Category: Equality of Opportunity

Britain risks heading to US levels of inequality, warns top economist | Inequality | The Guardian

~ mcequality

Rising inequality in Britain risks putting the country on the same path as the US to become one of the most unequal nations on earth, according to a Nobel-prize winning economist.

Sir Angus Deaton is leading a landmark review of inequality in the UK amid fears that the country is at a tipping point due to a decade of stagnant pay growth for British workers. The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, which is working with Deaton on the study, said the British-born economist would “point to the risk of the UK following the US” which has extreme inequality levels in pay, wealth and health.

via Britain risks heading to US levels of inequality, warns top economist | Inequality | The Guardian

Cinzia Arruzza on How Women Are Leading the Class Struggle

~ mcequality

Meanwhile, teachers in Las Vegas are voting this week on whether to join the nationwide strike wave, which has largely been led by educators. Hundreds of thousands of public school teachers and education workers struck last year, the overwhelming majority without the protection of traditional collective bargaining rights. So did thousands of nurses and hotel workers. Outside of the workplace, migrant women traveling with a caravan launched a hunger strike in Tijuana to protest delays in the asylum process; Irish women overturned that country’s abortion ban; and Spanish women led the resistance to the rise of the far right.

via Cinzia Arruzza on How Women Are Leading the Class Struggle

Domestic abuse: PM vows to end ‘postcode lottery’ for victims – BBC News

~ mcequality

Councils in England will have a legal duty to provide secure homes for victims of domestic abuse under new plans announced by Theresa May.
People seeking refuge from abuse and violence can receive varying levels of support depending on their location.
But Mrs May has vowed to end the “postcode lottery” for victims and their children, creating a legal duty for councils to provide refuge.
One victim described the move as “absolutely momentous” news.

via Domestic abuse: PM vows to end ‘postcode lottery’ for victims – BBC News

Political Controversies Can Inspire Bullying in Schools, Public Health Researchers Say

~ mcequality

Political controversies that receive heavy media coverage trickle down into classrooms and spark bullying, suggests a new study out this week. It found that children in California reported being bullied more over their sexual orientation during 2008 and 2009—when the contentious Proposition 8, which temporarily prevented same sex marriage in the state, was passed—than before or after those years.

The researchers behind the study, which is published in JAMA Pediatrics, looked at 14 years worth of data from the California Healthy Kids Survey, a statewide survey of K-12 students intended to identify factors that promote (or discourage) flourishing and well-educated kids. In total, they looked at responses from nearly 5 million middle and high school students across more than 5,000 schools in the state.

via Political Controversies Can Inspire Bullying in Schools, Public Health Researchers Say

TripAdvisor Is Launching New Tools to Spot Sexual Assault and Misconduct Allegations

~ mcequality

Two years ago, an expose revealed that TripAdvisor had removed reviews detailing robbery, sexual assault, and rape because they were either flagged as “inappropriate by the TripAdvisor community,” “off-topic” by staff, or were not considered “family friendly.” The site has since admitted it was deleting posts of that nature, rolled out badges on hotel pages with reports of safety issues, grossly mishandled allegations on its platform again, and now, is launching more safety features in an attempt to illustrate that it does take these concerns seriously.

TripAdvisor’s core experience president Lindsay Nelson published a post on Tuesday detailing two new features on the travel site that serve to help users more easily identify safety-related reviews. The first one is a safety filter that surfaces reviews from the last year detailing incidents of sexual assault and sexual misconduct by hotel employees. It also pulls up any new reviews detailing these incidents as well as death, drugging, sex trafficking, armed robbery, and physical assault.

via TripAdvisor Is Launching New Tools to Spot Sexual Assault and Misconduct Allegations

Study Shows Black Girls Feel the Impact of 'Adultification'

~ mcequality

Research has already shown that black girls are seen by adults as less childlike than white girls. This phenomenon, known as “adultification,” was first documented two years ago by researchers at Georgetown Law’s Center on Poverty and Inequality. Now, a followup study reveals that, not surprisingly, black girls and women sharply feel the impact of “adultification.” As one study participant put it, “[T]o society, we’re not innocent. And white girls are always innocent.”

In an earlier 2017 study, Georgetown Law researchers found that black girls, even those as young as 5 years old, were seen by adults as less needing of comfort, nurturing, protection, and support than white girls. The researchers also found that black girls were perceived as more independent and knowledgeable about sex. In this latest study, researchers set out to understand how black girls and women experienced this “adultification” through a series of national focus groups.

via Study Shows Black Girls Feel the Impact of 'Adultification'

Halsey Tweets About Supporting Sex Workers

~ mcequality

Over the weekend, Halsey posted on her Instagram stories with the #supportsexworkers hashtag. This is controversial. This is controversial! THIS IS CONTROVERSIAL. Clearly, because soon after, she wrote in a tweet that has since disappeared, “getting a lot of shit because I posted #supportsexworkers on my story last night.” She followed up: “Just to be clear. I DO support sex workers. I support consenting humans in the field. My statement obviously excludes people forced into sex work. It all comes back to autonomy and choice.” It is not so obvious to many people.

This is so often how the “debate” over sex work goes: Even the use of a supportive hashtag is swiftly strong-armed into a discussion of the evils of sex trafficking.

via Halsey Tweets About Supporting Sex Workers

How Do We Make Cis Men Give a Shit About Abortion?

~ mcequality

Anti-abortion activists have been bashing away at abortion’s legality and accessibility for decades, but the past two weeks have been especially dramatic. On May 15th, Alabama passed the most restrictive law in the nation, which would grant no exceptions for rape or incest victims; this on the heels of Georgia’s so-called “heartbeat” bill that aims to ban abortions after six weeks, before the vast majority of people will even realize that they’re pregnant.

Inside this maelstrom of terrible laws came Alyssa Milano’s ill-conceived and not even real sex strike, which continued to show up in news stories and across social media as Missouri passed its own near total abortion ban. Milano’s announcement (which can be read in its original tweet form here) justifiably set off an avalanche of angry (and witty) rebukes, most of which lodged the same objections: such a strike is predicated on heteronormativity and gender essentialism; it positions sex as labor, as though we have sex with as our bosses; it doesn’t account for the striker’s own desire for sexual pleasure and intimacy; and it flirts with the conservative talking point that fertile cis women shouldn’t have penis-in-vagina (PIV) sex unless they intend to carry any resulting pregnancy to term.

via How Do We Make Cis Men Give a Shit About Abortion?

The Anti-Abortion Movement Is Inching Toward Its Logical, Radical Endpoint

~ mcequality

Emboldened by the passage of Alabama’s almost total ban on abortion, some extremist anti-abortion activists are now pushing for the Republican Party to, in their words, “reconsider decades-old talking points” that make exceptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest.

As NPR reported, a coalition of groups led by Students for Life of America, is urging party officials to adopt their hardline stance:

via The Anti-Abortion Movement Is Inching Toward Its Logical, Radical Endpoint

Birmingham LGBT lessons: Head teacher threatened – BBC News

~ mcequality

A head teacher at a primary school giving lessons on LGBT equality has received threatening emails and phone calls.
Police are investigating messages sent to Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson at Anderton Park Primary School in Birmingham.
There have been seven weeks of protests outside the site from which “hundreds” of pupils were kept away on Monday.
Birmingham MP Jess Phillips has called for an exclusion zone at the school to limit where people can demonstrate.
Ms Hewitt-Clarkson has branded the protests aggressive.
The city council is looking into Ms Phillips’ request, with the authority’s leader saying some outside the school are “peddling hatred”.

via Birmingham LGBT lessons: Head teacher threatened – BBC News