Focus on: Equal Pay

Here’s an excellent column by Amanda Teuscher in Ohio U’s student newspaper which sums up the issues regarding the defeated Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act:
The Feminist’s Corner: Equal pay litigation is justice, not an inconvenience

There’s not much commentary around pointing out that the proposed legislation would have enabled more than just women to have more time to sue for pay discrimination. Any employee with an unequal pay case would have gained the same time extension to enable discovery of the discrepancy and timely litigation, no matter whether the people they were being paid less than were of a different race, ethnicity, sexuality, socioeconomic class or physical ability level.

The major stated objection by the Senators who voted to block the bill was that it would enable “too many lawsuits” seeking restitution for pay discrimination. The idea that companies who behave unjustly and illegally should be forced to provide restitution seems to have entirely passed them by.

When did it become the province of the Government to protect corporations rather than its citizens? This trend of legislation which essentially provides corporate welfare has become rampant in the USA (note the revisions to bankruptcy laws which benefit corporations over citizens yet again). It’s apparently also an emerging trend in other countries where economic conservative politicians hold the legislative power.

Links from FF101 readers to instances of blatant protection of corporations over the interests of citizens in other countries would be greatly appreciated.

Update: A Lurker sent me a link in email to some fine reportage by Dahlia Lithwick at Slate giving more details of the US Republican Senators arguments against the Ledbetter bill, as well as to links of the Majority and Minority Reports from the judgement made by the Supreme Court. I neglected to point out that some of the language used by Republicans just assumes that women are too stupid to know their own best interests. Despicable.

Event Announcement: Chicago screenings of Nubian’s documentary

“Nubian” is the nom du blog of the writer of Blac(k)ademic, Kortney Ryan Ziegler. She is fundraising in order to finance the final post-production phase of her documentary, an experimental film project titled still black: a portrait of black transmen, and there are screenings this weekend in Chicago.

Directed by experimental filmmaker Kortney Ryan Ziegler, still black is a feature-length documentary that explores the lives of six black transgender men living in the United States. Through the intimate stories of their lives as artists, students, husbands, fathers, lawyers, and teachers, the film offers viewers a complex and multi-faceted image of race, sexuality and trans identity.

It sounds like a 101 on intersectionality, doesn’t it? There are some clips from the film at the film’s website.

Details of the screenings are here, including contact details and a link where you can donate money if you like her work but can’t make it to the screenings.

What Shakesville Said

Shakesville: We Write Letters

This blog resolves to acknowledge our social privileges without defensiveness, to welcome the comments and contributions of socially marginalised voices, and when our work builds on the ideas of others we will fully attribute our debt to their work.

We will no doubt get it wrong at times. Call us on it. We will listen. We may, in the end, still disagree with some criticisms, but these disagreements will be discussed respectfully and we will still be your allies.

Update May 2nd 2008 – Related Post:
Feminism Friday: When Women Who Advocate For Women’s Rights Reject The Label Feminist – links to many discussions on the shortcomings of mainstream feminism when dealing with matters of race and racism especially. That post was updated May 2nd, 2008 to include some of the excellent posts written in the last few weeks.

FAQ: why do some people talk of "feminisms"?

Most recently updated 17 March 2007

Because, as was said back on the What is a feminist? and Why are there so many fights between feminists? posts, Feminism is not a monolith.

From the soc.feminism Terminologies FAQ compiled in 1993 by Cindy Tittle Moore, here is a following non-exhaustive list of feminisms (read fuller descriptions at the given link to clarify concepts). Asterisked notes are mine. Some of the following groups are very small compared to the major strands of modern feminism:

Feminisms
Amazon Feminism
Anarcho-Feminism
Cultural Feminism
Erotic Feminism
Eco-Feminism
‘Feminazi’ **
Feminism and Women of Color
Individualist, or Libertarian Feminism
Lesbianism *
Liberal Feminism
Marxist and Socialist Feminism
Material Feminism
Moderate Feminism
‘pop-feminism’ **
Radical Feminism
Separatists

* Just as not all feminists are lesbians, not all lesbians are feminists. It’s a “correlation, not causation” thing, and not an easily distinguished movement as such either.
** Essentially media inventions rather than meaningful classifications.

There are important new movements not included in the list above, particularly the Radical Women of Colour movement and the many non-Western national/ethnic feminist movements, which have all been caught up in the single classification “Feminism and Women of Colour” above.

FAQ: Why are there so many fights between feminists?

Quoting from Sage’s FAQ:

1. Why do feminists all disagree? Feminism isn’t a movement, it’s an argument!

We all want to raise the status of women to the level of men, to feel safe and respected, and to have a fair and equal chance for all our opinions to be heard. Since the movement is all about choice and the ability to make our own decision that affect us, then it’s necessarily going to be a group fraught with differences. We’re all making our own choices. That’s the commonality. Trying to actively be allowed these choices is the movement. Butting heads along the way from time to time is the reality.

Different feminists work within differing feminist constructs, and have different priorities regarding activism in the following three main (overlapping) arenas:

1. Work and Family
2. Sexuality and Health
3. Social Justice

Often the tactics of a feminist working primarily in one arena can seem to be in conflict with the tactics of a feminist working in primarily in another arena. The ultimate goal of an end to oppression and inequality is rarely in conflict, merely the plan for how best to focus resources and actions to achieve these goals.