feminist blogs

I thought this video promoting equal pay for women was really cute:

(Don’t read the YouTube comments; just a general life rule, don’t read the YouTube comments.)

Visit the Out of the Way of Fair Pay website, and contact the Chamber of Commerce to demand equal pay for equal work.

Though just last week I got really pissed off at Tim Dickinson’s Rolling Stone piece on Proposition 8, this week he has a really good article about all of the last-minute regulations Bush is putting into place as he walks out the White House door.  Of course, we know all about the anti-choice HHS rule . . . but there’s a lot more than that.

While every modern president has implemented last-minute regulations, Bush is rolling them out at a record pace — nearly twice as many as Clinton, and five times more than Reagan. “The administration is handing out final favors to its friends,” says Véronique de Rugy, a scholar at George Mason University who has tracked six decades of midnight regulations. “They couldn’t do it earlier — there would have been too many political repercussions. But with the Republicans having lost seats in Congress and the presidency changing parties, Bush has nothing left to lose.”

Some of the highlights:

Under a rule submitted in November, federal agencies would no longer be required to have government scientists assess the impact on imperiled species before giving the go-ahead to logging, mining, drilling, highway building or other development. The rule would also prohibit federal agencies from taking climate change into account in weighing the impact of projects that increase greenhouse emissions — effectively dooming polar bears to death-by-global-warming. According to Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, “They’ve taken the single biggest threat to wildlife and said, ‘We’re going to pretend it doesn’t exist, for regulatory purposes.’”

In early December, the administration finalized a rule that allows the industry to dump waste from mountaintop mining into neighboring streams and valleys, a practice opposed by the governors of both Tennessee and Kentucky. “This makes it legal to use the most harmful coal-mining technology available,” says Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Factory farms are getting two major Christmas presents from Bush this year. Circumventing the Clean Water Act, the administration has approved last-minute regulations that will allow animal waste from factory farms to seep, unmonitored, into America’s waterways. The regulation leaves it up to the farms themselves to decide whether their pollution is dangerous enough to require them to apply for a permit.

In October, two weeks after consulting with industry lobbyists, the White House exempted more than 100 major polluters from monitoring their emissions of lead, a deadly neurotoxin. Seemingly hellbent on a more toxic future, the administration will also allow industry to treat 3 billion pounds of hazardous waste as “recycling” each year, and to burn another 200 million pounds of hazardous waste reclassified as “fuel,” increasing cancer-causing air pollution. The rule change is a reward to unrepentant polluters: Nearly 90 percent of the factories that will be permitted to burn toxic waste have already been cited for violating existing environmental protections.

In another last-minute shift, the administration has rewritten rules to make it harder for workers to take time off for serious medical conditions under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

In a rule that went into effect on December 8th, the administration also limited vision and dental care for more than 50 million low-income Americans who rely on Medicaid. “This means the states are going to have to pick up the tab or cut the services at a time when a majority of states are in a deficit situation,” says Bass of OMB Watch. “It’s a horrible time to do this.” To make matters worse, the administration has also raised co-payments for Medicaid, forcing families on poverty wages to pay up to 10 percent of the cost for doctor visits and medicine. One study suggests that co-payments could cause Medicaid patients to skip nearly a fifth of all prescription-drug treatments.

Under midnight regulations, the administration is seeking to lock in the domestic spying it began even before 9/11. One rule under consideration would roll back Watergate-era prohibitions barring state and local law enforcement from spying on Americans and sharing that information with U.S. intelligence agencies.

And that’s not even the full story. Please do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.

The title of the article gets this exactly right: these regulations are a giant fuck you to the American people, and further ensure that which was already guaranteed: the Bush legacy will be that of putting governmental and corporate power over the basic health, labor, environmental and civil rights of U.S. residents.  It’s disgusting, and though it’s tempting to shake our heads and firmly believe that Obama Will Fix It, there’s more bad news.

John Podesta, the transition chief for the Obama administration, has vowed that the new president will leverage his “executive authority” to fight Bush’s last-minute rule changes. But according to experts who study midnight regulations, there’s surprisingly little an incoming executive can do to overturn such rules. The Bush administration succeeded in repealing just three percent of the regulations finalized before Bill Clinton left office in 2001. “Midnight regulations under Bush are being executed early and with great intent,” says Bass of OMB Watch. “And that intent is to lock the next administration into these regulations, making it very difficult for Obama to undo what Bush just did.”

The article continues by going into Obama’s options for rolling back these rules, and there are a few, but I remain pessimistic and really fucking pissed off.  And as the article further notes, even if Obama does take the time and effort necessary to overturning all of these dangerous and deadly regulations, it’s only going to distract him from the other tasks he has ahead.  So while we finally have a president who tells us he’s committed to environmental sustainability and minimizing the effects of global warming, he’ll have his hands full with even more balls to juggle in just that single area.  We want him to be able to do everything, but to some extent that’s just going to be impossible.  So what does he choose?  What do we even want him to choose?

