Tag Archives: sexual harassment

Surging Number of US Teen Girls Face Sexual Violence and Extreme Sadness: CDC

“Young people in the U.S. are collectively experiencing a level of distress that calls on us to act,” reads the study.

By Julia Conley Published 213-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: rawpixel (Public domain}

Child development experts and other advocates said Monday that new federal data regarding the struggles of adolescents in the United States should serve as an urgent call to action, as teenage girls reported facing rising levels of sexual violence as well as suicidal thoughts and depression in a survey taken by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC’s biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which was given to 17,000 teenagers at public and private high schools across the U.S. in 2021, found that nearly 1 in 3 adolescent girls seriously considered suicide that year—representing an increase of 60% over the previous decade. Continue reading →

Misogyny helped South Korea’s president win. Now feminists are fighting back

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Yoon Suk-yeol was swept to victory on a wave of ‘anti-feminism’ among young Korean men. Now, he wants to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality

By Hannah Pham. Pubished 3-26-2022 by openDemocracy

Yoon Seok-youl leaves the main opposition People Power Party’s headquarters in Seoul on July 30, 2021 Photo: 고려/Wikimedia Commons/CC

“I threw up and cried.” This was 30-year-old Haein Shim’s reaction to the results of South Korea’s presidential election, held on 9 March. As the senior director of foreign media of Seoul-based feminist group Haeil (translated as ‘Tsunami’), Haein had felt neither candidate was necessarily a strong or progressive choice. But ultimately it was Yoon Suk-yeol of the People Power Party – in Haein’s eyes, the worse of two evils – who won.

“We have to choose the head of the state, but there is no candidate for women to choose from,” says Haein, who originally hails from Gwangju in south-west South Korea and now lives in the US. “No candidate sees women as they really are.” Continue reading →

McDonald’s Workers Join ‘Striketober’ and Walk Out Over Sexual Harassment

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One striker participated because “McDonald’s still refuses to take responsibility for the countless women and teenagers who face harassment on the job at its stores across the globe.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-26-2021

Employees of a McDonald’s in North Charleston, South Carolina walked out with workers across the United States for a one-day strike on October 26, 2021. (Photo: NC Raise Up/Twitter)

Amid of wave of worker walkouts that supporters are collectively calling “Striketober,” McDonald’s employees in at least 12 U.S. cities took to the streets Tuesday to raise concerns about how the fast food giant has handled sexual harassment and to demand a union.

Though McDonald’s in April announced new sexual harassment training standards that all of its restaurants worldwide will be required to meet by January 2022, workers still joined the one-day walkout from Chicago and Detroit to Houston and Miami, charging that the company has not done enough to keep employees safe on the job. Continue reading →

Inside the Secret Border Patrol Facebook Group Where Agents Joke About Migrant Deaths and Post Sexist Memes

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The three-year-old group, which has roughly 9,500 members, shared derogatory comments about Latina lawmakers who plan to visit a controversial Texas detention facility on Monday, calling them “scum buckets” and “hoes.”

By A.C. Thompson Published 7-1-2019 by ProPublica

(Photo: Legal Loop)

Members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas on Monday and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant, according to screenshots of their postings.

In one exchange, group members responded with indifference and wisecracks to the post of a news story about a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant who died in May while in custody at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas. One member posted a GIF of Elmo with the quote, “Oh well.” Another responded with an image and the words “If he dies, he dies.” Continue reading →

Central American women fleeing violence experience more trauma after seeking asylum

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File 20190422 1403 n0tfpz.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1

Laurie C. Heffron, St. Edward’s University

The number of Central American women who make difficult, often harrowing, journeys to the United States to flee domestic and gang violence is rising.

I’m a social science researcher and a social worker who has interviewed hundreds of women after they were detained by immigration authorities for my research about the relationship between violence against women and migration. I find that most female asylum seekers experience trauma, abuse and violence before they cross the U.S. border seeking asylum. Continue reading →

Men, We Can Do Better

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Survivors of sexual assault like Christine Blasey Ford deserve our support, not our opposition.

