Category Archives: women’s interest

If You’re Breathing, You’re a Feminist

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There is an influx of celebrities denying being “Feminists”. Famous ladies like Melissa Leo, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Marissa Mayer, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry have all denounced being “feminists”. While accepting her Woman of the Year award from Billboard Perry said, “I am not a feminist, but I do believe in the strength of women.” Well, they’re wrong.

I’d like to categorically say that these women are wrong. It doesn’t matter if they want to admit it or not but they are feminists. Any woman breaking boundaries in a male dominated world, any woman succeeding in her choice of career, any woman that says I am more than a “sister, wife, mother I am a person” is a feminist. If you want to sit and say, “I am defined by what a man or society tells me I am” then you are not a feminist.

The problem with saying, “I am a feminist” is it is perceived as “I am a man-hating, unshaved, beast that will cut the sleeves off my t-shirts and refuse to wear skirts”. Feminists have a brand issued. We have a PR problem. There was a radical movement that hi-jacked what being a feminist is. Gloria Steinem is a feminist and is gorgeous. In fact she became the face of the movement because it was a good face.

You can still be pretty, girly, frilly and demand to be treated as equal. Being a feminist isn’t being angry and boorish. It’s not about being hard and masculine. It is about standing up for equal rights because you are a human being and a citizen of the world.

It does a great disservice for Katy Perry to say “I’m not a feminist”. Of course you are! You believe you are worth something! That’s why you beat down the doors of the record industry and didn’t conform to what they wanted to be. In her movie trailer Perry stands on stage and says, “thank you for believing in my weirdness.” But it was Perry herself who trusted her weirdness who knew she knew what she was doing and didn’t let anyone tell her “no, no silly little girl you can’t sing about this, you can’t dance that way, you can’t dye your hair pink”. She said, “Watch me dye my hair, put on a whipped cream bra, dance around Candy-land while singing I kissed a girl and make millions”. In the trailer someone also says, “What are people saying she can’t do? That’s what she’s going to do next.” That’s a feminist.



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Sexism in Tech

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As far as the feminist movement has come it still has a way to go—especially when it comes to tech. We’ve touched base on Melissa Mayer being the mother we love to hate in tech but it’s not just Yahoo dropping the baton.

NPR did a report on sexism in tech and I literally gasped when I heard one woman say that when she told a man her salary requirements his response was, “wow. You are really overvaluing yourself as a female.” It got me thinking about my first job in tech. My training for Google search was “hot Jewish chicks” and the terms we searched for were “hot Jews”, “Jewish boobs”, “Israeli girls” “hot Israeli girls” “Israeli boobs”…you get the idea. In fact the CEO said to me, “wow you could sue me for this” because of the results that came up.
My next training was on how Google crawls. My trainer said, “When you look at a hot guy what do you see first?” I said “face?” he said “yup, face. So, I’m checking out this hot chick and I see her face—that’s the title. Then I see her tits that’s the description, then I see her ass that’s the list”.
Tech is dominated by men and women still need to “prove themselves”. Sometimes we do that by being over masculine and dealing with the T&A talk like it doesn’t bother us, sometimes we bow out, sometimes we overcompensate by pretending we aren’t female (like talking only two weeks maternity—I’m looking at you Mayer.)

The work place has always been a battlefield for the movement and this is just another battle we’re fighting. We won on pay, we won on benefits, and look out Internet cause the female demo is going to win this war, too.



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My New Feminist Icon: Arianna Huffington

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photo of arianna huffington pictures
Arianna Huffington is by far one of the most successful women in new media today. As president and editor-in-chief of Huffington Post Media Group she is the figurehead of one of the most popular websites on the Internet. The whole Internet. This woman knows business, and therefore knows stress in fact four and a half years ago Arianna fainted from exhaustion, broke her cheek bone and wound up with stitches around her eye. Since then Arianna has revolutionized herself and her company by focusing on helping people “de-stress” to that point she has a new app called “GPS for the soul”.

You can create your own “guide” or use Arianna’s or Dr. Oz’s. It allows you to focus on things you find calming or that embody “love” for you. It also has a little graphic that moves up and down so you can slow and match your breathing with it. As someone who is riddled with anxiety and stress I really enjoyed this app, but even more so I enjoy Arianna.

