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feminism

Well, yes.

» Menstruation questions outrage professional females in India(1) Comments  / [ 04/11/07 ]

Go grrrl news: Nkeonye Okafor rocks my world

» I have a new hero: Nkeonye Okafor, 205-pound offensive lineman for the Houston, Texas-area Bellaire Cardinals. "At first, I was kind of hesitant to hit her. I thought it was a joke, but she's been out here with us all summer, and she works just as hard as everyone one else — so why not?" Kenard Ihaza, one of Okafor's teammates. (via rc3oi [ 10/10/06 ]

The Stained Glass Ceiling

» The Stained Glass Ceiling. "People have written me in almost every church I have been in except the current one, and said, 'Timothy says women can’t preach, so how can you?'" The Rev. Dottie Escobedo-Frank, pastor of Crossroads United Methodist Church in Phoenix.  [ 09/04/06 ]

Home Depot and CVS offering dual-residence jobs to retirees

» Retired, and Rehired to Sell. Home Depot and CVS are accomodating the ultimate in flextime for some retirees: summers in their home city, and winters in Florida. Why are they doing it? Because these folks would simply stop working if the company didn't accomodate them. "If we were not able to retain, train and hire and keep older people, we wouldn't have a business. The younger folks, there's just less of them. We need those older people to stay in the workforce, and people are living longer, healthier lives." Stephen M. Wing, director of government programs with CVS.

I can't help comparing this to the family benefits most employers offer to their employees who are responsible for family care (read: women), ie, very few. It was such a struggle for women to enter the workforce years ago that they really couldn't demand anything the men weren't already getting. And now it's such an economic necessity that they still don't have the leverage these retirees, many of whom don't strictly need the jobs, have. (2) Comments  / [ 08/01/06 ]

Feminism and Career

» For those who were intrigued by yesterday's interview with Stanford professor Ben Barres on gender in the sciences, this month's Carnival of Feminists theme is Feminism and Career [ 07/20/06 ]

Barres: Does gender matter in the sciences?

» NYT: Fascinating interview with Ben A. Barres, professor of neurobiology at Stanford. He started life as Barbara, and he has a unique perspective on sexism in the sciences.

Q. When you were a woman did you experience bias?
A. An M.I.T. professor accused me of cheating on this test. I was the only one in the class who solved a particular problem, and he said my boyfriend must have solved it for me. One, I did not have a boyfriend. And two, I solved it myself, goddamn it! But it did not occur to me to think of sexism. I was just indignant that I would be accused of cheating.
Then later I was in a prestigious competition. I was doing my Ph.D. at Harvard, which would nominate one person. It came down to me and one other graduate student, and a dean pulled me aside and said, “I have read both applications, and it’s going to be you; your application is so much better.” Not only did I not win, the guy got it, but he dropped out of science a year later.
But even then I did not think of sexism.

  [ 07/19/06 ]

New Study: 'Boy crisis' greatly overstated

» A new study finds that widespread reports of U.S. boys being in crisis are greatly overstated, and may "derive from inadequate research, sloppy analysis and discomfort with the fact that although the average boy is doing better, the average girl has gotten ahead of him".   [ 06/27/06 ]

The Paradox of the Perfect Girl

» Alternet: Paradox of the Perfect Girl. "Despite all the buzz about the trouble with boys...I think they have a few things figured out in terms of self-preservation. In my experience, young guys are pretty good at saying no. They are also better at taking risks, resisting gratuitous guilt and excessive caretaking, and brushing off imperfections."  [ 05/31/06 ]

Snarky book review of Mommy Wars

» Don't miss this hilarious review of Mommy Wars: Stay-At-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families: Rhymes with Rich.

OK, let's slow down for a minute and unpack this description of Everymother before, with iced mochaccino latte in hand, we hurriedly whisk on. There are, in fact, great varieties of American mothers left out of Steiner's anthology. They're women for whom work is not a "lifestyle choice" but a necessity—a financial one, gauchely enough, and not an emotional one. Why do they work? To keep the electricity on.

  [ 05/26/06 ]

Moroccon female preachers designed to stem extremism

» Morocco has just graduated its first team of women preachers to be deployed as a vanguard in its fight against any slide towards Islamic extremism. [ 05/23/06 ]

The monetary value of mothering

» What's the real value of being a mom? $85,876 for working moms, and $134,121 for stay-at-homes.  [ 05/04/06 ]

What is the price of female equality?

» A Little Weekend Reading: Working Girls, Broken Society is a terrible title for a really smart article . "While the benefits of career equality are axiomatic, its negative repercussions are wilfully ignored. In a contentious essay that is sparking fierce debate in Britain, a King's College professor argues that we must confront the losses to society when women choose work over family."

Politicians, journalists and businessmen often emphasize the negative economic consequences of any barriers to female participation in the workforce, and of losing half the country's best brains to the kitchen sink. Of course they are right, and I am in no hurry to go back there myself.
But it is striking how little anyone mentions, let alone tries to quantify, the offsetting losses when women choose work over family. This is stupid.

(via dm(8) Comments  / [ 04/14/06 ]

Women to Africa: Thanks, we can do it ourselves

» Newsweek has a tremendous article on the challenges facing Africa, and the courageous women who are entering public service, determined to repair decades of corruption. "If I left after the shooting, I'd look like a coward. I told my family, 'Let me strive to complete my five years'." Dora Akunyili head of Nigeria's National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control on why she kept her post after an assassination attempt by the counterfeit drug cartel she was trying to shut down.  [ 03/29/06 ]

Argentine women fight for equitable surnames

» Argentine women to government: We want to be with our husbands, not owned by them [ 03/13/06 ]

Parental Notification may modify behavior when there are no alternatives

» Contradicting the NYTimes study, researchers at Baruch College at City University of New York have found that abortion rates declined significantly among Texas girls after the state enacted a parental notification law, though girls 17 1/2 or slightly older were 33% more likely to have an abortion in the second trimester in order to escape the notification requirement. "[Lead researcher Ted Joyce] said [the NYTimes] analysis had a different outcome because it included two states with tiny populations, one state where the law was overturned, and two states near areas where abortion is easily accessible without parental involvement."  [ 03/10/06 ]

A New Golden Age of British Women's Literature

» On the Orange Prize long-list. Why is women's literature finally thriving in Great Britain? Superior writers who deliver strong sales, more women editors willing to give them a go, and the the market for literary fiction — which is overwhelmingly female. "The health of fiction is when you get variety and I don't think I've ever seen a more various field for fiction, whether gender neutral or gender specific. The pasture is blooming." John Sutherland, last year's Man Booker Prize chairman. (via rw [ 03/08/06 ]

Ellen, she's our man

» Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been sworn in as Africa's first elected female head of state.   [ 01/17/06 ]



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