Friday Feminism – Good Cop/Bad Cop, LGBTQ, War On The Poor

Lead Story

The ASPCA’s (and the country’s) first horse ambulance, 1895. Via Ephemeral New York

♀ April 10, 1866: The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Is Founded – The Nation reminds us of a proud anniversary today.

Abortion & Reproductive Rights

♀ Rand Paul And The Nasty Campaign To Turn Pro-Choice Women Into Monsters – The usual dirty tactics from the right.

♀ KANSAS BECOMES FIRST STATE TO BAN THE SAFEST SECOND-TRIMESTER ABORTION PROCEDURE

Huh, how very curious that the law doesn’t use medical terminology to describe what, exactly, it’s banning, instead opting to make up a term called “dismemberment abortion.” We’ve seen this exact strategy before the last time the anti-choice movement successfully got an abortion technique outlawed: so-called “partial-birth abortion.” Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, claims, “This law has the power to transform the landscape of abortion policy in the United States.” But it’s pretty clear that one of the main goals is to transform the language — by using the most gruesome, emotionally charged terminology possible.

♀ Texas Bill Would Name Judges Who Give Minors Permission to Have Abortions – In alignment with the Texas policy of government by intimidation.

Animals & the Environment (NEW Section Title!!)

Via GrindTV

♀ Black flamingo spotted in Cyprus is a rare sighting

♀ Watch This Guy’s Brilliant Anti-fraking Demo

♀ Report: Silence and denial surround Oklahoma’s “frackquake” problem

♀ Florida Tea Party Hires Actors To ‘Play’ Protesters Opposing Everglade Restoration (VIDEO) – Maybe this is why they consider themselves job creators.

♀ First Florida, Now Another State Bans Discussion Of Climate Change – The GOP, destroying the environment one state at a time.

Culture & Pop Culture

♀ NFL Hires First Female Full-Time Official

♀ Keira Knightley Opens Up About Feminism in the New Issue of “Violet”

♀ Trailer for the new film about Amy Winehouse

Click here to view the embedded video.

Education (NEW Section!!)

♀ Chicago’s Chuy Garcia Has a Vision: Progressive Mayors Fighting for Public Education

♀ Four Charts with What Everyone Should Know About the Student Debt Crisis

♀ Terry Eagleton’s “The Slow Death of the University”

From Cape Town to Reykjavik, Sydney to São Paulo, an event as momentous in its own way as the Cuban revolution or the invasion of Iraq is steadily under way: the slow death of the university as a center of humane critique.

♀ Do You Really Think This Is Education?

I’ve discussed before the stress that high-stakes testing causes young children (because it’s never too early to teach kids to hate learning). But this NY Times article about Success Academy, headed by Eva Moskowitz, is something else. While the horror that is Success Academy won’t be new to long time readers, this is the reality of education reform (boldface mine):

In an internal email that some former teachers said typified the attitude at some schools, one school leader said that students who were lagging should be made to feel “misery.” Suspension rates at Success schools, compared with public schools, are higher.

Former staff members described students in third grade and above wetting themselves during practice tests, either because teachers did not allow them to go to the restroom, which Ms. Moskowitz disputed, or because the students themselves felt so much pressure that they did not want to lose time on the test.

♀ America is criminalizing Black teachers: Atlanta’s cheating scandal and the racist underbelly of education reform

Feminist Spotlight (NEW Section!!)

♀ Repurposing dolls to give young girls a more positive image.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Fucktards

♀ Geraldo: Dashcam Video Should Clear S.C. Cop Of Murder Charge (VIDEO) – I like Geraldo. Maybe that’s why he’s never failed to disappoint me.

Gender Equality (or Equal Rights)

♀ Bye Bye, Andrew Jackson: Which Of These Four Women Should Go On Our $20 Bill? (VIDEO)

♀ Women Are Poorer Than Men in Every State

♀ Senator Charles Schumer Wants to End the Pay Gap Between Men and Women – Good luck, Chuck. It would be nice.

Good Cop (☺)/Bad Cop (☠) (NEW Section Title!!)

(Most cops aren’t bad. Its just my job to point out the ones that are.)

♀ (☠) Serial Thug Cop Beat A Man With Down Syndrome, Said He’d Do It Again – Beat Another Man (VIDEO)

♀ (☠) Teen Boy Dead After Police Back Him Off 6 Story Ledge for a Marijuana Arrest

♀ (☠) From St. Louis To LA: Ten Cases Of Cops Caught Planting Evidence (VIDEOS)

♀ (☠) Witnesses: Police Let K-9 Maul Handcuffed Unconscious Man’s Face as They Beat Him to Death

♀ (☠) The murder of Walter Scott – more – The Jig Is Up So High It Just Exited The Solar System – and more – White Police Officer Is South Carolina’s Third Charged in Past Year for Killing an Unarmed Black Man

♀ (☠) Police in the US Kill Citizens at Over 70 Times the Rate of Other First-World Nations

Luke Watson dyed his hair pink to fight against bullying in schools. (Photo: Luke Watson).

♀ (☺) Toronto Police Officer Dyes Hair Pink to Fight Bullying and Homophobia

Gun Violence

♀ A gun lover sees the evils of gun culture: White supremacists, Obama haters, and me

♀ Dem Bill Would Give Gun Owners $2,000 Tax Credit For Turning In Assault Weapons (VIDEO) – Nice idea, but I can see two problems. First, with the number of weapons we’re overrun with this could get very expensive very fast. Second, the worst hard cases, the ones causing most of the problems, aren’t likely to give up their penis substitutes for anything.

