The New York Court of Appeals seems to think that subway masturbators are no big deal.  Last year, a man who masturbated and ejaculated on three different female subway passengers was tracked down through DNA evidence. The man, Darnell Hardware, is now out free after only one year in prison — for time served — because the Court of Appeals considers masturbating and ejaculating on someone without their consent a misdemeanor, not a felony, Gothamist reports.     Hardware "rubbed his penis against a woman in a crowded subway...

I'm not sure why or how, but there are still people out there who think that the War on Women is just a paranoid fantasy, propagated by the left as part of a vast conspiracy to unseat honest, well-meaning Republicans.  This chart, courtesy of the Guttmacher Institute and This is Personal, proves once and for all that the nay-sayers are full of bullshit and that, yes, women's rights are under attack like never before. (At least never since women had rights to attack in the first...

If you’ve ever read the comments on an article or blog post even slightly related to feminism, you’ve probably come across plenty of troll-y arguments.      “Feminists hate men!” “You just enjoy being offended.” “You’re being silly and overemotional.”     Now, you can turn all your comment-induced rage into fun with the Interactive Feminist Bingo Card! The card places troll-y comments on a five-by-five bingo card. When you click on a comment square, you mark it with a female gender symbol. That way, you can keep track of the trolls. When...

Although women’s involvement in labor unions has increased significantly since the seventies, a new paper finds that men still hold most of the top union leadership positions in both the U.S. and the U.K. The study, which included interviews with 130 women, was carried out by Professor Geraldine Healy and Professor Gill Kirton of the School of Business and Management at Queen Mary University in London.   In nine of the U.S.’s major labor unions, women only account for 24% of leadership roles, even though overall female membership...

Today (well, today in Australia), Australian Labor Senator Louise Pratt delivered one of the most eloquent arguments for marriage equality that I’ve ever seen. Senator Pratt, whose partner is transgender, gave an emotionally charged speech dissecting the logic of discriminatory marriage laws and their effect upon the nation—and truly, it doesn’t get much plainer than this: “I think it is one of the bitterest, bitterest ironies of this debate that historically, gay people have been stigmatized as promiscuous and immoral while being denied by the law the...

We all know the drill: You’re walking down the street when a sketchy-looking guy and his “boys” look you up and down with their prying eyes. More often than not, sexual epithets and crude motions follow. And if you happen to be holding hands with another woman, expect anti-gay slurs to be tossed around without a second thought. It’s no secret that street harassment is a pervasive problem across the United States. In my very own city, the Borough President’s Office reported that out of 1,790 questionnaire...

We know that discrimination against women still exists, but sometimes we forget the fact that discrimination is not distributed equally to each woman. A recent Forbes article by political strategist Atima Omara-Alwala revealed some horrifying facts about health care discrimination among black women.  African American women, as just one example of many, are three times more likely to experience unwanted pregnancy and four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women. Arguably, women of color are more affected by what Omara-Alwala calls the "'war...

Global Times has spotlighted some awesome feminists in China who have recently staged various grassroots protests that go beyond writing articles or giving speeches.  They focus on pressing women’s issues like sexual harassment and workplace and financial inequality.  China is a more difficult environment to protest in, as feminism is less accepted there than in the United States (and a lot of people in the U.S. aren’t down with feminism either).  As one activist, Song Jialun, explains, "Women are educated to be somebody's wife and somebody's...

Three members of Pussy Riot were convicted of hooliganism, but the movement continues – Feminist Press is making sure of that. Only a month after three members of feminist punk performance art collective Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a penal colony for staging a protest performance in a Moscow cathedral, Feminist Press is releasing an ebook about the trial. Pussy Riot! A Punk Prayer For Freedom collects previously unavailable Pussy Riot material, including letters from prison, courtroom statements, and poems. It also includes “Punk...

It seems like Verizon can charge you for anything these days. Though skyrocketing fees are a mere annoyance for some, they also can mean the difference between life and death for victims of domestic violence. Cynthia Butterworth, a resident of Rochester, NY, was shocked when her sister was brutally beaten by her boyfriend—and even more shocked when she learned that Verizon Wireless was planning to charge her $500 to end the cell phone contract she shared with her abuser. Under Verizon’s current policy, her abusive boyfriend had...