Category Archives: women’s interests

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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Yahoo CEO Mayer Takes A Huge Step Back

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One of the major perks of working in the digital space is being able to work from home. It’s my personal dream. I love working from home. I get more done. I’m relaxed. I feel better. It’s just wonderful. It’s also great for parents. If you work on the Internet you can take your job anywhere. That means you can work flexible hours, you can work from home and keep an eye on the kids. You can go to school field trips and parent teacher conferences then work after.

In fact when Marissa Mayer left Google and became the “Queen of Yahoo” she was looked at as a role model for women. She was young, she was successful, she was creative and innovative, and she was pregnant when she took the reins of Yahoo. Everyone looked to Mayer to pave the way for women in this industry…until recently.

Mayer recently announced that all “remote employees” must relocate to company facilities. That means…no more work from home situations. This is completely backward thinking on the part of Mayer. But this isn’t the first time Mayer has set everything back.

After she gave birth Mayer took a short (two-week) maternity leave. She then built a nursery next to her office at her own expense, to make working and having a newborn easier. That’s great for Mayer…but most of us don’t have that option.
She then made the public statement, “the baby’s been way easier than everyone made it out to be.” Maybe the baby was easier because Mayer can afford a nanny with her $117 million over five years contract, a work nursery, and a penthouse apartment–that means baby can be with nanny in playroom and mommy can nap without disruption…again not the case for most working parents.

Jackie Reses is the H.R chief at Yahoo and put out a memo about the new policy stating, “some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings,” adding tartly that if “Yahoos” “have to stay home for the cable guy, please use your best judgment in the spirit of collaboration.” Basically, please live to work not work to live.

What Mayer is doing is punishing all because of a few. It is true that not everyone can handle a “work from home” lifestyle but some people need it. So instead of teaching her executives to better manage their remote employees Mayer is just pulling the plug.

This is a huge setback for working parents, for the digital space, and for women in high powerful positions. You don’t have to be Stalin to be respected…but Mayer seemed to miss that memo.



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Komen Foundation’s Continued Funding of Planned Parenthood Discussion-Worthy

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Susan G. Komen Logo
After an outcry from scores of angry women (my technology-challenged mother being one of them … she actually made me walk her through the steps of how to sign an online petition because she felt so strongly about it), the Susan G. Komen For the Cure foundation has done a 180 on its plan to sever ties with Planned Parenthood, and all is right with the world, right?

Not so fast …

Approximately $600,000 of the foundation’s money has been used each year to pray for breast cancer screening.  You don’t need me to tell you that screening leads to early detection, which leads to early treatment, which leads to a ridiculously high percentage of successful cures (if breast cancer is caught early enough, we are in fact talking cure, not remission).

What kind of highly public foundation makes a big thing about being “for the cure” (puts it into its very name, in fact) and then intentionally pulls money from the very demographic of women that need it most considering that they’re the least likely to get regular medical attention?

That’s got to be among the most asinine things I’ve ever heard.

And, yeah, it’s the A-word.

From The Atlantic:

Komen, the marketing juggernaut that brought the world the ubiquitous pink-ribbon campaign, says it cut off Planned Parenthood because of a newly adopted foundation rule prohibiting it from …

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