As much as I want to remain hopeful for the future and that some sort of positive change is coming our way, this acts as a really sore and depressing reminder of what we all already knew deep down in our hearts.  The effects of the Bush years aren’t going to be just disappearing anytime soon.  Worse, some of those effects may just be beginning.

The economic picture over here in “flyover country” isn’t very rosy. The overall unemployment rate in Illinois is 7.3%, but there are sections of the state where the rate is even higher. The State of Illinois is laying off 450 of its employees, and closing 11 state parks and 12 historic sites (including the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Dana-Thomas house). Illinois has been hammered with job losses, wages have stagnated (actually fallen 0.6% per year since 2000), the cost of gasoline is up (163% since 2000—and don’t get me started on hipsters moaning about how we should all just take the nonexistant bus), the cost of healthcare premiums is up (29.1% for family coverage, 19.8% for individual coverage—and those folks can count themselves “lucky” as they aren’t among the 13.9% of Illinois residents without health insurance), child care costs, utility costs, food costs—no wonder 1.4 million Illinois residents (11% of the population) and 15.3% of Illinois children are below the poverty line.

How’s the economy where you live? How is your personal economy? Have you ever checked the Senate’s Joint Economic Committee website for the state-by-state snapshots?

This just in: Turns out the former site of the South Central Farm - where low-income, indigenous/immigrant Latino farmers grew food in the midst of a toxic industrial area for 14 years before being evicted two summers ago in one of the saddest, most maddening examples of private business interests trumping community and environmental good that I’ve ever personally witnessed - is being developed as a Forever 21 warehouse.

You know, that clothing company that was the subject of a national boycott for exploitative labor practices a few years ago? Turns out LA’s supposedly progressive mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa - who campaigned at the then-flourishing farm several years ago and claimed to support it, only to fail to find a way to help save it despite massive community (and celebrity) support, clear social and environmental benefits, and his own celebrated promises to “green LA”–“has received nearly $1.3 million in contributions and commitments from Forever 21 and its executives over the past two years.”

The former site of the South Central Farm has sat vacant for the past two years. The South Central Farmers are now growing food at a new site about an hour outside of LA. They sell food at several farmers’ markets in the area, and they recently set up a CSA. 

(Background: A few years ago, I wrote several articles about the South Central Farm for the late and lamented NewStandard, including this history of how the community has used the land since 1985.)

As we have several important anniversaries on the horizon, I thought it would be *fun* to predict the kind of content MSM will be funneling to the masses this holiday weekend. Will they give more coverage to ...

• the still-going-strong fuck'd'upedness of the Fed's handling of the Katrina aftermath?
• the six year "hunt" for Osama Bin Laden?
• the very unfortunate and untimely death of the pretty, pretty British princess who did many wonderful things, but who I thought I didn't have to care that much about because I'm an American who doesn't care that much about the world around me ...except I'm supposed to stop in my tracks with rapt attention because Americans are required to care about all the comings and goings of the British monarchy?
• labor?

On This Day in 1911, 146 people died in the very building I work in. The result of their deaths was the rapid growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and the real beginning of the fight against sweatshops. It also was the beginning of fire regulations in American cities.I work in what is now known as the Brown Building at NYU. But in 1911 it was the Asch building. The top three floors of the Asch building comprised the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. For the record, a shirtwaist is essentially a woman’s blouse. I work a couple of floors below where the factory was. This factory employed some 500 workers, mostly young women immigrants. The working conditions were essentially sweatshop conditions with fourteen-hour workdays and a 60- to 72-hour workweek. It was also a death trap. Workers of course smoked and lighting was from gas lighting…and, of course, the clothing was flammable. But it was even worse due to management distrust of the workers. One of the two exit...

On This Day in 1911, 146 people died in the very building I work in. The result of their deaths was the rapid growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and the real beginning of the fight against sweatshops. It also was the beginning of fire regulations in American cities.I work in what is now known as the Brown Building at NYU. But in 1911 it was the Asch building. The top three floors of the Asch building comprised the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. For the record, a shirtwaist is essentially a woman’s blouse. I work a couple of floors below where the factory was. This factory employed some 500 workers, mostly young women immigrants. The working conditions were essentially sweatshop conditions with fourteen-hour workdays and a 60- to 72-hour workweek. It was also a death trap. Workers of course smoked and lighting was from gas lighting…and, of course, the clothing was flammable. But it was even worse due to management distrust of the workers. One of the two exit...

