Tag Archives: Respect

Don’t Wear Dresses in Texas!

Imagine "upskirting" photos being taken here.  Mrs. Laura Bush, first row-center, joins former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter; former President Bill Clinton, and his wife, Hillary Clinton; Mrs. Nancy Reagan; Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, her husband Edwin Schlossberg; Mrs. Barbara Bush; Susan Ford Bales, daughter of former President Gerald R. Ford; and Patricia "Tricia" Nixon Cox and her husband, Edward Cox, upper-right, at the funeral service for former first lady Lady Bird Johnson. Photo By Shealah Craighead, White House Photo Office [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Imagine “upskirting” photos being taken here. Mrs. Laura Bush, first row-center, joins former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter; former President Bill Clinton, and his wife, Hillary Clinton; Mrs. Nancy Reagan; Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, her husband Edwin Schlossberg; Mrs. Barbara Bush; Susan Ford Bales, daughter of former President Gerald R. Ford; and Patricia “Tricia” Nixon Cox and her husband, Edward Cox, upper-right, at the funeral service for former first lady Lady Bird Johnson. Photo By Shealah Craighead, White House Photo Office [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

On Friday, September 19, The Guardian reported that a Texas court “has upheld the constitutional right of Texans to photograph strangers as an essential component of freedom of speech – even if those images should happen to be surreptitious “upskirt” pictures of women taken for the purposes of sexual gratification.”

Once again, a court rules in the interest of protecting First Amendment rights of people who would stoop so low as to photograph up a skirt of a woman who ventures into public dressed like – GASP – a woman – over the rights of women to be able to go into public without fear of being sexualized or victimized simply for her choice of clothing.

“While there is a federal law against taking voyeuristic images on federal property, the issue is generally regulated at state level where seemingly outdated rules have prompted occasional controversies. Earlier this year the highest court in Massachusetts ruled that a man who used his mobile phone to take “upskirt” photographs of women riding the Boston subway did not break the state’s secretive photography law because the women were not nude or partially nude. The following day, lawmakers approved a bill criminalising such behaviour,” the article includes.

Seriously people, let’s think about this. When you get in your car and drive, you have an assumed trust that other motorists will follow the same laws you do, and thus, everyone reaches their destination safely. Maybe not always on time, as some motorists need more time to think about those laws or to finish their usage of electronic devices before discontinuing their impeding of traffic, but we digress.

It should be the same when we leave our homes dressed for our day. If a woman chooses to wear a skirt or dress to work, she should not need to worry if someone will photograph up her skirt during her day and images of her be recorded for the benefit of someone else.

We’d like to suggest that any organization, church, group or other such gathering to look for a spot to host events that include women, they refrain from considering Texas as a location option. We believe Massachusetts would be much more worth considering.

We notice there is no news of Texas following the example of Massachusetts by passing a law that bans the reprehensible behavior; we hear crickets. Yet Texas wants us to believe that men are men and women are treated respectfully within its borders. We think it would be more interesting to check the sales of small handheld cameras since the Texan court ruling.

STOP RAPE CULTURE

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He Said, She Said….

Matt Lauer. Photo by David Shankbone (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Matt Lauer. Photo by David Shankbone (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

In a recent Today Show interview, Matt Lauer managed to strip himself of all remaining respect he may have been due in his interview with General Motors CEO Mary Barra.

Lauer proceeded to dismiss all the qualifications Barra may have presented when vying for the number one spot in the gleaming tower of Detroit. Asking her a very well-staged question on whether her being a woman and being a mom weren’t the REAL reasons GM picked her at this time when a face of softness and compassion might earn the company a better public image. But then he went even further;

LAUER: You’re a mom, I mentioned, two kids. You said in an interview not long ago that your kids told you they’re going to hold you accountable for one job and that is being a mom.
BARRA: Correct.
LAUER: Given the pressures of this job at General Motors, can you do both well?

While my head spun trying to grasp that a major anchor of a top-rated news program would have enough disrespect not only for the person he was interviewing, but also for every professional woman out there who just so happens to also be a mother, what I was even more disappointed when Barra chose to answer politely.

What SHOULD she have said? Here’s how we envision this could have played out:

LAUER: Given the pressures of this job at General Motors, can you do both well?
BARRA: What an excellent question, Matt. And since you are the father of three, and travel the world extensively on long trips away from home, I can assure you that not only can I do both well, in fact I’ve often wondered how men like you can do it, since research clearly shows that women multi-task much better than men. And Matt, you really need to understand that motherhood does not disable a woman’s brain function; in fact, it actually has the opposite effect. So how DOES that work in fatherhood, anyway?

Lauer defended his question by saying it was fair, since Barra had previously mentioned her children. Yet nowhere can we find record of Lauer ever asking this type of question of any male CEO he has interviewed, even when the man would mention his children.

What we have here, folks, is a double standard. And until women stop giving answers that men don’t intend to listen to anyway, and instead put the ball back in the court it came from, there will never be an end to any of the stupidity.

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