By Chris Winters. Published 9-28-2018 by YES! Magazine

Rally against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh outside the Supreme Court, Washington DC. Photo: Avery Jensen {CC-BY-SA-4.0} via Wikimedia Commons

Like millions of Americans, I sat riveted before the television on Thursday watching the quiet, calm, and dignified testimony of a woman, Professor Christine Blasey Ford, who was scarred for life by sexual assault. She sat in a room full of powerful men and described her ordeal at the hands of another powerful man.

Then I watched that accused man, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, yell and scream about how it was all just unfair and a political hit job and a conspiracy by Democrats to get revenge for the 2016 election. His unbridled rage was shared by several other powerful men in the room, especially Senator Lindsay Graham, whose rant seemed to be an audition for a senior appointment in the Trump administration. Continue reading →

Nationwide Walkout Planned to Show Solidarity with Sexual Assault Survivors as Ford Reaches Tentative Deal to Testify

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Thousands of people across the country have pledged to walk out of their workplaces and schools on Monday at 1:00pm EST

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-23-2018

Protests at Senate offices are planned for Monday to demand senators vote against Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Survivors and allies across the country will also walk out of their workplaces and schools to show solidarity with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. (Photo: CancelKavanaugh.com)

Women and men across the country are planning a national walkout on Monday afternoon in a show of solidarity with sexual assault survivors, as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford prepares to testify regarding her allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

More than three dozen progressive organizations—including NARAL Pro-Choice America, CREDO, and Planned Parenthood Action Fund—announced the event late Saturday, calling on survivors and allies to wear black on Monday and to walk out of their workplaces, schools, and homes at 1:00pm EST. Supporters will also be posting photos of their participation online with the hashtag #BelieveSurvivors. Continue reading →

Amid ‘Epidemic’ of Campus Sexual Assault, Women’s Groups Decry Rollback of Protections by ‘See No Evil Betsy Devos’

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“These new rules further protect abusers in a system that is already rigged in their favor.”

By Common Dreams. Published 8-30-2018

USC students protest the University’s handling of rape and sexual assault cases. (Kylie Nicholson/SCAR)

Women rights groups and victim advocates expressed outrage on Thursday following reports that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has plans to weaken federal protections for sexual assault survivors on U.S. campuses—reducing liability for school administrators and increasing protections for accused sexual predators.

The proposed rules, first reported by The New York Times, narrow the definition of sexual harassment to mean “unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex that is so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it denies a person access to the school’s education program or activity.” Continue reading →

#MeToo movement finds an unlikely champion in Wall Street with the new ‘Weinstein clause’

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Image: Giving Compass

Elizabeth C. Tippett, University of Oregon

If you were worried that the #MeToo movement might fade away, fear not. It has been carved into one of the most immovable objects in human history.

Legal boilerplate.

And not just any boilerplate. But the language in giant merger agreements, used when one company is buying out another company. Continue reading →

On Equal Pay Day, New Study Shows Wage Gap Actually Growing for Women Under 40

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Advocates are demanding equitable policies such as paid parental leave and affordable childcare while also declaring “we must address harassment and discrimination!”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 4-10-2018

Several women’s advocacy groups marked Equal Pay Day by delivering a petition to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to demand the agency collect American employers’ pay data to accurately monitor the nation’s gender wage gap. (Photo: @AAUW/Twitter)

A new report released on Equal Pay Day shows that the gender wage gap has actually worsened for women under 40 in recent years, despite increased media attention on the issue alongside mounting demands that businesses and politicians crack down on workplace sexual harassment, which researchers have tied to pay inequality.

“Despite the great awareness of the gender equity issue, there is evidence that we have lost ground on this important measure of equality,” said John Schwarz, chief executive of Visier, the workforce analytics firm that conducted the study. “These findings should be a wake-up call to business leaders.” Continue reading →

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Tag Archives: sexual harassment

Inside the Secret Border Patrol Facebook Group Where Agents Joke About Migrant Deaths and Post Sexist Memes

The three-year-old group, which has roughly 9,500 members, shared derogatory comments about Latina lawmakers who plan to visit a controversial Texas detention facility on Monday, calling them “scum buckets” and “hoes.”