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Sexism

Female Equality Is Key To A Sustainable Future

By H. Patricia Hynes for Truth Dig - What the world will look like in 15 years depends also on our commitment to reduce substantially greenhouse gas emissions and achieve 50 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2030, so that her world remains habitable. However, we cannot get to a sustainable world without the full realization of girls’ and women’s rights, for women are responsible for providing food, fuel and water for billions of people in much of Africa and Asia, where natural resources are growing scarce or rapidly degrading. Yet many of these women lack the right to own land or to access credit and technical training to assure the sustainability of their countries’ natural resources. We will not get there in 15 years without women’s equality in decision-making because women in governance positions sign on to international treaties that take action against climate change more than their male counterparts. Further, there is abundant evidence that women care more about the environment than men and handle risk—economic, environmental and personal—more wisely than men.

Newsletter: Elections Expose the Oligarchs

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The 2016 presidential election has shown how the duopoly, the two parties that represent big business interests and the wealthiest, are corrupted in ways that prevent the people’s voices from being heard, their necessities being met and the planet being protected from human greed. During the campaigns, leaks have given people a behind-the-scenes look at how the parties operate and research on the candidates shows their personal failures. They give voters an image of elites who behave as if the law does not apply to them and who put themselves ahead of the public interest. Last Friday was a day of embarrassment for both the Republican and Democratic Parties. A tape showing Donald Trump bragging about sexual assault in lewd ways has gotten the bulk of attention, but Wikileaks also released thousands of pages of The Podesta Emails, 2,060 emails and 170 attachments. John Podesta is the ultimate insider.

Flipping The Script: Rethinking Working-Class Resistance

By Henry A. Giroux in Truthout - I then realized that I had to flip the script to survive and became acutely aware that the alleged strengths of ruling-class types, such as their, cold, hypermasculine modes of embodiment, along with their ruthless sense of competitiveness, their suffocating narcissism, their view of unbridled self-interest as the highest virtue, their ponderous and empty elaborated code, and their often savage and insensitive modes of interaction, were actually poisonous deficits. That was a turning point in my being able to narrate and free myself from one of the most sinister forms of ideological domination, "those unexamined prejudices that keep us from thinking." For me, this involved a slow process of unlearning the poisonous, sedimented histories working-class youth often have to internalize and embody in order to survive.

Prep School’s Black Student President Mocks Her White Male Classmates

One day last March, Lawrenceville School Student Body President Maya Peterson donned L.L. Bean boots and a Yale University sweater to pose for an Instagram photo depicting what she described as a typical “Lawrenceville boi”: white, Republican, and cockily holding a hockey stick. Peterson, who graduated in June, added hashtags like “#romney2016,” “#confederate,” and “#peakedinhighschool” before posting. It was a joke, she said, inspired by classmates who complained to the school’s dean of students about Peterson’s own senior photo, in which she and 10 friends, all black, raised their fists in a “Black Power” salute. But not everyone thought it was funny. “You’re the student body president, and you’re mocking and blatantly insulting a large group of the school’s male population,” one student commented on the photo. “Yes, I am making a mockery of the right-wing, confederate-flag hanging, openly misogynistic Lawrentians,” Peterson responded. “If that’s a large portion of the school’s male population, then I think the issue is not with my bringing attention to it in a lighthearted way, but rather why no one has brought attention to it before…”

Confronting Sexual Violence On The Left – Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault

There are tentative signs of a growing movement against sexual violence on the left. In 2004, three women were raped at a large punk festival in Philadelphia in the US. The concert organisers established two collectives to support the survivors and hold the rapists to account. The collectives became Philly’s Pissed and Philly Stands Up which continued this work for a period of six years. Organizers of the 2012 Toronto and New York Anarchist bookfairs asked people who had been accused of sexual violence, and who were not actively engaging in some sort of accountability process, to not attend the events. Closer to home, groups like A World Without Sexual Assault and Stepping Up in Melbourne have provided support to survivors, facilitated accountability processes, and run awareness-raising workshops.

Comic Bumped From Bill Because There Were ‘Too Many Women’

A female comedian named Jenny Collier has revealed she was recently dropped from a stand-up bill at a club in Haslemere, Surrey, U.K. because there were already “too many women” on the bill. Aaaaaaand happyInternational Women’s Day, everyone. Yesterday evening, Collier tweeted a screenshot of the e-mail she received from the venue’s proprietors booting her from the May 15 event. Since yesterday morning, Collier’s tweet has been retweeted more than 4,000 times by women all over the world, yet the identity of the anonymous stand-up club proprietor remains a mystery. U.K. blogger Red Mister did a littlesleuthing, however, and determined that the only Haslemere club hosting an event on May 15 is Hemingways of Haslemere. Hemingways is owned by the comedy chain Mirth Control, which books more than 100 venues in Britain and Europe.

Capitalism, Ecology And The Official Invisibility Of Women

When it comes to the world economy, what you "see" is not usually what you get - especially when it comes to gender. Capitalism has fueled a world in which women are rendered invisible and saddled with the majority of labor. They are responsible for two-thirds of all working hours, produce 50 percent to 90 percent of the world's food and 100 percent of the world's children. Yet, for all this, they receive only 10 percent of the world's income and own less than 1 percent of the world's property. As a result, women make up 70 percent of the world's poor. Moreover, gender violence is more of a threat to women's health than the sum of traffic accidents and malaria. Often, when women are "seen," they are seen as simply bodies, to be manipulated in ways that lead to profit. In a very real sense, as people, women are invisible.

Against Patriarchy: Tools For Men To Further Feminist Revolution

For all of us who are men who believe in social justice, who want healthy and beautiful lives for our loved ones, and who are working for positive change in the world, let us commit or recommit to making feminism central in our lives, values and actions. Black feminist scholar bell hooks writes, "When women and men understand that working to eradicate patriarchal domination is a struggle rooted in the longing to make a world where everyone can live fully and freely, then we know our work to be a gesture of love." She continues, "Let us draw upon that love to heighten our awareness, deepen our compassion, intensify our courage, and strengthen our commitment." It is time for men in the millions to take courageous action in our society to further feminist revolution.

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Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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