♀ New Harvard Research Debunks the NRA’s Favorite Talking Points – But, then, the NRA has a tendency to debunk themselves - In Michigan, we have to let gun lovers tote guns in schools but the national NRA convention is a gun-free zone – or maybe it’s just common hypocrisy – The NRA’s open-carry clustermuck: How its annual convention highlights the hypocrisy of the pro-gun movement.

♀ 17 States Where You’re More Likely To Die From Guns Than Car Crashes – How can that be? Maybe this type of thing – App Lets Gun Enthusiasts Track Down Gun Control Advocates’ Home Addresses – or this type of thing – Republican Who Wants Guns in Parks and Playgrounds: They’re Just Like Bicycles! – has something to do with it.

LGBTQ

♀ Feds Say Georgia’s Treatment of Transgender Prisoners Is Unconstitutional

♀ Anti-Bias Ordinance Falls in Springfield, Missouri, After Push by Christian Conservatives

♀ Wrong, so very wrong. –

So to me this whole line of argument is a distraction–and one we settled with the CRA–there are very good reasons, even overriding reasons, not to permit private businesses to create “no go” areas for our citizens or visitors to our country. Its bad for the community, its bad for business (as a whole), its bad for travellers, and its bad because it creates a segregated world in which bigots don’t have to acknowledge the basic humanity of their fellow citizens.

♀ Scrubs stars offer to make pizza for Indiana same-sex weddings

♀ Obama Calls for End to ‘Conversion’ Therapies for Gay and Transgender Youth – and he’s not alone – Where the States Stand in the Fight to Ban Gay Conversion Therapy

♀ Ted Cruz Wants To Strip The Supreme Court Of Power On Gay Marriage Cases – Honestly, the man has no idea of how our system works, Or of anything else, for that matter.

♀ Taxpayer-Funded School Fires Teacher For Being Gay, Citing “Awesome God” As Inspiration

♀ GAY GUY CALLS WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH

Click here to view the embedded video.

♀ This Company Turns Homophobic Leaflets Into Confetti For Gay Marriage (IMAGE/VIDEO)

Misogyny

♀ Tucker Carlson is still a misogynist pig: Conservative talking head has had it with “this chick” targeted by his brother

Racism

♀ Georgia teacher tells students their parents aren’t Christians if they voted for Obama – You can try to disguise it with all the dogmatic bull you want. It’s still plain old fashioned racism.

♀ Georgia Judge Facing Investigation For Calling A Witness ‘N*gger’ In Court – Is Georgia trying to out-crazy Texas? Discuss.

♀ 5 images about being black in America shared after Walter Scott shooting

♀ This Southern White ‘Honkey’ NAILS Racism And White Supremacy (VIDEO)

Sexual Assault & Rape Culture

♀ It wasn’t Jackie’s job to get the details of her rape correct. It was Rolling Stone’s

Rolling Stone’s claim that their mistakes all came out of concern for a young rape victim are irresponsible: in the midst of an all-out backlash against so-called PC culture and anti-rape activism, they shirked their real responsibility both to Jackie and to all the victims of sexual assault, and it will have a resounding impact on those working to end sexual violence.

♀ Upon Further Review: Inside the Police Failure to Stop Darren Sharper’s Rape Spree

♀ Outsiders have been raping Native American women with ‘impunity’ — but legal loophole may finally close

Sexism

The Sonoma Raceway Boys (click to enlarge. It’s worth it.)
Via Jalopnik

♀ Hilarious Quest To Rid The World Of ‘Sexist Grid Girls’ Continues

Updates

♀ Arkansas Governor Signs Bill Ensuring Slimy Rep. Justin Harris Will Never Regift Another Child

♀ Cop’s Defense For Standing On Hood Of Car And Shooting Two People To Death: I Don’t Remember – Seriously? I’d expect this “defense” from a four year old, not a trained police officer.

Violence Against Women

♀ How Much Does Domestic Abuse Cost Its Survivors?

War On The Poor (NEW Section!!)

♀ Jon Stewart Rips Welfare State Kansas A New One For Punishing The Poor (VIDEO)

♀ Larry Wilmore Slams Kansas And Missouri Republicans For Attacking The Poor (VIDEO)

♀ Chris Hayes skewers Kansas State Senator over welfare shaming bill

♀ Here’s How Terrible McDonald’s Wages Are Even After Its Pay Increase Stunt

♀ 7 remarkably cruel instances of class warfare in America – I’ve covered most of these at one time or another, but looking at them all together really brings home the point. Number seven is particularly reprehensible.

War On Women

♀ Meanwhile, in Indiana

So what does Patel’s case have to do with the way the Indiana Restoration of Religious Freedom Act defines “a person” and the rights which go with that?

I’m not quite sure. But it looks to me that when we keep stretching the concept of what a person is to cover fetuses and corporations that stretching causes a tension in the concept itself, ultimately creating rifts which leave some already-born and living human beings with less personhood than others, vulnerable to being sentenced on circumstancial evidence or to being refused basic economic services and common courtesy.

Women In History

♀ Here’s How I Found One Woman Missing from History

♀ Pauline Frederick Paved Way for Female Journalists

♀ Let’s celebrate Leonora Carrington’s extraordinary life, as well as her paintings

Women In Politics

♀ Tammy Duckworth Could Become the Senate’s Second Female Combat Veteran

♀ Sources: Hillary Clinton To Announce Sunday – Are you surprised? I’m Surprised. Well, no, not really.

♀ On-target ad, but let’s face it, for good or ill, we’re stuck with Hillary.

Click here to view the embedded video.

♀ How Elizabeth Warren Made Expanding Social Security Cool

♀ Elizabeth Warren to Jon Stewart: Every law protects ‘the tender fannies of the rich and powerful’

Women’s Health & Image