feminist blogs

For anyone who is in NYC this weekend, there's a party tomorrow that can't be missed.

A lot of you probably know about Drinking Liberally, the organization with over 240 chapters across the country that brings progressive folks together over drinks. Well, they've grown into Living Liberally, the umbrella organization that holds together Drinking Laughing, Screening, Reading, Eating & Crafting Liberally. (Whew.)

On Saturday, they're having a big old fundraiser to help support their amazing efforts - it's going to help them increase their number of chapters, national programming, online presence and impact during this election year. Plus, it will be super fun.

So if you can afford to, dig deep into your pockets and head on over. You can buy tix here. I know it's no small amount, so if you can't afford a ticket (or if you're not in NY), consider getting involved locally and reaching out to the chapter in your area...

(Trigger warning.) In 2003, 21 year-old Ramona Moore - a student at Hunter College in New York - told her mother she was going to Burger King down the street and would be right back. She never came home.

Moore was held in a basement a few blocks away where she was raped and tortured for four days before her captors beat her to death. The police, who Moore's mother begged for help, did nothing to find her.

Sean Gardiner at The Village Voice has a huge piece not only on the police's mishandling of Moore's disappearance - but also how it has sparked a historic racial bias case against the city.

Moore's mother Elle Carmichael is bringing forward a a civil-rights lawsuit claiming that the NYPD has a "practice of not making a prompt investigation of missing-persons claims of African-Americans, while making a prompt investigation for white individuals."

Not exactly shocking news, of course, but the case would be the first of its kind.

To prove racial bias, Carmichael's team would have to "show it's happened in a pattern of instances," says NYU law professor Paul Chevigny. And the only way Chevigny can think of to do so would be to take a large sample of missing-persons cases, identify the race of the people involved, and then determine whether there really is a pattern.

Carmichael's lawyer, Robert Barsch, is apparently attempting to do just that. He tells the Voice that he has heard from a number of black people who have also had their attempts to have police open up missing-persons investigations ignored. And he plans to point to the [Svetlana] Aronov case as a prime example of the flip side of that coin. After all, the NYPD tried harder to find Aronov's dog than they did Romona Moore. (Link added)

Tried harder to find a dog. "If this was a white kid, they would never had done this," Carmichael told Gardiner.

"I had to say to the detectives one day: 'You know, I feel the same emotions and pain as a white person.' "

Read more about Moore and the case against the NYPD at What About Our Daughters? and The Feminist Underground.

Make sure to check out Katha Pollitt's latest column, "Backlash Spectacular," where she takes on Phyllis Schlafly getting an honorary degree from Washington University, the "Pill Kills" campaign, and the Lilly Ledbetter case.

Also, is it just me or does "Backlash Spectacular" sound like it could be a great name for a musical?

Is anyone else freaked out by this Dairy Queen commercial?

Several readers wrote in to tell us about this horrific "piece of flair" that you can send to friends on Facebook through this application. Now, users can create their own buttons so I'm going to assume that the creators of this application didn't make this - a user did. But that's not excuse. Contact the developers of Facebook's "Pieces of Flair" and let them know that rape isn't funny.

Anyone remember the oh-so-controversial pro-choice ad that Manhattan Mini Storage ran last year?

Well it seems that the company is taking their support of choice a step further. According to a press release from Planned Parenthood of NYC, they've committed to donating a total of $200,000 to 5 NYC charities – including PPNYC.

Send them an email to say thanks.

It seems that banning same sex marriage just wasn't enough for Michigan. The state Supreme Court ruled yesterday that local governments and universities can't offer health benefits to same sex partners of employees.

The court ruled 5-2 that Michigan's 2004 ban against gay marriage also blocks domestic-partner policies affecting gay employees at the University of Michigan and other public-sector employers.

The decision affirms a February 2007 appeals court ruling.

Charming.

h/t Delightfully Dawgmatic.

I was having a bad day, then I found out that the Abstinence Clearinghouse has a blog. Here is some recent abstinence wisdom; it's the entirety of a post titled, "Saving Sex Until Marriage."

Virginity is an asset that holds its value well.

Aw, shit. I didn't know I'd be getting an economics lesson when I wandered over! Sweet. I wonder how much I can trade my vagina in for. A Subaru maybe?

It's stories like these that make me doubt the idea that people are basically good. (Trigger warning)

Melissa Bruen was sexually assaulted on the University of Connecticut campus while a group of men cheered. Even more distressing is that the assault was retribution for fighting back against another man who was assaulting her.

On a weekend night, Bruen was walking home along a campus trail (actually known as "the rape trail" if you can believe that hit), when she was "picked up by [her] shoulders, pinned up against the pole and 'dry humped' by a stranger."

At first I thought it was one of my friends' attempt at humor, until I heard the man moaning.

I hung up the phone, and shoved the man off me. I am 5'5". He was around 5'11".

"My, aren't we feisty tonight," he said.

I was assaulted when I was very young - I wasn't about to let it happen again. When he came toward me, I grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him down to the ground. I held onto his shoulders and climbed on top to straddle him. He started thrashing side to side, but I was able to hit him with a closed fist, full force, in the face.

A small crowd had gathered, mostly men. Now they seemed shocked. I was supposed to have been a victim, and I was breaking out of the mold. I hit him in the stomach, while clenching my legs around him to prevent another man from pushing me off. In all, it took three men to pull me off my assailant.

He got up and ran off, yelling at me, as if I were the would-be rapist.

Bruen started yelling, "You just assaulted me...He just assaulted me." Instead of coming to her aid, a group gathered around her.

Another man, around 6'1", approached me and said, "You think that was assault?" and he pulled down my tube top, and grabbed my breasts. More men started to cheer. It didn't matter to the drunken mob that my breasts were being shown or fondled against my will. They were happy to see a topless girl all the same. I punched him in the face, and someone shoved me into a throng of others. I was surrounded, but I kept swinging and hitting until I was able to break free of the circle they had formed.

If this doesn't ruin your day, I don't know what will. Though I have to say, I'm grateful to Bruen for sharing her story. Given how prevalent victim-blaming is, writing an article about your assault is no small thing.

What's truly incredible about this story is how it really dismantles the idea that teaching women to protect themselves (via self-defense, specifically) is truly effective. As Melissa points out, "Bruen did everything that she was supposed to do, but instead of being hailed a hero for pummeling someone who sexually assaulted her, she was further assaulted for her trouble." (Make sure to read Melissa's full post by the way.) This isn't to say that I think women shouldn't learn self-defense or fight back against assault - on the contrary, I think they should if that's what's best for them. But it's not an answer to rape culture (in which a crowd of people can stand and fucking cheer as a woman is being assaulted) - and that's what we need to be fighting back against.

Again, big kudos to Bruen for - as she puts it - "get[ting] a few good swings in." Not only against her assailants, but against a culture that would have her silenced.

So how are people feeling? Get it off your chest in comments...