Trying to see over the cliff?

This handy guide will help with the vertigo.
The most important part is the final section, I think, which gives us an account of what one failure in justice in the US looks like in purely monetary terms.
But the middle part, which lists parties’ priorities, is important. It gives on an idea, I suspect, of why republicans like testing students so much. It’s relatively cheap!

Indian Rape Victim’s Death Stirs Grief, Outrage, and Resolve

Indian Rape Victim’s Death Stirs Outrage and Resolve

“The gang rape and death of a young Indian woman has sparked an outpouring of national grief and outrage, and a question: Will the tragedy prompt change, in laws and attitudes toward women, in the world’s largest democracy?”

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Rape victim’s death sparks lockdown in India

“…Outrage and protest about the assault escalated violently last week when police used batons, water cannon and tear gas in clashes with hundreds of demonstrators; one policeman died in the protests. Indian authorities, fearing a new wave of demonstrations yesterday, deployed hundreds of policemen to seal off the President’s palace, the Prime Minister’s office and key ministries, which have been the scene of battles between police and civilians. They closed 10 metro stations and banned vehicles from some main roads in the centre of the capital.

Although more than 1,000 people gathered at two locations, the demonstrations were peaceful. In one spot, a wreath studded with white flowers was laid on the road, a candle lit and a silent tribute held for the young woman. Near by, members of a theatre group played small tambourines and sang songs urging society to wake up and end discrimination against women…”

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Indian Rape Sparks Gender-Inequality Debate (WSJ video: 3 minutes, 14 seconds)

“The death of the victim of a gang rape in India has set off a fresh wave of national grief and outrage. The WSJ’s Nisha Gopalan [and Deborah Kan] conside[r] whether it could also lead to legal changes to protect women’s rights.”

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Indian Women March: ‘That Girl Could Have Been Any One of Us’

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For what it reveals, explicitly or implicitly, see here for India’s government on gender statistics and gender (in)equality

The “Perfect Woman”

Oh, how the times change.  Unsurprisingly, the perception of what the “perfect woman” looks like — and what a healthy weight is — has changed a lot since 1912 (though, I cannot figure out why Cornell was doing anything of this sort in the first place).

Cornell University’s medical examiner, Dr. Esther Parker, selected Scheel from a pool of 400 Cornell women. The New York Times described her as “a light-haired, blue-eyed girl whose very presence bespeaks perfect health,” and The Star, a Wilmington, Del. paper, reported that Scheel was 171 pounds, 5 ft. 7 in. tall and had similar proportions to the famous Greek statue, Venus de Milo.

The full story is over at Huffington Post.

The sunday cat urges us all to challenge the restrictions of the year just ending

 

 

Thanks to PJ!

Professor Sue Mendus, CBE

Many congratulations to Sue Mendus, Professor of Political Philosophy at York University, who has received a CBE in the UK Honours System.

Sue has been honoured for her services to political science. (Readers will also recall that Sue was one of a number of philosophers who gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry into press standards earlier this year).

Non UK readers can find out more about the honours system here. And the full list of honours can be found here (find Sue on page 8!).

Hearty congratulations, Sue, from all at Feminist Philosophers!

Priest blames women for femicide

Unfortunately, this is not a story from The Onion. A parish priest in Italy said that women need to engage in some “healthy self-criticism” when it comes to the issue of femicide, and in so doing, displayed that he’s in some serious need of “healthy self-criticism” himself.  The text, which he posted on a church bulletin board, said that women’s behavior —  everything from not keeping the house clean, “cold meals,” “fast food at home,” “babies left to themselves,” and the way women dress — is to blame for violence against women.

The core of the problem is in the fact that women are more and more provocative, they yield to arrogance, they believe they can do everything themselves and they end up exacerbating tensions.

And Erin Gloria Ryan comments over at Jezebel.

As part of an ongoing campaign to convince everyone to quit being Catholic, an Italian priest used his annual Christmas message to expound on a very Christmasy topic he’d spent many years studying in Priest JuCo — domestic violence. And like most instances when a celibate male Catholic official comments on what women should or should not be doing, it was epically stupid. His advice? Basically, ladies, if you don’t want your husband to kill you, then you should probably stop dressing like such a skank.

Meggings

I can’t quite figure out what’s going on with “meggings” (leggings for men). Not because I don’t know why men would want to wear them; leggings are ridiculously comfortable, and who doesn’t like comfort? Besides which, it’s a relatively less-expensive way to add depth to your wardrobe than, say, buying a new pair of jeans. No; what I can’t figure out is why someone, who admits leggings are comfortable, doesn’t seem the slightest bit interested in questioning gender norms for the purposes of practicality, but rather reinforces them. A few articles like this have crossed my twitter feed the last couple of days, and I find it a bit amazing. Each one has included some concession that it would be nice to wear leggings (or carry a purse), but then just asserts that men must not be so “feminized.” I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. But I am.

Hasbro Steps Up

In response to a petition started by McKenna Pope, Hasbro will soon be revealing a new model of the Easy-Bake Oven (which will be black and silver) and has pledged to start marketing the toy in a more gender-neutral way.

Seventeen

Seventeen is a magazine that tries to cater for late teen tastes.  I used to look at it occasionally when I was a teen, and so when I was trapped waiting for 45 min for a friend, I decided to take a look at its prom issue.  I could divide the comments in my head into two types:

From long ago:  1.  Some of these dresses look like night gowns; do you want to go to the prom in your underwear?

( a bit of a non-sequitur, but you get the idea)

2.  Thank goodness some of them are not strapless.

(the nuns would roam around with muslim muslin and safety pins to cover up an immodest girl.)

And then voices from the present century:

1.  Some of the dresses are sized 2-18 and others go as large as 24.  Fabulous.

2.  Big bottoms are clearly allowed and maybe even enouraged.  Yea!  (When I was buying Seventeen, we – already poorly endowed white women/girls – all wore girdles.)

3.  No more photoshopping of bodies, Seventeen says, and that’s actually likely.   Plus-size models are genuinely plus.  Hooray!

The down side:  the burning questions of today look awfully like those of the 50’s and 60′, which means way too many of them are about how he will react to you/her.   Gay couples don’t have any  problems??  There are no important problems that don’t have to do with sex?

O, Tra-la-la.  Life is deliciously trivial

The Sunday cat asks that everyone take a deep breath and then say

AAAwwwwwwwwww!  New angelic messengers!

These were born at the Yalta Zoo in Ukraine.

We featured white lion cubs before; see here.