Over the past month, Iowa Rep. Steve King has been one of the most vocal supporters of SB102, the controversial Arizona bill (recently vetoed by AZ Governor Jan Brewer) that would have allowed businesses to discriminate against and refuse service to gay people on religious grounds. While many argued that such a law…
The Kansas House recently passed a bill that would make it legal to deny access to services to same-sex couples.
Russia's anti-gay laws have been a major focus in the lead-up to the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, and during his address at today's opening ceremony IOC president Thomas Bach made a strong statement against "any form of discrimination" and in favor of tolerance. Viewers worldwide heard the statement; NBC viewers in the …
In case you missed it because you're one of those crazy Bing people, the Google Doodle was particularly spectacular today, in light of recent world events.
Someone alert Atticus Finch! This is the civil rights case of a generation! Wongene Daniel Kim, a second year student at the University of Toronto, has presented a gender discrimination complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal after his female gender studies professor dared to fail him — the only male in the…
In December, the city council of Shreveport, Louisiana passed an ordinance banning housing and employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. What great news! Everyone in Shreveport must be throwing dance parties in the name of progress and RuPaul's Supermodel (You Better Work) — …
There's no real reason girls and boys need to be segregated into different sports when they're young. In fact, according to a British lecturer, splitting up boys and girls into gendered athletic activities may instill nascent gender prejudices so that we can still have endless NFL Sunday Ticket commercials in which a…
Another perfectly legitimate, non-purloining shopper has claimed that Macy's, in its ceaseless effort to make shopping in New York as stressful and bigoted as possible, racially profiled him after he purchased a really expensive Louis Vuitton bag.
Ahead of yet another campaign urging women to defy Saudi Arabia’s dude-only driving rules in a protest drive on October 26, a conservative Saudi cleric has used his thoroughly medieval understanding of human organs to argue that women who drive cars risk damaging their ovaries and giving birth to children with clinical …
Remember that Saved by the Bell episode when Kristy Barnes wanted to try out for the wrestling team and the caricature of a misogynistic coach was all, “But you’re a lady! This is a gym not a Jane! Bake us some brownies! Mwahahahahaha, I’m terrible!”? It was one of the show’s heavier moments, and not just because we…
Writing a long, long time ago in a papercut delivery mechanism called “a magazine,” Susan Sontag pointed out that our culture has a double-standard when it comes to aging. That is, dudes are allowed to age into grizzled old wrinklepusses, while women are required to either maintain the skin tautness of a porcelain doll …
Deborah Brown Community School, the charter school in Tulsa, Oklahoma that recently came under fire for sending home 7-year-0ld Tiana Parker on the grounds that she violated appearance guidelines by having dreadlocks, has decided — following a two hour school board meeting — to officially change their policy.
It’s hard enough to be an astronaut. You basically have to be a genius physical specimen with enough intelligence to understand astrophysics, but not enough self-awareness to fear being strapped to a rocket and hurled into low orbit by a column of fire. For aspiring female astronauts, though, the selection process is…
Making gross generalizations is usually a recipe for disaster, and though you might think that the director of admissions at Oxford University might know better than to make some broad, sweeping pronouncement about how girls’ guts are way more indecisive than boys’ guts, you’d be wrong, prey to the very same sort of…
A veteran, weather-beaten meteorologist in Los Angeles recently filed a discrimination lawsuit against KABC-TV, alleging he wasn’t even considered for the position of green-screen gesticulator because the station had already made up its mind to hire an attractive young woman with very little experience. Armed with the…
Reporter Tara Murtha of the alt-publication Philadelphia Weekly has filed a federal civil suit against her employer alleging that she was not compensated equally with her male colleagues and that the organization is a "hostile and sexually discriminatory work environment.” In response, multiple publications have written …
For years, Abercrombie & Fitch's hiring practices have been under scrutiny. And now, France’s official human rights watchdog organization has set its sights on the retailer, launching an investigation.
On this day, let us propose a new ranking system for celebrities: a scale that goes from Rush Limbaugh (worst, unless you’re an older white dude who still fears the Red Menace) all the way up to Helen Mirren (best, unless you’re an older white dude who fears that women gaining positions of power = the End of Days).
When Kim O' Grady was applying for jobs in the late 90s, he was excited. He writes that he had the relevant qualifications, experience and could also show a successful track record in his chosen career path — unfortunately for him, he also had a name that many people automatically assume belongs to a woman.
In spite of all the criticism Hollywood has faced recently for its awful female-to-male director ratio, women are still being widely discriminated against in the film industry. Maybe, being a generally optimistic person, you might be inclined to think that things are a little more equal outside of the US. What about in …
