Creme de la Femme

Mississippi, jailing women for stillbirths.

Yes, this shit is true.

Not that I’m surprised or anything…they did just ratify the 13th amendment this February…but hell, now the state might soon be able to jail women for stillbirths. 

Yes. Mississippi might be able to JAIL a woman for unintentionally giving birth to stillbirths. 

From Mother Jones: 

“On March 14, 2009, 31 weeks into her pregnancy, Nina Buckhalter gave birth to a stillborn baby girl. She named the child Hayley Jade. Two months later, a grand jury in Lamar County, Mississippi, indicted Buckhalter for manslaughter, claiming that the then-29-year-old woman “did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, kill Hayley Jade Buckhalter, a human being, by culpable negligence.”

The district attorney argued that methamphetamine detected in Buckhalter’s system caused Hayley Jade’s death. The state Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on the case on April 2, is expected to rule soon on whether the prosecution can move forward.”

If a woman can legally terminate an unwanted pregnancy, how can she be jailed for unintentionally ending a wanted one?

My mind is till fucking reeling from this. 

Read the full article here.

 

Why do women still make less money than men?

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, so level the wage gap between men and women, (women earning only 59 cents to a man’s dollar).

43 years later, women earn 77 cents to a man’s dollar.

Well…I don’t really f&*^%ing know why we still earn less than men. But you can do something about it here.

Info via Marie Claire magazine.

Safety for female sex workers

21-year-old Isabel Chen is brilliant. When a female sex worker in Vancouver, British Columbia was kidnapped, then dragged through the streets by a van, Chen decided sex workers needed tools to protect themselves. 

Fact: Female sex workers are 51 times more likely to be murdered on the job than other women. 

Chen, who has her master’s in public health from Yale University, along with Kyle Bagins, a Yale med student, and Vanessa Forro, a sex worker advocate, developed Keep Safe, a panic button for sex workers. 

Keep Safe, is a device, like a watch or pager, that allows users to call for help with the press of a button. When activated it sends a signal to preset numbers, and pinpoints their location on a Google map. 

The developers are currently raising funds for a six-month pilot program. To donate, visit: keepsafebutton.org. 

Yoani Sánchez: Blogger vs. Dictator

Heard of Yoani Sánchez? Well she’s the best-known dissident blogger from Cuba.

37-year-old Sánchez started blogging about life in the dictatorship-ruled country in 2004. Her blog, Generation Y, sky-rocketed to millions of readers around the world, eager to learn about the ‘real’ Cuba. 

Sánchez is currently on an 80-day, multi-nation tour that began last month. Traveling was finally made possible when Cuban President Raul Castro eliminated restrictions that barred ordinary Cubans from traveling.

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S.T.O.P. Sexual Assault in the Military

More than a half million veterans in the U.S., female and male, are survivors of sexual assault. In the last two years, sexual assault has increased by 35%.

On April 17, Congresswomen Jackie Speier (D-CA) reintroduced the Sexual Assault Training Oversight and Prevention Act (STOP Act) to address sexual assault in the military.

So here are the facts: 

•  More than 200,000 women are in the active-duty military, making up about 14.5 percent of the active-duty force.
• 19,000 sexual assaults occur in the military each year.
• Between 80–90 percent, go unreported, according to the AAUW.  
• In 2010, the Department of Defense conducted a survey of active-duty members that revealed that only 13.5 percent of victims report sexual assault.

Prosecution rates of sexual assault are also extremely low. 

• Only 8 percent of assailants were referred to courts-martial, or military courts, compared with 40 percent for similar offenders prosecuted in the civilian court system.

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Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women

                    

The list is out! Forbes has once again put together a list of the world’s most powerful women, including 100 top politicians, CEOs, activists, billionaires, celebrities, next gen entrepreneurs and philanthropists. 

Check out the list here. 

Join the ‘We Need Feminism’ 30 day project

For the next thirty days, I have committed to dedicating one post daily to discussing why we need feminism today.

This project was sparked from a conversation I had with a friend and fellow feminist, regarding whether young fems are helping or hurting the movement today. I have a strong belief that young women are not as actively involved in bringing issues of women’s rights to the forefront of debates, specifically regarding human inequalities. During last year’s presidential election, I was excited to see the number of young people involved once again in President Obama’s campaign. But I was very conscious of which generation if women rallied to fight the ‘war against women’ fight, and though we tweeted and texted, it wasn’t us.

This begs the question…why? Are young fems making as great of an impact on the movement as our predecessors? Do young women truly think we don’t need feminism anymore? Have we achieved it “all?” Are we disenfranchised from one another and lacking a central community or feminist leader?

All of these questions I wish to explore over the next 30 days, while giving specific examples and live case studies for why feminism is needed today. There have been many debates on whether we even need feminism anymore and I’m also interested in debunking this myth.

I’m excited to bring you along this journey with me to discover solutions to the problems we face in our community. Before starting this, I hope to contact as many young fems as possible to participate in the project by adding comments, sending posts and making this a viral project. I hope to launch this by June 1.

Hope to hear your thoughts and comments along the way. If you are interested in getting involved, please contact me.

Casey

Nevada columnist calls Hispanic high school girls “really, really easy”

So, a Las Vegas Review contributor, Sherman Frederick, wrote a column, Slate Girls Are Easy, stating: “As easy as Nevada girls are, you see, Nevada’s Hispanic girls are really, really easy.”

So, let’s back track. Nevada legislators are seeking to sign a new bill into law  to bolster sex education in Nevada’s public schools, as an attempt to deal with its high teen pregnancy rate, which is currently 4th highest in the nation. 

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Should a woman plead with a court to receive life-saving abortion?

My first reaction to the headlining question is hell no.

Let’s be clear: any pregnant woman who needs to receive a life-saving abortion should automatically be granted it. She should not have to “plead” with a court to grant her an abortion to SAVE her life. It is unethical to make a woman have a baby that could in fact end her own life. Period.

22-year-old El Salvadorian woman, Beatriz, testified Wednesday to a Supreme Court that while she is in her 23rd week of pregnancy, she is carrying an anencephalic, non-viable fetus. Which basically means the fetus will not survive birth. Anencephaly is a cerebral disorder that affects the brain, resulting in the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp.

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Has Beyoncé earned her feminist credentials?

Beyoncé is rocking the cover of the Spring issue of Ms. Magazine, but this move by Ms. may create more debate than affirmation.

Janell Hobson, cover essayist on popular culture icon Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, points out: “When women like Beyoncé proudly proclaim feminism, they tend to invite more debates than affirmation.”

As Ms. Blog points out in their post about choosing Beyoncé for its cover story, the problem with “deciding” whether Beyoncé is a “true” feminist, will be the topic of debate by skeptics and feminists alike.

I for one, found myself thinking…wait a minute, I’ve never heard Beyoncé proclaim “FEMINISM.” But as a Beyoncé lover and follower, I’m also very aware of the fact that she is an extremely private person, and doesn’t grant a ton of interviews.

So, I’m eager to read this issue of Ms. because I am truly interested in hearing what Beyoncé has to say about feminism. Like many people know, identifying as a feminist and believing and fighting for women’s equality can oftentimes be separate things. Many people who work as activists for women’s rights do not identify as feminists.

So, what do you think? Is Beyoncé a feminist?