Last night, a man was shot in the streets of New York in a hate crime marked by homophobic slurs. Bigotry kills.
A survivor argues that military sexual trauma should be treated as as national security issue.
Radio host Pete Santilli says Hilary Clinton needs to be “shot in the vagina.”
A proposed law to protect Afghan women was blocked by opponents.
This guy wants the government to pay women to date him.
On not being a “good” trans woman.
The Pentagon has established a process for trans vets to choose the gender listed in their records.
The annotated wisdom of Amy Poehler.
Is Suzanne Venker advocating for marital rape?
Radical transgenderism in rural Tennessee.
Wahhhhhh stop silencing the menz with all your talk of privilege.
The Rise of Beyonce, the fall of Lauryn Hill.
A Texas judge has ordered a lesbian couple to move apart or lose custody of their children.
On the utopianism of basic income.
Are portrayals of rape on TV ever not sexist?
Check out a screening of Free Angela near you.
“Dating is like wearing a hat, available only through irony.”
We failed the other Cleveland survivor.
I’m sorry, but you just can’t pretend American Apparel isn’t sexist.
Did you know abortions cause school shootings? Neither did we!
We need the new health care law.
Why do we care if people know how much we weigh?
Girls in private schools are now allowed to play sports in Saudi Arabia.
This is “why it’s considered more dishonorable to report a rape, than to rape a fellow soldier.”
Campus mental health requires a strong community.
Katie broke down the five worst things said this week.
There’s a lot going on behind the word “slut.”
Battling censorship behind bars.
What have you been reading/writing/watching/listening to this week?
How you can support the domestic workers movement
Domestic work is gendered and waaay undervalued. This we know. We know this because it’s been established over and over again on feminist blogs and in academia. But more importantly we know this because so many of us have seen it happen before our very eyes. We’ve watched our mothers cook and clean each day after working at her full time job, while Dad watches TV. We’ve seen this happen to our sisters, our friends, maybe it’s even happened to you. So many women aren’t properly compensated for that “second shift” they take on, and this extends to women who do domestic work professionally.
The profile of the average domestic worker tends to be a low-income, migrant woman of color. This holds true in the U.S. and throughout most of Latin America. These women often work in homes taking care of children, cleaning, or cooking. Within this private sphere, they work under harsh conditions and are vulnerable to exploitation and mistreatment. The nature of domestic work can make organizing difficult, as these women are often stuck within a home and fear losing their job if they speak out. In spite of this, domestic workers movements around the world have been making huge gains in the past few years.
One of the best examples of this is the International Labor Organization Convention 189 which was adopted in 2011 to guarantee decent pay and working conditions for domestic workers. Since then, only six countries have ratified the convention (including Bolivia, Nicaragua, the Phillipines, Maritius, Italy and Uruguay), but many more have taken steps to support domestic workers, particularly in Latin America, which at 20 million has one of the world’s largest populations of domestic workers.
For example, this March, Argentina passed a law requiring that domestic workers be given maternity leave, paid holidays and a maximum 48-hour work week. The month after, Brazil implemented a constitutional amendment that recognizes domestic workers as the same as any other informal worker, guaranteeing them a 44-hour work week, overtime pay and an 8-hour work day. The Mexican government is discussing following Brazil’s example and is expected to ratify the ILO convention in June of this year. Mexico will be joining Nicaragua, Bolivia and Uruguay, where women-dominated movements made up of workers and employers have pushed their governments for regulation.
Domestic workers in the U.S. face similar problems as those in Latin America. In a report conducted by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, researchers found that half of the domestic workers surveyed were paid less than is necessary to support a family. However, few spoke out for fear of losing their job, or having their immigration status used against them. Read More »