Category Archives: Feminism

ANSWERING ATTACKS ON MY CREDIBILITY AS A PHILANTHROPIST | Jane Fonda

Since 2006, between my two foundations and my own personal finances, over $3 million dollars have been contributed to various causes.

 

It is a shame that “News” outlets chose to report on a fraction of this without checking their facts and telling the whole story. I will continue to support the various causes that I believe in as much as I can. And I hope that these outlets will do their part to give a platform to these causes, instead of sharing information that’s incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading.

via ANSWERING ATTACKS ON MY CREDIBILITY AS A PHILANTHROPIST | Jane Fonda.

Bachelet pledges radical constitutional reforms after winning Chilean election | World news | The Guardian

After winning the biggest landslide since Chile\’s return to democracy, the president-elect, Michelle Bachelet, vowed on Monday to push ahead with an ambitious programme of tax, educational and constitutional reforms to address inequality.

The centre-left politician – who secured 62% of Sunday\’s vote – was also expected to propose legislation on reproductive rights and same-sex marriage in this predominantly Catholic nation.

In a switch of power, Bachelet trounced her conservative opponent, Evelyn Matthei from the Alianza coalition, which has run the country for the past four years.

Despite a low turnout of 42%, the win puts the Chilean Socialist party leader back in the La Moneda presidential palace, where she had been the incumbent from 2006 to 2010. Her first administration was popular, but made only modest inroads into reducing inequality. In her second term, the president-elect has promised more radical changes.

\”Chile has looked at itself, has looked at its path, its recent history, its wounds, its feats, its unfinished business and this Chile has decided it is the time to start deep transformations,\” Bachelet told supporters in a jubilant victory speech.

via Bachelet pledges radical constitutional reforms after winning Chilean election | World news | The Guardian.

Can angora production ever be ethical? | World news | The Guardian

now we\’ve seen the video of a Chinese angora farm, will we ever look at Nastassja Kinski\’s backless sweater in the same way again? A rabbit is screaming, as best it can, while chunks of its wonderful soft fur are ripped away to leave just a bald, raw and bleeding body. Rows and rows more rabbits are locked alone in filthy cages, waiting for their turn.

These, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), based on the 10 farms they visited, are standard conditions for angora rabbits in China, where around 90% of the world\’s angora wool is now produced. Certainly there are no laws there to prevent people plucking rabbits, which yields longer hairs, and thus more valuable yarn, and is quicker to do. Topshop, H&M, Boden, Primark and dozens of other retailers have halted orders immediately.

And yet there\’s no denying that, if you own an angora rabbit, it would be inhumane not to remove some its fur. Left alone, the animal becomes too hot, gets covered in thick clumps and tends to lick off any moulting hairs, which accumulate in its stomach. (Whether it was ethical to breed rabbits this way in the first place is another matter.)

Indeed, even Peta accepts that – when done on a very small scale – angora production can be ethical. \”If you had someone who has a companion angora rabbit who sat on their knee, and they put their fingers through their coat and, as happens, they find the fur gently comes away, then if somebody wanted to collect that and make a pair of gloves that would be entirely different,\” says Yvonne Taylor, Peta\’s campaigns manager.

via Can angora production ever be ethical? | World news | The Guardian.

The fourth wave of feminism: meet the rebel women | World news | The Guardian

The campaign for women\’s liberation never went away, but this year a new swell built up and broke through. Since the early summer, I\’ve been talking to feminist activists and writers for a short book, All The Rebel Women, and as I tried to keep up with the protests, marches and talks, my diary became a mess of clashing dates. The rush was such that in a single weekend in October, you could have attended a feminist freshers\’ fair in London, the North East Feminist Gathering in Newcastle, a Reclaim the Night march in Edinburgh, or a discussion between different generations of feminist activists at the British Library (this sold out in 48 hours, was moved to a room four times bigger, and sold out again).

You could have joined one of the country\’s 149 local grassroots groups, or shared your experience of misogyny on the site Laura Bates, 27, started in April 2012. Her Everyday Sexism Project has proved so successful that it was rolled out to 17 countries on its first anniversary this year, tens of thousands of women worldwide writing about the street harassment, sexual harassment, workplace discrimination and body-shaming they encounter. The project embodies that feminist phrase \”the personal is political\”, a consciousness-raising exercise that encourages women to see how inequality affects them, proves these problems aren\’t individual but collective, and might therefore have political solutions. This year, 6,000 stories that have been sent to the project about harassment or assault on public transport – the majority never reported to authorities – were used to train 2,000 police officers in London, and create a public awareness campaign. In its first few weeks, says Bates, the reporting of harassment on public transport soared. Everyday Sexism currently has more than 108,000 followers on Twitter. Of course, following a social media account isn\’t the same as joining a political party, but to put this engagement in perspective, Tory membership is now at 134,000.

via The fourth wave of feminism: meet the rebel women | World news | The Guardian.

