I am writing this diary to detail some ideas about feminism-- I understand that a few different people have used the term Fourth Wave feminism, without any specific path being generally agreed on for this term to apply to yet, but I’d like to add my two cents’ worth to what I hope will become the Fourth Wave of feminism, and to start to outline where that Fourth Wave of feminism will take us from here.  I understand that some of what I will write may have been anticipated, for example by the writing of Katha Pollitt or Nadine Strossen, but it is more my purpose to suggest a wide-spread agreement and adoption than to stake out anything new.

It turns out that only half the population of Iraq needed liberating: the half that have a Y chromosome.  The other half were, apparently, simply born wrong, and their repression is something that we must accept as the price of Freedom.  Freedom, of course, being solely the province of the male of the species.

More below the fold.

(crossposted at Barefoot and Progressive)

I was walking through the University of Kentucky's campus today and ran upon a little demonstration in front of the classroom building. There were about 20 huge pictures of bloody fetuses, along with "Stop the Genocide" signs.

If you know me well, you know... well.... I can't resist.

By Sandra S. Park, staff attorney with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project

This April, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, the federal law prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability. April is also Sexual Assault Awareness Month, giving us an opportunity to examine the often-overlooked intersection between fair housing rights and the needs of women who experience sexual assault and other forms of gender-based violence.

Often I hear people discuss women's rights as generally limited to abortion, as if our right of choice was the only right hanging in the balance in our feminist march for equal rights. The assumption is that women's rights were achieved decades ago so today we only face a few minor unresolved "details."  

Tonight, I compiled a partial list of rights still denied to women. What rights would you add to this list?

By Nicole Kief, State Strategist for the  ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, and Selene Kaye, Advocacy Coordinator for the  ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project.

California millionaire Ward  Connerly and his so-called "American Civil Rights Institute" are trying to pull  a fast one on the voting public, but local ACLUs and their allies are working  to preserve the integrity of the democratic process.

Cross-posted from Florida Netroots

Passing the Equal Rights Amendment is long overdue. So far, it has been ratified by 35 of the necessary 38 states. Currently in the Florida Legislature there are two concurrent resolutions, one in the House (HCR 8001) and one in the Senate (SCR 362) for our state to ratify the amendment.  

Ms. Ferraro:

I guess I'm joining in on this too.

At this point we all know what you said. Obama is lucky to be a black man because it puts him ahead in votes.

Yes, the "black" thing is what puts him ahead in votes! Of course!

He's just a novelty, just an overall average dude who has a darker skin color and therefore is more popular than is warranted.

Uh, yeah.

In the wake of the proposed VAWA budget reforms, I believe cross-posting this entry might illustrate why this kind of legislation is so important.

There was a diary earlier on this, but I wanted to present my views as an Obama supporter, as a "white" American, and as a woman.  
First, for those who don't know about this or haven't seen the video of Rev. Wright's sermon, here's a link (embedded in Ben Smith's blog on Politico):
Video of Rev Wright Sermon on Politico
Watch it and see what you think.

As many of you know, President Bush's 2009 budget proposal will make devastating cuts (almost one-third of the funding or $120 million) to the Violence Against Women Act program.

Why should you care and what can you do?

While fighting sexism is one of the main goals of the progressive movement, and the Democratic party is the main political arm of the progressive movement, the Democratic party has been woefully inadequate in attempting to address sexism and the mistreatment of women.

Former president Bill Clinton, and his apologists in the party, were the main offenders. they set the movement for workplace rights for women back by decades by telling America that having the boss getting BJ's from interns under the main office desk was an acceptable practice.

Of course in this campaign we have seen outrageously sexist remarks directed at Senator Clinton. and today we hear that another Democratic favorite (and one of mine) Eliot Spitzer has implicated himself in a prosititution ring.

It is time Democratic men stopped this sexist bullshit behavior.

One of the unintended consequences of the US Invasion of Iraq is the entrenchment of powerful Islamist forces that have permeated Iraqi society and turned it inside out, gutting advances in women's rights that were achieved during Saddam Hussein's secular regime. As usual, bumbling US interventionist, blind, and ultimately anti-democratic international policies have struck again. And as usual, women and children, and of course, civilians, bear the brunt of the resulting debacle.

March is Women’s History month! For several years now during March I have e-mailed to friends and family a small collection of biographies of people and events important to the progress of women in American. This year I decided to polish some of them up, fill them out, and share them with my fellow Kossacks.

In my generation, we generally only learned about women such as Jane Addams, Betsy Ross, and Susan B. Anthony in elementary through secondary education.  It was in college, at the ripe old age of 22, that I even learned that Susan B. Anthony was provoked into working for Women's Right's and directed in that effort by her good friend, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who is the real mother of American Feminism in my opinion. Since then it has become an amateur passion of mine, and I love to tell the stories, hence this diary series. Today, join me below the fold for the details of the Seneca Falls Convention, the first Women’s Rights Convention held in the US, in 1848.

Update (for clarification): This will be a series, and I will post a few diaries a week. This diary and tomorrow's diary are designed to kick off this series. In the future, look for diaries titles that begin with WHM:

Didn't see this on DKos yet so I thought I'd post it.

MSNBC's First Read has the following article on how the Clinton campaign is refusing to return a $170,000 donation from individuals at a company accused of widespread sexual harassment.

It is over 300 years since the famous Salem witchcraft trials, which ended in the hanging of over nineteen men and women at Gallows Hill. The last execution for so-called witchcraft in England was in 1684. The last woman put to death for the "crime" of sorcery was Anna Göldi, beheaded in Switzerland in 1782. The last execution for "sorcery" in Saudi Arabia was in... 2007!

Now its 2008, and staunch U.S. ally Saudi Arabia is about to do it again. Saudi law courts have sentenced Fawza Fahli for "witchcraft, recourse to jinn [supernatural beings], and slaughter of animals." Held in Quraiyat Prison, she is to be beheaded. Arrested in May 2005 by the mutaween (religious police from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice), her conviction in April 2006 was based on a coerced confession (later retracted), and on the statements of her supposed "bewitched" victims, including a man who claimed she made him impotent.

In week that focused us on a war of words, Wisconsin's primary night continued to underscore consistent themes for the 2008 election; politics as usual just won't work.

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/...

President John F. Kennedy was much loved and an eloquent, charismatic speaker.

“And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

His words have inspired and given hope to a number of generations.