Philly takes a positive stand against discrimination

The Washington Post is running a story about Philly’s city government plan to evict the boy scouts from their rent subsidized meeting center, if they refuse to renounce their discriminatory policy against gays because it violates the cities equity rules. It is important to note, the troop that currently meets here isn’t anti-gay, but they’ll lose their national charter with the boy scouts if they were to remove anti-gay language from their documents.

While this puts the local troop between a rock and a hard place to be sure, I think Philly is taking an important stand against discrimination. If the Boy Scouts want to be discriminatory, that is their perogative as a private organization, courts have ruled on that. However, that doesn’t mean they should be allowed to continue being subsidized if they stand in violation of the cities laws. We also find it hopeful, that the troop is letting atheists and gays in under the radar, despite the Boy Scouts discriminatory national policies. Children should be learning messages of inclusiveness rather than messages of intolerance and fear. Maybe this fight can change the face of the Boy Scouts, and make them the inclusive, positive organization they could be.

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And people think the time for Feminism has passed…

It’s something we hear all the time, Feminism as a movement has been relegated to the constantly offended set. The “ball busters”, “feminazi’s”, etc. No more is it for regular women, polite women. Feminism is passed its prime, something that lacks utility. Hillary is running right? See, problem solved. And yet, Roe is being eroded at every turn, women are still scarce in arenas like finance or academics, and the wage gap still exists.

On Friday, the New York Times ran an article looking at the perceptions of how women should look and act within the work place. The results were as expected, dress in square suits, exude absolutely no sexuality, show no emotion other than nice, know your place, don’t talk too much etc. No mention of credentials, ability, no it’s all about how high the slit in your skirt goes and whether or not you’ve ever publicly gotten angry. God forbid. Being a male rage-aholic who’s attractively dressed and drives a nice car is still the accepted, even approved of. It’s macho and therefore commands respect.

We could spend time commenting on how absurd this all is, or the degrading placement of this piece in the style section. But all we keep thinking is, screw ’em, we hope that women read this, get irritated and decide to be better than everyone in the room and ride that all the way to the top. After all, its not personal, its business. The sooner women understand that and act in kind, the better.

We also hope for a new wave of feminism, one which takes the focus off nonsense issues like the word bitch in rap songs, and puts back it on something important like take home pay, trafficking, reproductive rights, and things that are going to make a real difference in the lives of women.

Further:
Why Women Leave Academic Medicine
2004 Median Annual Earnings by Race and Sex

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