Update: Defense attorneys for the two teenage boys have officially withdrawn their motion to hold Savannah in contempt for tweeting her attackers' names after the case gained worldwide recognition. Phew! Upset by what she felt was a lenient plea bargain for two teen boys who plead guilty to assaulting her and circulating pictures of the incident, 17-year-old Savannah Dietrich turned to Twitter to share her frustration. “There you go, lock me up,” she tweeted, according to the Courier Journal. “I’m not...

Hyatt hotels are currently being boycotted, with great support from feminist and LGBQT activists. Tiger Beatdown reports on the terrible worker abuses fueling this boycott, and I, for one, am pretty horrified by them. Here they are: - Branches around the country have fired many of their workers and brought on contract workers, who are temps but end up staying for months or even years, and don’t get any benefits, get paid less than regular employees, and are not allowed to participate in the hotel’s events. -...

Lizz Winstead, creator of The Daily Show and recently featured in BUST Magazine's June/July issue, will read from her collection of essays Lizz Free or Die tonight, as part of the Brooklyn Bridge Park’s summer reading series. Winstead's collection of essays is an account of her life, which has been influenced by sexism and her struggles against it. BUST’s review of the work states “as a child, a priest infuriates her when he tells her she can’t be an altar boy; as a young stand-up comic, she’s equally...

When they tell you to dream big, I don’t think they meant boycott the Internet. Because let’s get real: with more than 100 companies under its umbrella, Google has quite the monopoly over the World Wide Web. Not that appeals to reason ever swayed the American Family Association (AFA), a "Christian" group that is currently busy mulling over a Google boycott. So what exactly did the behemoth do to deserve such ire from the far right? Well, earlier this month, it launched a campaign called “Legalize Love.”...

From not being able to use the word "vagina" on the house floor to taking away funding for Planned Parenthood, it's safe to say there is a war on women's rights waging on in the United States. I hate the term "war on women." It's always seemed too dramatic to me. "Are people dying?" I would question when someone threw the term around. The truth is that they could be. Without the proper resources for prenatal care, safe abortions, or even family planning help, pregnant women...

Monday, news of Marissa Mayer being named Yahoo’s newest CEO broke. Mayer had worked at Google for thirteen years, and will now be at the helm of a major tech company-one of the biggest male dominated sectors. Woo hoo! According to an Associated Press story, the organization Catalyst (which tracks women’s workplace advancement), says that only 4% of the top Fortune 500 companies are women. Even better. But 37-year-old Mayer’s got even more on her plate. She’s six months pregnant! After announcing her new...

A few weeks back, pop culture critic Anita Sarkeesian launched a kickstarter campaign in an attempt to raise $6000 to fund a web-video series for her website Feminist Frequency. In the video series, Sarkeesian wanted to discuss the sexist and stereotypical representations of women in video games, to which I say, “well, duh,” as well as, “get it, girl!” Unfortunately, it would be an understatement to say that not everyone shared my same opinion. In response to her campaign, Sarkeesian’s efforts were ironically validated by an...

Black Girl Dangerous, a blog for queer-identified women of color to showcase their artistic abilities, express themselves, educate one another, and weave a web of community, is an amazing step forward. Centered in activism, the blog encourages women of color to explore their wilder side through writing and creativity and to "shout it out!" The blog is a constant on my reading list and resonates body and sex positivity. The prose that is normally posted on the blog is sincere, honest and heartfelt.  It considers a point of...

Regardless of your opinions on her or her music, rapper Nicki Minaj makes some straightforward and seriously valid points about sexism in this short clip. The video's an oldie but a goodie--it's from her 2010 MTV documentary, My Time Now, but has been making the rounds lately. If you haven't checked it out, it's well worth a watch. She tackles double standards in the workplace, explaining, “When I am assertive, I’m a bitch. When a man is assertive, he’s a boss. He's bossed up. No negative...

Just last month, 14-year-old Julia Bluhm was invited to Seventeen magazine’s HQ, where she met with editor-in-chief Anne Shoket and presented her petition asking the magazine to run just one non-photoshopped spread per issue. As Jezebel put it, the magazine said “thanks but no thanks” and did not appear to have any plans to listen to Bluhm’s pleas--not to mention the 25,000 others she brought along with her. Recently, the number of signatures more than tripled with 84,000 total, and just this week, Shoket officially announced...