The Feministing Five: Sunny Clifford

If you haven’t seen “Young Lakota,” the documentary that explores the intersection of reproductive justice and indigenous rights through the perspective of then 21-year-old Sunny Clifford and her community at the Pine Ridge Reservation, stop what you’re doing and see where it’s playing near you.

via The Feministing Five: Sunny Clifford.

The Gun Report: December 5, 2013 – NYTimes.com

Katrina Yuzefpolsky was 8 years old when nine of her family members were shot and killed by a mentally unstable relative at a Christmas party in Covina, Calif., in 2008. Dressed as Santa Claus, Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, who had been married to Katrina’s aunt, had a seamstress build extra room into his costume to accomodate his firearms. A bullet tore through Katrina’s cheek, but she, her parents and her sister fled the scene and survived.

Now 13, she has just begun discussing the origin of her scar in school, where she was named most likely to become president. If that prediction ever comes true, she said, “I would tell everyone that they’d have to get rid of their guns.”

via The Gun Report: December 5, 2013 – NYTimes.com.

Quick hit: Roe v. Wade doesn’t really exist and here’s how we got there

For a while now, most experts have operated under the assumption that anti-choicers never need to get Roe v. Wade overturned by the Supreme Court. Instead, they can just make it nonexistent in the practical sense. Here on this site we’ve covered TRAP laws, ultrasound bills, and other legislation that is making legal abortion impossible. Today, ThinkProgress has a terrific write up about where we are in terms of reproductive rights in states like Texas, as well as historical context as to  how we got here.

via Quick hit: Roe v. Wade doesn’t really exist and here’s how we got there.

Staffers for French aid organization killed in Afghanistan | News | DW.DE | 27.11.2013

The beat goes on and on and on – some never tire of killing for no reason but it’s their job! WTF

\”They were killed in the course of their work to support development in the north. We deplore the deaths of our colleagues while they were carrying out their duties,\” he added. \”Today our thoughts are with the families and relatives of our lost colleagues and to our teams in Afghanistan.\”

The Taliban were not immediately available for comment. Northern Afghanistan is generally more peaceful than the south and east of the country, but insurgents, militias and criminal gangs are active in the area.

via Staffers for French aid organization killed in Afghanistan | News | DW.DE | 27.11.2013.

Big pharma’s latest secret: the morning after pill may not work if you weigh over 165 pounds

The morning after pill may be less effective on women who weigh 165 pounds or more; it may be totally ineffective on women who weigh 176 pounds or more; in Europe, the morning after pill is not recommended for women who weigh 165 pounds or more. So why doesn’t the average American woman know that her emergency contraception might not work?

HRA Pharma, the French manufacturer of the European drug, Norlevo, is changing its packaging, big time. It will now warn users that the drug is ineffective in women weighing over 176 pounds and less effective in women who weigh more than 165 pounds. It will even recommend that women who weigh 165 pounds not take the pill. But why does that matter to women in the U.S. of A? Because, as Molly Redden points out in Mother Jones,  Norvelo, is chemically identical to Plan B One-Step, Next Choice One Dose, My Way, and several generic emergency contraceptives. Given that the average American woman weighs 166.2 pounds, this is especially significant: “There’s a whole swath of American women for whom (these pills) are not effective,” explains James Trussell, a professor of public affairs at Princeton University and a senior fellow with the Guttmacher Institute. But unlike their sisters overseas, American women won’t be getting any warnings about this risk.

In Europe, it works and worked like this: in 2011 a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Edinborough published research showing that emergency contraceptive pills were less effective on women who weighed more. In 2012, HRA Pharma started reviewing this data and got permission from the European Union to update its warning. In 2014, every single box of Norlevo will say ”Studies suggest that Norlevo is less effective in women weighing [165 pounds] or more and not effective in women weighing [176 pounds] or more” and that Norlevo “is not recommended…if you weigh [165 pounds] or more.”

In the U.S., however, as Redden explains,

the Food and Drug Administration prohibits generic drug manufacturers from changing product information unless the brand name manufacturer makes a change, companies that manufacture generic versions of Plan B One-Step cannot update their packaging information unless Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the exclusive manufacturer of Plan B One-Step, acts first.

via Big pharma’s latest secret: the morning after pill may not work if you weigh over 165 pounds.

US Supreme Court Majority joins GOP attack on women’s rights – declines to block Texas abortion law – USA – FRANCE 24

A sharply divided Supreme Court voted 5-4 on Tuesday to allow Texas to continue enforcing new abortion restrictions that opponents say have led to the closure of more than a third of the state\’s clinics.

via US Supreme Court declines to block Texas abortion law – USA – FRANCE 24.