Mashable did an interview Arianna recently in which she stated that she doesn’t want her employees to return her emails at night or on weekends. The President of a huge company says doesn’t want you to respond to her emails. Can you imagine that? Especially someone in new media and entertainment…for goodness sake the woman runs a news website! News doesn’t stop! But Arianna wants her employees to stop, to de-stress, the woman is a nap pusher. I’m fortunate enough to have some insider info at Huffington Post and I have yet to hear anyone complain about Arianna (another amazing feat).

A few weeks ago I was speaking with someone from Huffpo and they were telling me all about how excited Arianna can get when you tell her you’ve napped that day. She’s big on getting enough rest. If you check out her twitter feed there are pictures of staffers napping on election night and her tag is always to the “good for you!” type of comment.

Working for one of the largest studios in the country I was blown away by this. At my work you come in no matter what. You work through sickness, you respond to every email, and you don’t complain about it because no one wants to hear it, if you’re not out till 1 in the morning with your boss at in the office at 9 you’re shunned and bullied, you are not part of the group. It’s refreshing to know that there are still people in power, who are insanely successful and haven’t turned into complete human-waste-holes.

Arianna Huffington is an incredible icon for women. She is a woman that has lifted herself to amazing heights, raised a family, looks fabulous and hasn’t let any of that rob her of her humanity. She is a study in success and feminism. I decree Arianna Huffington as my new feminist icon. Forget Rosie Riveter put Arianna on my poster!



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Paul Ryan: A Legitimate Danger to Women’s Rights

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Photo of Paul Ryan
I have to admit, I was pretty shocked when Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan as his running mate.  I’d been almost positive his veep candidate would be female, in large part because Romney’s ratings among women are pretty abysmal.

Playing that card failed miserably for John McCain four years ago, but believe it or not, Sarah Palin almost seems sort-of-kind-of-at-least-a-little-bit acceptable when you take a closer look at Paul Ryan.

I knew relatively little about Paul Ryan when the news broke, other than that he’s a Congressman from Wisconsin and something of a golden boy in the Tea Party.

I received a forwarded e-mail from my mother today, however, that concerned me.  Deeply concerned me.

Now, the subject line was “5 Facts About Paul Ryan and Women”, and since I know what side of the political spectrum my mother hails from, I wasn’t surprised by its existence.  I get mass e-mails from all directions of politics (someone–I’m pretty sure it was my brother despite his denials–signed me up for Rick Santorum’s mailing list), and it’s always interesting to see rhetoric at work, to observe two completely different spins on the same issues, the same numbers.

In other words, I read all political mailings with a grain of salt.

Usually.

The e-mail I received today, though, a forward from Ultra Violet, was a bit different. It had the usual hard-swinging, attention-catching lines, but it also included footnotes … in other words, the wild accusations against Paul Ryan’s political stances on women’s issues are well-documented.

1. He voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Think women deserve to earn the same pay as men for the same work? Paul Ryan doesn’t. And the pay gap costs women and their families close to $431,000 over their lifetimes.

In a nutshell, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is, as its name suggests, legislation intended to ensure that women have the same compensation opportunities as their male colleagues. It is, to be fair, very complex and not as clear-cut as Ultra Violet would have you believe.

That being said, The National Review admits that “many conservatives question the existence of a wage gap in the first place” and that “instead of helping workers, the Paycheck Fairness Act could actually make their jobs harder by increasing costs to the businesses that hire them.”

2. He opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest. It’s not just that Paul Ryan has voted 59 times against a woman’s right to choose—which he has. He would even rather let a woman die than allow her to have an abortion. He’s supported a bill to allow hospitals to refuse to provide abortion care to a woman, even if she could die without it.

Yes, this is also true. Frightening as hell, but true. In fact, Paul is not averse to women being prosecuted for having abortions. Prosecuted.

From The Daily Beast:

This disregard for the exigencies of women’s lives—the dismissal of their choices as amoral exercises of “arbitrary will”—was thrown into high relief during his 1998 run for congress against Democrat Lydia Spottswood. Both candidates backed a ban on so-called partial-birth abortion, but Spottswood believed there should be exceptions in cases where a woman’s life or health is endangered. “Ryan said he opposes abortion, period,” reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “He said any exceptions to a ‘partial-birth’ abortion….

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