From the MSNBC website:
Elle Magazine exclusively shot the majority of the non-incumbent women newly-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives during their orientation week in DC, and Executive Editor Emma Rosenblum joins Morning Joe to discuss the project.
By Sher Watts Spooner / Daily Kos
Each December, Time magazine announces its Person of the Year. It’s the individual (or group) who, “for better or for worse,” as the magazine puts it, had the greatest influence on the events of the year. This year, it should be no contest. The greatest influence in America this year came from Democratic women.
Time has been choosing the year’s major person of influence since 1927, when aviator Charles Lindbergh graced the magazine’s cover for the first time. It was usually a Man of the Year (Wallis Simpson broke through in 1936 as the Woman of the Year because of her romance with British King Edward VIII, prompting his abdication). In 1999, the magazine realized it had better get with the times and designated the achievement as Person of the Year.
Displaying his typical (yet undeserved) over-the-top egotism, Donald Trump announced that “I can’t imagine” anyone other than himself as Time’s Person of the Year. Timeusually picks the winner of a presidential election as Person of the Year, so he got the call in 2016, as did Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and other presidents before him.
[Read more…]
Ana Tijoux was born in Lille, France in 1977, daughter of Chileans that had fled the 1973 Chilean coup of Pinochet. Her interest in rap, hip-hop and dance began in 1988, but she didn’t return to Chile until after 1973 when civil power was restored. This song is from her 2014 album Vengo and even though it’s in Spanish, I believe the sense of independence and autonomy will come through even for non-Spanish speakers. Equally as impressive is the evident diversity of her world. For me, it echoes the sensibilities of Edward Steichen’s The Family of Man.
Since lyrics can be difficult to discern, especially on a first listening, I’m including the lyrics after the video. [Read more…]
When conservatives scoff at the progressive slogan “The Future is Female,” they are usually responding to the insecurity that comes with knowing, deep down inside, you are in the wrong.
The strides that women, people of color, and the LGBT community have made in organizing around the 2018 midterm elections is staggering. It’s absolutely terrifying to the Right, and you are seeing desperate and craven attempts to bully and suppress the levels of democracy they’ve inspired.
In January of the last two years, beginning on Donald Trump’s inauguration day in 2017, Women’s Marches have taken over the streets across not just the United States, but the world. These marches were not simply a public protest of our current misogynist in chief; they were a call to organize and take back our government. [Read more…]
From the Vox YouTube website:
The 2018 midterms were historic for women candidates. A total of 273 candidates were on the ballot, representing both parties. But even with this influx of women, they’re still way underrepresented in the US government. And that underrepresentation has very real policy consequences.
One of the first new words the daughter of my friend learned at her elementary school was “actually.” In the first week of her school, she repeated “actually this and actually that,” proudly parading this new addition to her vocabulary. This 6-year-old was also testing the magic of the word “actually” her teacher used while talking to her students. She seemed to have discovered this adverb’s power to validate one’s claim and/or opinion by repudiating the authenticity of the opponent’s argument.
Anna Ziegler’s Actually uses this very word as its title to interrogate the political, gender, and racial dynamics revealed during the Title IX investigation and hearing of a sexual misconduct case at a college campus. [Read more…]
From the MTVDecode web page:
Is your school’s dress code sexist? While showing up to school naked might be everyone’s worst nightmare, being shamed and punished for wearing a skirt that is slightly too short or spaghetti straps that are little too thin is a real problem students (and female students in particular) face everyday.
I keep thinking of Christine,
her story of a man
cupping his hand
over her mouth
so she couldn’t scream
and expose his scheme
to forcefully
have his way with her
like so many men have done
for eons
in human history.
And for decades she didn’t scream,
except for those
inaudible screams that echo in
those dark places inside
human beings
where we try to hide
pain that’s hard to confront, [Read more…]
By Julia Conley / Common Dreams
Two days after apologizing to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh “on behalf of our nation” for subjecting him to one Senate hearing and a brief FBI probe into several sexual assault allegations against him before allowing him to be confirmed to his lifetime appointment, President Donald Trump clearly dropped the pretense of defending “due process” as he laughed along as audience members chanted “Lock her up!” after he criticized Sen. Dianne Feinstein in Iowa on Tuesday night.
At Trump’s suggestion during a campaign-style rally in Council Bluffs that Feinstein leaked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s letter regarding her allegations to the press, the audience erupted in the chant as the president smirked and seemed to enjoy the moment. [Read more…]
From the Atlantic website:
In America today, women are angry. But this isn’t a modern phenomenon, argues the author Rebecca Traister. In her new book, “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger,” Traister details how female rage has long been the country’s political fuel. She expounded on this idea at Aspen Ideas Festival in June, where, in a video interview, she discussed how the fury of American women—from the suffragists to the abolitionists to Rosa Parks—has catalyzed major political movements.
[h/t to AGD] [Read more…]
Is it really a scary time for young men and boys? [h/t to Annie L.] [Read more…]
By Jill Richardson / OtherWords
When we discuss sexual assault, we often talk about women. What should women do to stay safe?
When I was in school, girls were even trained in women’s self-defense. I don’t know what the boys did during those time periods. Study hall?
Ask any woman what she does to prevent sexual assault and she’ll have an answer. She uses the buddy system when walking at night, or she carries pepper spray, or she doesn’t leave her drink unattended when she’s out, and so on. [Read more…]