(Thanks for the picture, epi.) For the record, these are good Christian pandas--they are not having fun but doing their duty. But a cute duty it turns out to be.

Take it from this porn liberal, there are lots of enemies of sex out there. And they are right wingers. Why some liberals find this incessant need to keep pretending that feminists are trying to ruin their fun when they have perfectly good enemies on the right, I'll never know.

Actually, I do know. They aren't liberal or progressive, at least not when it comes to gender issues. And as a big proponent of sex-positivity, let me be the first to declare that this attitude is just as sex-negative as anything flying out of Rick Santorum's mouth.

The reasons for the attention may be worth pondering. Countless public figures have been accused of sexual harassment since the world learned that the semen-like stain on Monica Lewinsky's dress was, in fact, semen. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2003 gubernatorial campaign was dogged with numerous accusations of unsolicited groping. Last month, Australia's Labor Party leader John Brogden attempted suicide after he admitted to fondling a reporter while drunk.

Still, Dov Charney is a relatively unknown figure, and Overmyer says she is surprised by the extent of the public's interest. She suggests it's not Charney's specific actions but his company's sexually brazen culture that's on trial. In many ways, Overmyer may be right: fifteen years after Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas insinuated sexual harassment into the popular consciousness, a new wave of court decisions, legislation and business practices is renewing the debate.

Is Dov Charney the tighty-whitied Rosa Parks of those who seek to desegregate business and pleasure?

Same old chauvinism disguised as "sex positivity". Wanting a world where women can feel positive about sex, where it's not a condition of our employment or survival, where it's not used to humiliate or overpower us, is "sex negativity", apparently. If a woman doesn't like being held up for ridicule by an ass-grabbing asshole, then god knows she's a dour feminist who hates sex. Fucking your subordinates is the brand-new sex positivity. It's so brand new that Strom Thurmond was engaging in it when he impregnated his 15-year-old maid. Nothing more daring than bringing back the era of the secretary who plays wife to her boss in all sorts of ways, while of course not even having the privileges given to the actual wife. Men are so oppressed by feminists who want to take away their sex toys female subordinates, that maybe the only way to rectify this is to assign every well-off man his very own sexy secretary who has to have sex with him or else sleeps in the snow. It's only fair.

Man, when they made it illegal to fondle women at work and intimidate them by hanging out and appraising their body parts, they might as well have banned sex. What we silly sex-hating feminists don't get is that sex is zero sum game. If women can feel good about sex instead of afraid of having it used as a weapon to put us in our place, then men have to lose by definition.

If Charney is such a hotshot superstud, then why can't he just suck it up and lay off his employees? If he's near as hot as he says he is, then he should surely be able to get laid by a woman who he's not paying, I would think.

Pinko Feminist Hellcat has more.

Tangentially related--Susie Bright and Ariel Levy talk about real sex positivity. You know, the kind that Charney types aren't so hot on, the kind where women are more than props for men's ego trips.

I agree with Ol Cranky wholeheartedly--the decision by the Supreme Court of California determining that a manager having sex with his subordinates can be the basis of a sexual harassment lawsuit does not bode well for Dov Charney. And all I have to say to this is DOH. Of course having sex with your subordinates can create a hostile enviroment even without any over quid pro quo stuff going on.

One problem I think with people's understanding of sexual harassment laws is that it isn't just harassment that's at stake. It's a matter of discrimination. In an atmosphere where having sex with boss is winked at--something that's actually pretty standard in some industries that you more, um, artistic types might be familiar with--it's pretty much accepted that the woman who brings her kneepads to work is going farther in her career than the woman who does not. Unless one's sexual skills are part of the actual job, which they are if you are a prostitute or a porn actor and that's pretty much it, then one's willingness to have sex with someone shouldn't be part of your career advancement.

As Ol Cranky puts it, this entire debate isn't just between women who'll fuck the boss and women who won't, but matters very much to men and will more and more as the traditional belief that women aren't as smart or talented as men gets put to rest, since that means that the boss won't be thinking so much "should I hire a man for his brains or a woman for the sex" when he knows that a woman can offer both sex and brains to him. (Or vice versa, I suppose, though I doubt many female bosses are willing to risk their reputations by fucking their underlings.)

And of course, this is also unfair to the women who do have sex with the boss, because even if it's not a quid pro quo situation, it's hard really to argue that a woman is in a position to be fully consenting if she knows that her promotion or even her job is in jeopardy if she says no. She may even swear up and down that she wanted to, but that's a troublesome thing to say, especially if it's coming from a woman who wouldn't have had sex with that particular man if she just knew him as a friend. All around, sex with underlings should simply be avoided just as surely as teachers shouldn't be fondling their students. Too much trouble. If you're really in love and it's worth it, then you can get another job. If it's just sex you want, go outside of work for it.