I’m writing this from my office, high above a large city in the northeast, where I’m sitting, hopped up on a variety of medications designed to combat the violent nausea and sometimes blinding headaches that come, for me, with being almost ten weeks pregnant. At the moment, the meds are working ok, as they do about half the time, leaving…
The term “barefoot and pregnant” is a figure of speech that generally refers to the idea that a woman’s place is in the home. In other words, a “traditional” woman should not be working outside the home and should not be freely accessing contraception. A recent study confirms a link between those two “traditional” notions. Female Economic Dependence and the Morality of Promiscuity, a…
Last week, a brass ceiling was shattered. For the first time in its 238-year history, the United States Navy promoted a woman to the rank of four-star admiral, the service’s highest rank. Admiral Michelle J. Howard is now Vice Chief of Naval Operations, making her the second highest-ranking officer in the Navy. Hopefully, the significance of her promotion will be…
As women’s rights activists chart a new course in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, will they increasingly take the feminist fight directly to corporations with weak records on gender equality? In the wake of last week’s ruling, pockets of activists have taken to social media and mounted protests at locations of the religiously conservative arts-and-crafts chain, which can now opt…
“I love my trade very much. I love watching nothing become something.” — Mary Battle, quoted in “Women in Construction: Still Breaking Ground.” Sometimes there are glass ceilings so far from our field of focus that we fail to see them at all. A report published by the National Women’s Law Center last month analyzes data collected on women working in the…
A few days ago, when Kate K wrote about Hobby Lobby, she also mentioned forced arbitration. This is a cause I’m particularly passionate about. My focus comes from seeing so many of my clients forced to make an impossible decision. Whatever those that support forced arbitration may like to pretend, employees do not have equal bargaining power with their employers. Employees are too often faced with…
The new Always commercial that’s garnered a lot of internet attention over the past week does an important thing—it successfully highlights how thoughtless gender stereotypes can be. The ad and the Like a Girl campaign are part of an effort “to make sure that girls everywhere keep their confidence throughout puberty and beyond.” (And yes, create brand loyalty. Props, Leo…
“Gay people are the new barometer for social change.” ~ Bayard Rustin On June 20, 2014, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) hosted Pride at 50: The Civil Rights Act of 1964. Almost 100 people from all walks of life attended the program. It was truly an inspiring event to participate in. Malihe Kigasari, a leader of EEOC Pride, opened the…
I didn’t plan our launch this way at all. Originally, I planned to talk about how today is the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of Title VII. I wanted to write about how incredibly important Title VII has been to this country. I wanted to write about what it meant to have laws on the books that said we, women,…