Capitalizing on The Capitol?: Hunger Games Hype

By Danielle | Published: January 27, 2012

Last November, sometime between a ten hour marking session and a term paper, I promised myself I would read The Hunger Games trilogy as a reward for finishing my first semester of graduate school. I had heard some good things about the books in the blogosphere, and who am I to resist an addictive young adult series when I need a break from all that thinking? My boyfriend, the wonderful guy that he is, even had a copy of the first book waiting on the seat of his car when he picked me up from the airport for Christmas break. I subsequently ignored him for the five days it took me to finish off the series (Sorry!). Like others out there, I love that a popular young adult novel features a strong, intelligent female protagonist who does not need romantic love to define her. Yet, what is most interesting about the book is the world in which it is staged; a world of inequality and narcissistic consumerism/voyerism that leads the protagonist, Katniss, to become – whether she wants to be or not – a symbol of resistance.

The way the self-centered, exploitative and superficial ‘Capitol’ is portrayed in the book and disdained by Katniss is a large feature of the book, which is why I am struggling with THIS:

Capitol Couture

Capitol Couture

It’s a teaser Tumblr for ‘The Hunger Games’ movie to be released in March. With all of the interesting dynamics of the book, why choose the fashion of The Capitol to whet our whistles? Read More »

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Trust Women Week: Alex’s Story

By Advocates for Youth | Published: January 27, 2012

EDITOR’S NOTE: Trust Women Week overlaps with the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and reasserts our firm commitment to reclaiming the future of reproductive decision-making in 2012. Throughout the week, Amplify will be honoring women’s experiences and voices by featuring a different story from The 1 in 3 Campaign January 21-27.

WATCH: 1in3Campaign.org: Alex from Advocates for Youth.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

ALEX: I had my daughter and then nine months went past and I got pregnant again. And that was a big shock. And I wasn’t contemplating keeping the baby but this would have been my first abortion and I was very scared. And me and my daughter’s father didn’t have any money. Abortions cost money. A lot of money. $350 is not cheap when you’re 19 with no job and a new baby and the baby’s father is halfway trying to support us.

I ended up calling a friend of my mom’s who had gone through… Who was an older woman, but she related to young people and she knew, you know, certain people who knew certain people who knew certain people who could help me with terminating the pregnancy. So she referred us to a clinic.

And before that, we had to go borrow money from two different family members to get the abortion done. We didn’t even have any money… We didn’t even have any money to get the abortion done, and that’s just… Like, how could we not have any money to do that, but we would have money to raise another one? You know what I mean? Like there woulda just been no way. So that day, we rushed around, we got our money, and we went to the clinic. Read More »

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Stop. Promoting. This. Nonsense.

By Meghan | Published: January 27, 2012

When did this... become hotter than this.

I suppose the tipping point for this post came about when I found this particular image being praised on a feminist website. Frustration mated with anger began to vibrate through my veins, fueling my fingers to pulsate without remorse for the words that have been constructed here, today, in this delightful post. I hold no apologies for what is about to tailgate this sentence…

Advocating images such as this does not empower women to a healthier state of being; physically or mentally. Placing “When Did This Become HOTTER Than This” as a message of female authority is absurd. How is this a pro-feminism tag? How is telling women that once upon a time women were “hot” something to encourage younger generations to swallow? What is HOT? When I was a child, hot meant don’t touch the stove, or you will be running around the house in a state of agony, holding your hand as it blistered from being scalded by the element. Webster’s Dictionary declares HOT as:

adj; A) having or giving of heat, capable of burning [mom’s aren’t lying when they yell to not touch the stove kids…], B) Being at a high temperature.

When did this become an appropriate word to placate onto the female structure as a positive entity to aspire too? When did this become something we encouraged girls to obtain, as a means to infuse a societal hierarchy within our peers? To be hot is to be loved? Really? So, to hell with becoming the next radical thinker, to hell with striving to be THE FIRST FEMALE US PRESIDENT IN HISTORY, to hell with wanting to advocate equal rights for females ACROSS THE WORLD; we should be sharing images like this around the internet, telling women that being rail thin is a disservice to your fellow woman. Rather, you should advocate that being curvaceous is to be hot, thus, you are not only advocating being a healthy role model for others, but that society will find you alluring, opening the doors of acceptance, rather than prejudice. Perhaps even helping you to excel in life that once, being “un-hot” didn’t allow. Because really, men drooled over those curvaceous women in the past – Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Paige, Elizabeth Taylor – were respected by men… Read More »

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Class-action discrimination lawsuits after Wal-Mart

By aclu | Published: January 27, 2012

By Amanda Dysart & Ariela Migdal, ACLU Women’s Rights Project

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit hears oral argument in Davis v. Cintas, one of the first nationwide class action discrimination cases to be argued since the Supreme Court issued its decision in Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes last June. The court will decide whether women around the country who applied to be sales representatives at Cintas — a company that rents uniforms and supplies to businesses — can bring a class action to challenge what they claim are Cintas’s discriminatory hiring practices.

The women point to the fact that more than 90 percent of the sales representatives hired during the years in question were men, as were more than 90 percent of the hiring managers. They also argue that managers at Cintas based their hiring on stereotypes — like evidence that the CEO acknowledged a “myth” at the company that women could not be sales representatives, and statements by managers that women could not handle the job and their husbands would not like them working mostly with men. But the trial court found that the women who were rejected for the position did not have enough in common to proceed as a class.

The stakes are high — not only for the thousands of women in the class, but for all workers who need to band together to use class actions to challenge discriminatory workplace practices. Under the rules governing class actions, a group of people challenging discrimination can be certified as a class if they have questions of law or fact in common. Class actions allow people whose individual cases might not be worth much to band together to challenge broad, systemic discriminatory practices. Class actions are especially important for challenging workplace discrimination, like the hiring discrimination in Cintas, because workers often point to a pattern of discriminatory decision making that might go undetected, or be hard to prove, in the context of an individual decision not to hire someone. Read More »

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Dying of red tape: ban on federal funding for syringe exchange programs reinstated

By Chamonix Adams Porter | Published: January 27, 2012

In 1984, Roger Gail Lyon spoke in front of Congress asking that more efforts be made to combat the new disease that was killing him. In Congress, he made an iconic statement:

I came here today with the hope that this administration would do everything possible, make every resource available—there is no reason this disease cannot be conquered. We do not need in fighting, this is not a political issue. This is a health issue. This is not a gay issue. This is a human issue. And I do not intend to be defeated by it. I came here today in the hope that my epitaph would not read that I died of red tape.

Roger Gail Lyon died later that year. In the early years of the epidemic in America, HIV prevention methods were poorly understood. Today, through the incredible efforts of researchers and activists, HIV is a completely preventable disease. The most vulnerable and oppressed people in America, though, continue to “die of red tape.”

One of the most effective ways of preventing the transmission of HIV and other blood-borne infections is syringe exchange programs, in which intravenous drug users turn in used needles and receive clean ones in exchange. This prevents addicts from sharing needles with others who already have the disease. One-third of HIV positive people in the United States contract it directly from IV drug use, and many more from sexual contact with infected drug users.

Syringe exchange programs are also one of the most cost-effective HIV prevention methods. Syringes cost less than ten cents, while lifetime anti-retroviral HIV treatment on average costs $385,200. According to The Harm Reduction Coalition, this is enough to prevent 30 HIV transmissions through syringe exchange programs. Additionally, six government studies and much outside scholarship have found that syringe exchanges do not promote increases in drug use rates. In fact, as they provide safe, non-judgmental space for users, they are often a path to rehabilitation and recovery. Read More »

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