There's been a lot about harassment in the news this week. A Connecticut lawyer was banned from representing women after harassment incidents, which included offering to waive his fee in exchange for a massage, and making sexual advances toward women he represented as victims in domestic violence cases. Harassment in the sciences. Imani Gandy on trying to get Twitter to take action on harassment and threats. Bystander intervention stops a harasser - at a romance writers' convention - and the woman notes that she hadn't thought of intervening on her own behalf, but did when the harasser targeted other women. Sexual harassment is often the price of admission for women entrepreneurs, to the point where they started anonymously compiling a Don't-even-bother list of offenders to avoid.
And a comic for men on being allies against harassment.
The good, the bad and the ugly below the orange twist.
Violence:
Pavan Amara on date rape, stranger rape, and the stereotype of the "legitimate" or "perfect" rape and how victims are expected to react.
Ma'lik Richmond, one of the Steubenville rapists, has finished his one-year sentence and is back on the high school football team.
As the violence in Iraq keeps getting worse, ISIS is holding hundreds of Yazidi women prisoner, for forced "marriages" and sex slavery.
Two women stoned to death in Syria after accusations of adultery.
There are good reasons to be skeptical of India's Prime Minister Narenda Modi, given his role in the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002. But it is still encouraging to see that he used his Independence Day speech to address female infanticide and the notorious rape cases that have been in India's news recently:
When a daughter steps out, parents demand to know where she's going. But when a son returns home, does anyone dare ask where he is coming from? He might have been with the wrong people, doing wrong things. After all, a person raping is someone's son. Why don't parents apply the same yardstick of good behaviour for their sons as for their daughters?
Reproductive Freedom:
The doctor who became the poster child for late-term abortion.
Racial discrimination is alive and well in reproductive health care, among other places.
Anti-choice protesters being trained to track license plates of personnel and patients and clinics.
Media:
The mainstream media was all abuzz recently over "Women Against Feminism," a series of photos of women holding signs with anti-feminist messages (most some variation on "feminists hate men"). Tiffany Lamoreaux pulled out some anti-suffrage cartoons from the early 20th century. The message hasn't changed much.
Someone actually did a study to find that sexism and racism are rampant in music videos.
Uncategorizable:
Samantha Pugsley on the price of Purity Culture - even for the girls who do it manage to follow all the rules.
Updates to earlier story:
I posted earlier about Debra Harrell, the McDonald's employee who was arrested for letting her 9-year-old play alone in a park while Mom was at work. Harrell has gotten her job back, and she is suing a TV station which published personal information about her, including her home address and social security number. Meanwhile in Florida, another impoverished mother was arrested for leaving her four children, ages 6 though 8, at a park while she went to the food bank.
Good news:
France has passed a sweeping gender equity law, removing restrictions on abortion before the 12th week, promoting gender equity in the workplace, and promoting paternity leave.
13-year-old Mo'ne Davis became the first girl to pitch a shutout in the Little League World Series.
Maryam Mirzakhani became the first women to win the Fields Medal (mathematicians' equivalent of the Nobel).
After female soldiers sought help from the Congressional Black Caucus, all military branches except the Marines have backed down on hairstyle restrictions that banned common African-American hairstyles such as twists and dreadlocks. (The Marines will be releasing their own regulations.) They also agreed to remove offensive language from their manuals, including referring to such styles as "matted and unkempt."