Work and Pregnancy

Female workers subjected to verbal abuse and discrimination due to pregnancy. I’m too tired and fed up to even write a post so [insert own rant about employers here]. Jeesh.

America’s No-Fly List

The USA has a list of people it prohibits from flying. It’s hard to find out whether or not you’re on the list, why you’re on it, and to get one’s name removed from it. Moreover, it seems that other countries are now complying with America’s no-fly list. Dawood Hepplewhite, a British citizen, was prohibited from boarding a flight from Toronto due to his name appearing on the no-fly list. This means that Canadian companies passed passenger information to the USA, despite the fact that they are not supposed to reveal such facts to foreign governments. Mr. Hepplewhite suggests that his name appears on the no-fly list because he has converted to Islam, and once went for a job interview in Yemen. Luckily, the British High Commission intervened, and Mr. Hepplewhite and family were able to fly home to the UK. You can read more here.

International Women’s Day Media Fail at BU

At Boston University the campus news site, BU Today, decided to mark the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, with a single article on women, to wit, an interview with an anti-feminist alum who likens the abuse of women by men to male homosexuality. Luckily they have a contact form. You can write to them here. I also note that it appears they marked Black History Month with a fashion spread. Thanks D!

A chilly Canadian tale for International Women’s Day

Over at Hook and Eye there’s a terrific guest post by Canadian feminist philosopher Shannon Dea about a nightmarish situation that’s been developing at the University of Waterloo.

Writes Dea: “For just under a month, women at University of Waterloo have been terrorized by an anonymous propagandist who claims that women’s “defective moral intelligence” poses a serious risk to the planet. Starting on February 7, when student election posters for female candidates were covered by misogynistic flyers, there have been three waves of flyers (two of them attached to eccentric and disturbing email messages) and two Facebook messages disseminated by an author who has variously referred to himself as Lord Irwin, nath007, Feridun Hamdullahpur (University of Waterloo’s president), and Sylvester J. Pussycat. The rustic and syntactically idiosyncratic communications, the most recent of which was emailed to assorted students, staff and faculty members late March 1, have bit by bit advanced the thesis that women should not be educated as highly as men, and that universities should not teach gender equity, because woman’s deceptively weak exterior hides her evil interior. When women are educated and treated as equals, according to the propagandist, they pose a real danger to the planet. The poster girl for this campaign is Marie Curie, who figures prominently in all of the flyers, and is characterized by their author as the “mother of the Nuclear bomb,” as the “evil” woman responsible for the deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and as the Eve leading a hapless Adam-Pierre Curie toward the apple of Nuclear weaponry.”

Chilling, right? What’s even more chilling is the university’s response. The rest of the story continues over at Hook and Eye and I strongly recommend you read it.

I’m also hoping this post serves as an introduction to the readers of Feminist Philosophers to a great Canadian blog about the academy. Hook and Eye describes itself this way: “Hook & Eye is an intervention and an invitation: we write about the realities of being women working in the Canadian university system. We muse about everything from gender inequities and how tenure works, to finding unfrumpy winter boots, decent childcare, and managing life’s minutiae. Ambitious? Obviously. We’re women in the academy.”

Enjoy.