When Law Students Attack
By Jill Filipovic • March 07, 2007 •Sexism, Sexual Harassment, and Other Forms of Discrimination
This article in the Washington Post and this post by Ann Althouse, both of which are about students on law school message boards posting pictures and nasty comments about female law students, struck a nerve -- because I'm one of the women they're talking about, and my pictures have been posted on their site. The WaPo article is about AutoAdmit, a law school-oriented message board that is, essentially, a massive toilet of racism and sexism (not linking to the site -- google if you're interested). I've written about AutoAdmit before, when I found out that they were posting numerous pictures…
File Under: Get Pregnant, Lose Your Civil Liberties
By Jill Filipovic • March 06, 2007 •Other Issues
Ah, the things politicians will do in the name of protecting babies! Now, we all know that the term "protecting babies," when uttered by a "pro-life" individual, is usually code for "reminding women that they are simply vessels who, once occupied,* cease to possess the basic rights that non-vessels are entitled to (non-vessels being "men," otherwise known as "actual human beings")." There's the classic example of the pregnant drug addict being prosecuted after she gives birth, despite the fact that neither being a drug addict nor being pregnant is actually a crime. There's penalizing low-income women for giving birth by…
Congressional Babes
By Jill Filipovic • March 06, 2007 •Women and Law in the Media
Last week on my blog we had a short conversation about hyper-sexualized younger women, and why coming down on them is a little bit unfair. Now, the LA Times gives us this article about Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Congresswoman who is, according to the paper, is being "tested on whether her reputation will be more coquette or congresswoman." Because Lord knows the earth would shatter if she were both a female politician and a human being. This one should probably be filed under "women can't win" because, well, we can't. And this illustrates it. The fact is that most women,…
On “Balance”
By Jill Filipovic • February 02, 2007 •Balancing Private and Professional Life
[The following is an email sent out over an NYU Law listserve. It references an event sponsored by a religious organization at NYU, which featured a white, male, Mormon attorney with five children and a stay-at-home wife speaking about balancing work and family.] Rebecca writes, "Nor does it address the fact that, whether you intend to or not, when you say that Mr. Belnap can't speak for women on the work-life balance issues, you implicitly depict the issue as mainly a woman's issue. Work-life is an issue neutral to gender and neutral to having children or 'family'. And while women…