Tag Archive for "Law"

Posts Tagged Law

Friday Feminist Fuck Yeah: A note of thanks to my fellow Texans

Ed note: This is a guest post by Jessica Luther. Jessica Luther is a freelance writer, reproductive justice activist, historian, and proud Texan. She is on Twitter at @scATX and her main site is jessicawluther.com. To my fellow Texans: Living as a progressive in Texas can be hard. Often you feel outnumbered, silenced, and underrepresented. I have believed for a long time that Texas has the potential to change its political makeup, that all we needed was some kind of spark to light the fire of change. What happened over the last week, as hundreds and then thousands of Texans showed up in person to protest incredibly restrictive anti-choice and anti-access abortion bills, that was the most beautiful spark I’ve ever seen. By ...

By Lori Adelman • 10 years ago

Thank You Thursdays: The Supreme Court strikes down harmful anti-prostitution pledge

For years, the United States has endorsed an explicitly discriminatory policy against sex workers. PEPFAR, our international HIV/AIDS aid policy, contains an anti-prostitution pledge requirement stating that no funds “may be used to provide assistance to any group or organization that does not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.” In practice, this means that life-saving materials like condoms, contraceptives, and even information about sex and sexuality can’t legally be distributed to sex workers by any international agencies that accept US funding. Domestic agencies have to make no such pledge, although prostitution is obviously not legal in most of the US.

This, despite the fact that female sex workers are the ones who could most benefit from ...

By Lori Adelman • 11 years ago

Friday Roundup: How the sequester cuts will affect women, access to reproductive health

There’s not much to say about the sequester that hasn’t already been said (except, maybe, “Don’t ask me, I’m no sequexpert.” Ok, now that’s taken care of.) But hey, I’m just a blogger on a Friday afternoon trying to meet you where you’re at. And where you’re at is in sequester hell, whether you know it or not, if lots of Washington Post and Politico bloggers are to be believed. If you’re wondering what, exactly, I’m referring to when I talk about the sequester, well then we’ve come to the part of the post where you pick your sequester breakdown:

Here’s a sequester breakdown in cute animal images.

Here’s a sequester breakdown in GIFs (a “gifquester”)

Here’s a ...

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 Lori Adelman • 11 years ago

Quick Hit: Victims of revenge porn mount class-action lawsuit against Go Daddy and Texxxan.com

Last week, several women joined a class action lawsuit with the hopes of taking down a prominent revenge porn website. BetaBeat has the scoop:

“Considering the numerous repercussions that keep many victims silent, Ms. Toups’ [one of the members of the class action lawsuit] decision to join the lawsuit under her real name is brave. Many revenge porn victims–including Sarah–are forced to remain anonymous or else face the wrath of vengeful exes who find renewed motivation to post their pictures on porn websites. Because of the intimate nature of the photos, many women are also embarrassed to publicly admit that they were victims, and others are afraid of cyberbullying from the passionate fandoms revenge porn proprietors attract.”

This is a BFD ...

Last week, several women joined a class action lawsuit with the hopes of taking down a prominent revenge porn website. BetaBeat has the scoop:

“Considering the numerous repercussions that keep many victims silent, Ms. Toups’ ...

By Alexandra Brodsky • 11 years ago

Friday Feminist Fuck Yeah: Alice Nkom is Woman of the Year

While TIME did pick some pretty awesome ladies for their Person of the Year shortlist, it’s astounding that the magazine hasn’t chosen an individual woman for the grand title since the selection of President Corazon Aquino of the Phillipines in 1986. So Africa is a Country, “the media blog that is not about famine, Bono, or Barack Obama,” has gone ahead and named Alice Nkom the 2012 Woman of the Year. What an inspiring pick. AIAC writes:

Alice Nkom was the first woman to become a lawyer in Cameroon. That was in 1969, and she was 24 years old, and she’s been kicking through ever since. Over the last four decades, Nkom has been a ...

By Samhita • 11 years ago

Nikki Haley’s funding cuts to sexual assault and DV programs overturned

Last week, Nikki Haley got overzealous with her desire for Tea Party style cuts to the South Carolina budget. While, we all want to save money, she was shortsighted in the kinds of services she was cutting including almost half a million dollars of cuts to domestic violence crisis management and sexual assault prevention services in the state. Well, the South Carolina legislature disagreed with her vetoes of the budget and overturned them in a vote of 111-0.

via Columbia Free Times,

During the process, held July 17 in the House and July 18 in the Senate, Haley took to Facebook and live-posted the unfolding events. After lawmakers overrode her veto of funding that would go to victims of ...

Last week, Nikki Haley got overzealous with her desire for Tea Party style cuts to the South Carolina budget. While, we all want to save money, she was shortsighted in the kinds of services she ...

By zerlina • 11 years ago

Teen rape survivor tweets names of rapists, could have faced jail time

A 17-year-old rape survivor in Kentucky was facing jail time after tweeting the names of her rapists, but after her story went viral yesterday the District Attorney decided not to pursue charges which would have carried a punishment of a maximum of 180 days in jail and a $500 fine.

After a plea deal was struck with her rapists, Savannah Dietrich disappointed and angered by the lenient punishment, tweeted,

“There you go, lock me up,” before tweeting their names, “I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell…They said I can’t talk about it or I’ll be locked up. So I’m waiting for them to read this and lock me up. F**k justice. Protect rapist is more important ...