By Jos Truitt • 14 years ago

Sports fans to get free condoms at Euro 2012

Can you imagine if the US government gave out free condoms at the Super Bowl? That’s basically the equivalent of what will happen in Poland next month, when the country is one of the hosts of Euro 2012, Europe’s annual football tournament held every four years (that’s soccer to all us ignorant Americans). The tournament runs from June 8 to July 1 in Poland and the Ukraine

The National AIDS Centre will distribute 150,000 condoms and information about safe sex to people attending Euro 2012 events in all four host cities in Poland. The leaflets will be printed in six different languages. The campaign uses the slogan, “I play fair, I use a condom.”

I love the idea of associating safe sex with ...

Can you imagine if the US government gave out free condoms at the Super Bowl? That’s basically the equivalent of what will happen in Poland next month, when the country is one of the hosts of ...
By Katie Halper • 14 years ago

43 Catholic organizations sue Obama over contraception

What would Jesus do? Forget about protecting the meek, turning the other cheek, feeding the hungry and clothing the poor–he’d get himself a good lawyer! The University of Notre Dame, the Archdioceses of Washington, New York and Michigan, and the Catholic University of America are among the 43 Catholic organizations suing the Obama administration over regulations requiring most employers to provide birth control coverage as part of their employee health plans. Check out by Kaili Joy Gray‘s take over at Daily Kos:

The bishops had their chance to weigh in on the Obama administration’s new policy to require health insurers to cover birth control without co-pays. The Obama administration generously carved out a boatload of exemptions for ...

What would Jesus do? Forget about protecting the meek, turning the other cheek, feeding the hungry and clothing the poor–he’d get himself a good lawyer! The University of Notre Dame, the Archdioceses of Washington, New York ...
By Katie Halper • 14 years ago

Support the death penalty? Then you support executing the innocent

I am vehemently, philosophically opposed to the death penalty. Even if our criminal justice system were not racist, classist, and unfair, I’d be against the death penalty. Even if we somehow had a way to ensure that we only executed people we knew were guilty, I’d be against it.

But I respect the position of people who are for the death penalty in theory, but realize that the way it is implemented calls for, at least, a moratorium on capital punishment. Today, it is impossible to support the death penalty in the United States without tacitly supporting the execution of innocent people. You can try to defend the death penalty and convince yourself that it doesn’t kill innocent people, but you ...

I am vehemently, philosophically opposed to the death penalty. Even if our criminal justice system were not racist, classist, and unfair, I’d be against the death penalty. Even if we somehow had a way to ensure that ...
By Katie Halper • 14 years ago

Happy Harvey Milk (teen predator) Day!

Happy Birthday Harvey Milk! Today you would have turned 82. But your life was cut short when you were shot to death at the young age of 48, a year after being elected (as the first openly gay person) to California’s Board of Supervisors.

Harvey Milk is often considered an LBTQ rights activist, which he was. But he was an activist who saw the connections among the struggles of all disenfranchised people. In 2009, President Obama awarded Milk a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, which his openly gay nephew, Stuart Milk, accepted. That same year, Stuart and Harvey Milk campaign manager Anne Kronenberg co-founded the Harvey Milk Foundation, with the support of Desmond Tutu.  The Foundation established Harvey Milk Day, ...

Happy Birthday Harvey Milk! Today you would have turned 82. But your life was cut short when you were shot to death at the young age of 48, a year after being elected (as the first ...
By Gwendolyn Beetham • 14 years ago

The Academic Feminist Goes Global: A Conversation with Carolyn Pedwell

In this month’s column, our travels in academic feminism take us to the UK for a conversation with Carolyn Pedwell, a Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Newcastle University. The conversation explores how a transnational approach to feminist theory can uncover erasures of women’s experiences, and asks what happens when the current culture of commodification puts a price on everything – including empathy.

1)   You are the first “Academic Feminist”  located in the UK, which is also my academic home. You are also originally from this side of the Atlantic (born in Canada), and have recently published a chapter in a book on travels in feminist theory.  How has your transatlantic experience influenced your work?

Crossing borders and boundaries ...

In this month’s column, our travels in academic feminism take us to the UK for a conversation with Carolyn Pedwell, a Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Newcastle University. The conversation explores how a

By Maya Dusenbery • 14 years ago

Quick Hit: Can a lawsuit bring some racial diversity to The Bachelor and The Bachelorette?

Jennifer Pozner has an interesting piece up at the Daily Beast on the class-action racial discrimination suit against The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.

That calculus has governed casting on The Bachelor since its 2002 debut on ABC. Ten years, one spinoff (The Bachelorette), and 24 seasons later, every star of TV’s oldest reality romance franchise has been white. So were 22 of the 25 hopefuls on The Bachelorette’s Season 8 premiere last week. With that history, it came as no surprise that we heard almost no dialogue from the lone black contestant, Lerone, or that Southern blonde Emily Maynard sent him packing at the end of the episode. (On Twitter, one viewer suggested a #MenOfColorCountdown to see how long the ...

Jennifer Pozner has an interesting piece up at the Daily Beast on the class-action racial discrimination suit against The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.

That calculus has governed casting on The Bachelor since its 2002 debut on ABC. ...
By Maya Dusenbery • 14 years ago

What We Missed


Can’t lose, Mr. President. Can’t lose.

Men are increasingly entering traditionally women-dominated professions. As one male dental assistant says, “The way I look at it is that anything, basically, that a woman can do, a guy can do.”

Good point from Jamelle Bouie: For women, social issues are economic issues.

Missouri passed a bill allowing employers or health insurance providers to deny coverage for birth control or abortion if it violates their moral convictions.

So awesome: Melissa Harris-Perry talks to a panel of actual young women about feminism today and if 2012 might be the year of the young woman.

Women farmworkers refer to the fields in California as “fil de calzon” or the fields of panties because ...


Can’t lose, Mr. President. Can’t lose.

Men are increasingly entering traditionally women-dominated professions. As one male dental assistant says, “The way I look at it is that anything, basically, that a woman can do, a ...

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