and just let it happen. Here are the stats one more time from National Coalition Against Domestic Violence):

One in four women (25%) has experienced domestic violence in her lifetime.

85% of domestic violence victims are women.

Women ages 20-24 are at the greatest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence.

Nearly three out of four (74%) of Americans personally know someone who is or has been a victim of domestic violence.

On average, more than three women are murdered by their intimate partners in this country every day.

Domestic violence is one of the most chronically under reported crimes.

Only approximately one-quarter of all physical assaults, one-fifth of all rapes, and one-half of all stalkings perpetuated against females by intimate partners are reported to the police.

How are we going to stop it? Support the feminist movement. Here’s a report published in SFGate, 2012:

A new study on violence against women conducted over four decades and in 70 countries reveals the mobilization of feminist movements is more important for change than the wealth of nations, left-wing political parties, or the number of women politicians.

 

The study in the latest issue of American Political Science Review (APSR), published by Cambridge University Press for the American Political Science Association (APSA), found that in feminist movements that were autonomous from political parties and the state, women were able to articulate and organize around their top priorities as women, without having to answer to broader organizational concerns or mens’ needs. Mobilizing across countries, feminist movements urged governments to approve global and regional norms and agreements on violence.
The scope of data for the study is unprecedented. The study includes every region of the world, varying degrees of democracy, rich and poor countries, and a variety of world religions – it encompasses 85 per cent of the world’s population. Analyzing the data took five years, which is why the most recent year covered is 2005.

2005 also happens to be the year that Ariel Castro’s wife brought the charges against him and her lawyer didn’t care enough to show up in court.

Obama does the right thing, apologizes to Harris and tells America he gets it

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Politico reports:

Obama called Harris earlier in the day to offer an apology, according to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

 

“He called her to apologize for the distraction created by his comments,” Carney said during a Friday briefing at the White House. Carney acknowledged later that the president had also “apologized for the remark” during the conversation with Harris.

 

Obama “did not want in any way to diminish the attorney general’s professional accomplishments and her capabilities,” Carney said. “He fully recognizes the challenges women continue to face in the workplace and that they should not be judged based on appearance.”

Harris’s response?

“The attorney general and the president have been friends for many years,” Harris Communications Director Gil Duran said in a statement e-mailed to POLITICO. “They had a great conversation yesterday and she strongly supports him.”

Thank you, Obama. You did the right thing. Mostly, I appreciate how your spokesperson made clear: “He fully recognizes the challenges women continue to face in the workplace and that they should not be judged based on appearance.”

I also like Harris’s response. She didn’t mitigate the gravity of Obama’s comment. Good job, politicians, Hopefully, Americans are learning something here.