#BlackWomenAtWork

Maxine Waters stands up to ignorant comments by Bill O'Reilly. After Bill mocked her hair and credibility, Waters had this to say:

Let me just say this: I'm a strong black woman and I cannot be intimidated. I cannot be undermined. I cannot be thought to be afraid of Bill O'Reilly or anybody. And I'd like to say to women out there everywhere: Don't allow these right-wing talking heads, these dishonorable people, to intimidate you or scare you. Be who you are. Do what you do. And let us get on with discussing the real issues of this country.

She is an amazing woman!

The Golden Probe Awards

Check the Golden Probe Awards by Lady Parts Justice League. The purpose of the awards show is to: highlight politicians devoted to ending abortion access than by “honoring” their outstanding achievements in sexism and anti-choice extremism with a big awards show.

Learn about Plan B

Some interesting reads for Friday afternoon

Post-surgery Photos loses woman friends

Men decide women's health care

Race and Dating

What is Intersectionality?

Here is a great video find by Miguel! Thanks, Miguel!

Celebrating Body Hair

Read more here.

Remaking Sexist Ads

Skol's great 'Reposter' campaign in Brazil

This is a really interesting campaign in which a beer company in Brazil is asking female artists to remake its old sexist ads.

Check out the article for more examples and information!

Inside Thinx

This piece is a very interesting look inside Thinx. It makes you wonder if they are co-opting feminist ideals to make more money, as their business practices aren't very female friendly.

Alternative Period Products

Check out this great site for alternative period products.

Ugh! This guy is the worst!

He humped a statue of a little girl!

From the article:

“Almost as if out of central casting, some Wall Street finance broseph appeared and started humping the statue while his gross date rape-y friends laughed and cheered him on. He pretended to have sex with the image of a little girl. Douchebags like this are why we need feminism.”

I agree so much with this statement. Except... why "douchebag"? I know that term has been divorced from what it represents, but it is still a word that is negative toward women. It still uses women or things related to women as the worst name you can call a man. Sigh.

Silly video

Are you a woman that wants to care about the issues — but only those that directly affect you? Then white feminism is for you!

Check out this satirical video!

This is the Purity Movement!

The proposed changes to healthcare are certainly bad for everyone, but for us walking wombs, we're royally screwed. The cuts and new plan limit access to contraceptives (which will lead to more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions), will severely cut pregnancy and maternity care (which will mean it is too damn expensive to have a baby or do so healthily), and of course limit access to abortion. Let's reverse the decreases we've seen over the last 8 years in teen pregnancy, unwanted pregnancy, and abortion!

So what's a fetal host vessel to do?!?!?! The Purity Movement has the simple solution - don't have sex. Don't have sex until you are married, and even then, first save up all your money so you can afford maternity care, then you can have sex and make babies. But be sure to remember that once that baby is born, no one cares about it as there are of course plans to cut healthcare for kids too!

Read more here.

Before Chimamanda there was bell

Here's a great interview with feminist pioneer bell hooks. If we hadn't read Adichie's book, we would have read and discussed bell hook's.

More misogynistic news...

Male Marines sharing nude photos of Female Marines.

Not only are they sharing the photos on a private Facebook page with 30,000 members (is that really private??), they are sharing the names, ranks, and other information about the women in the pictures.  Moreover, there is a Google Drive folder with even more nude photos and information. This is just offensive on so many levels.

As the author on Bust.com writes:

It appears these aggrieved men, forced to confront the rising specter of gender equality, are attempting to retain their male-only roles by bullying strong, eligible women out of their roles. This is a trend not just limited to the Marines. As women continue to battle their way into the workplace, decades after the rise of second wave feminism, workplace bullying is still disproportionately carried out by men, and women are disproportionately on the receiving end.

But the public, documentable nature of this case of harassment really begs the question: how did they think they were going to get away with it?

One only needs to look at the list of things that President of the United States has gotten away with saying about women to figure out why they did.

Abortion Reversal??

This is just scary!

According to the article, Indiana just passed a law in which doctors will have to tell patients about "abortion pill reversal." Essentially based on faulty evidence and one poorly conducted study, there is now a law that doctors must tell women that if they change their minds after taking the first abortion pill (mifepristone) in the 72 hours before taking the second (misoprostol) that their abortion can be reversed. WTF?!?

I think we need to remember this:

“People make informed decisions in their own pregnancies,” said Adams. “They don’t need more time, they don’t need ultrasounds, they don’t need lies about health risks, and they don’t need outs like this to save them from their own decisions. They need safe, reliable healthcare that is private.”

Adichie's New Book!!

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses her new book!

Emma Watson's Boobs

How's that for a clickbait title?

It seems that many are up in arms about Emma Watson's most recent photo shoot for Vanity Fair.

Emma is well known as an outspoken feminist. But for some reason people have called her feminism into question because she posed with her breasts... ok, well side-boob, exposed.

As this post on the Huffington Post explains, this dispute over Emma's feminism and body is exactly why feminism is still relevant and necessary.

But maybe let's let Emma explain it herself.

The Visard

What's a visard? According to this post on Atlas Obscura, a visard was a mask worn by wealthy women in the 1500s. The mask covered their faces when outside so that they wouldn't get tan. Interestingly, the masks were not only creepy looking (all black with small holes for the eyes and mouth), they essentially silenced the wearer. In order to keep the mask on, women held a small bead or button between their teeth. If they wanted to talk, they had to take the mask off.

It may have looked something like this...