Thursday, April 30, 2009

Discounting Rape

Today's NYT column by Nicholas Kristof brings home the point that rape is NOT treated as a real or serious crime by most police departments. It is more than not trusting the victim--rape usually does not happen in public nor in front of witnesses--it is one of the police not following through on an investigation. It is a practice that discounts the victim--how credible is she? did she not do X, wear X*, and thus, the crime is discounted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/opinion/30kristof.html?_r=1&ref=opinion


*there was a case where the alleged rapist said the woman was wearing something red and provocative. The woman was wearing her boyfriend's red track suit. . .

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Happy Equal Pay Day

Today is the day that marks when women workers have earned the equivalent of what male workers earned in 2008.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Appearances

We do judge books by their covers, and therefore, short change many people and things.

1. A few years back I had a student who for her community service/praxis project went to pick apples for one of the local soup kitchens. She was taken aback, when the director told the pickers to choose apples that they would want to eat. What, my student thought, they should be grateful for any apple. But she learned the lesson that just because someone is poor, does not translate into treating them with less respect and dignity.

On Barbie & Beautiful Veggies:http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/18-9

2. And then there is the age-ism and lookism that once ruled the reality tv programs (and the music business) and now has rocked reality TV and its veiwers to their very core. Susan Boyle who is the average older woman who gets dis-regarded, dis-respected in society, until she opens her mouth to sing.
Just in case you are one of the very few who have not seen/heard:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/14/susan-boyle-britains-sing_n_186787.html


Letty-Cottin Pogrebin's comment on Boyle, and age-ism:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/letty-cottin-pogrebin/why-susan-boyle-makes-usb_187790.html