2013 January Archive | Feministing

The Wednesday Weigh-In: Negotiating that pay raise edition

Feministing readers are pretty familiar with the wage gap. The short story is that women still earn 77 cents for every dollar a man makes, and are paid less even in the same job, working the same hours. While institutionalized sexism remains the key culprit for this travesty, it’s also true that women are both less likely to ask for and less likely to receive a salary increase, which doesn’t exactly help the situation.

The problem is self-perpetuating in that women face a kind of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation when it comes to asking for more money. Studies show that women seeking to negotiate their salaries face a (highly sexist) dilemma: They ...

Feministing readers are pretty familiar with the wage gap. The short story is that women still earn 77 cents for every dollar a man makes, and are paid less even in the same job, ...

By Lori Adelman • 11 years ago

Quick hit: Where are the domestic workers in immigration reform?

So you’ve heard that the Senate proposed a bipartisan plan to reform immigration laws on Monday which proposes pathways to citizenship — as well as an increase in border patrol. While the question of how same sex couples will be addressed under the law is still up in the air, Bryce Covert for The Nation points out that there’s another group that was excluded from the proposal’s fast tracked path to citizenship: domestic workers.

Covert writes that the language promising that farm workers who “have been performing very important and difficult work…while earning subsistence wages” and who play a role of “utmost importance in our nation” will earn a path to citizenship through a different process could easily ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 11 years ago

Daily Feminist Cheat Sheet

In case you are worried that little women can’t carry big men out of combat, here are some GIFs.

Enter a short film in the Female Condoms Are_______ Film Contest and win a cash prize!

Teenage Girl Blossoming Into Beautiful Object.

Please, anti-choicers, let’s keep Lilly Potter out of this.

Kiera Feldman looks at the long White Flight of American Jews moving to illegal settlements in “Israel” (Spoiler alert: they’re not within Israel’s legal borders.)

Marriage equality! It’s just like “legalizing male breastfeeding”!

Florida man accused of fraud for taking his wife’s… last name.

In case you are worried that little women can’t carry big men out of combat, here are some GIFs.

Enter a short film in the Female Condoms Are_______ Film Contest and win a cash prize!

Teenage ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 11 years ago

Arkansas introduces a “heartbeat bill” that would jail doctors for performing abortions after 6 weeks

Looks like Arkansas is the latest state to consider a so-called “heartbeat bill.”

Arkansas would ban abortions if a fetal heartbeat is detected under a bill introduced by a Republican senator Monday, a proposal that would prohibit the medical procedure as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

Sen. Jason Rapert filed legislation that would require a test to detect a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed. If one is detected, a woman could not have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest and if a mother’s life is in danger.

Doctors who performed abortions after the cut off would be punishable by up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

As we noted a couple years ago when

Looks like Arkansas is the latest state to consider a so-called “heartbeat bill.”

Arkansas would ban abortions if a fetal heartbeat is detected under a bill introduced by a Republican senator Monday, a proposal that would prohibit ...

By Katie Halper • 11 years ago

Obama to include same-sex couples in his immigration proposal

BuzzFeed is reporting that President Obama will include same-sex couples in the immigration reform proposal he will present today in Las Vegas. He is scheduled to deliver his speech, which you can watch live here, at 2:55.

According to BuzzFeed,

A Democratic source said: “Same-sex couples will be part of his proposal.” A second source confirmed that, unlike the Senate framework released Monday, same-sex bi-national couples — those with one American and one foreign partner — will be included in the White House principles.

Even when legally married under state law, LGBTQ American citizens are unable to confer citizenship on their spouses. Because foreign spouses are unable to receive green cards that heterosexual foreign spouses would be eligible for, LGBTQ bi-national couples are ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 11 years ago

Quote of the Day: “Look at the ass on her.”

Buried in a New York magazine profile of NYC mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn is this lovely story of current Mayor Bloomberg:

As it happens, I was at a Christmas party for the rich just a few weeks ago. It was at a townhouse in the East Sixties, just off Park Avenue, and several times over the course of the evening the subject of Quinn came up. Each person I spoke with expressed doubts about whether she’s tough enough and smart enough to run the city. Implied, or overtly stated, was that the Bloomberg years have been marvelous and she’s no Bloomberg. By which they meant, if I understood correctly, that’s she’s just another politician.

Later in the evening, the host interrupted ...

Buried in a New York magazine profile of NYC mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn is this lovely story of current Mayor Bloomberg:

As it happens, I was at a Christmas party for the rich just a few weeks ...

By Katie Halper • 11 years ago

British politician and “Absolutely Fabulous” star advise women not to wear short skirts to avoid rape

A Tory (British for Conservative) Member of Parliament from Gloucester basically advised women not to wear short skirts and high heels if they didn’t want to get raped on Friday. MP Richard Graham’s exact words were: “If you are a young woman on her own trying to walk back home through Gloucester Park, early in the morning in a tight, short skirt and high shoes and there’s a predator and if you are blind drunk and wearing those clothes how able are you to get away?”

Graham’s unsolicited advise comes on the heels of absolutely disturbing comments from Joanna Lumley, of Absolutely Fabulous fame:

“Don’t look like trash, don’t get drunk, don’t be sick down your front, don’t break your heels and stagger ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 11 years ago

Pro-choice on Amtrak: The time I told a group of anti-choice teenagers about my abortion

Ed. note: This is a guest post by feminist activist Michelle Kinsey Bruns, who tweets as @ClinicEscort. Read her full bio after the jump.

The recording on my iPhone begins with ten seconds of ambient mechanical noise: the sound of an Amtrak train crossing the Potomac River, as heard from an empty, rattling vestibule between two of its cars. Then comes the click-whoosh of a door opening to one of those cars, and the rising voices of excited teenagers, arranging their luggage and settling into the seats they have just claimed. Twenty-one seconds in, very close to the microphone, there is an audible swallow. At forty-four seconds, one voice rises over the chatter: “Excuse me, please…?”

That is my voice (and ...

Ed. note: This is a guest post by feminist activist Michelle Kinsey Bruns, who tweets as @ClinicEscort. Read her full bio after the jump.

The recording on my iPhone begins with ten seconds of ambient mechanical noise: ...