Seriously, USA?

(Reuters) - CNN’s Candy Crowley will become the first woman in 20 years to moderate a presidential debate when she questions President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney in October.

The cable network’s chief political correspondent is set to lead one of three debates before the November 6 general election, the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates said on Monday.

“I am wowed, amazed and excited by the opportunity to moderate a 2012 presidential debate,” Crowley said.

The move follows a recent push for a female moderator since ABC’s Carole Simpson in 1992. The commission made no mention of the gender milestone in making its announcement, only the moderators’ expertise.

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(Source: seriouslyamerica)

Indifference assumes that our rights are secure and that others will remember that we have a right to have rights. What seem like radical outliers, people who, for example, seriously think women should not be allowed to vote or to be paid equally for work, reflect a wider, more general backlash that makes it culturally and politically acceptable to say women shouldn’t vote and be paid equally and be taken seriously. Indifference is what enables our rightward drift attempting to legislate our economy and health care into a mythological happy-land of father knows best — for you, your body, your family, your money, your government.

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(Source: seriouslyamerica)

socialismartnature:

Sexism seems to be almost as common as sweat at this year’s Olympics — which has a record number of women participating — from female boxers being asked to wear skirts to differentiate them from the men to women’s teams taking coach while men’s fly first class.

 … Being able to lift 267 pounds is only one of the things that makes 18 year-old British Olympic weightlifter Zoe Smith tough. She can also swat down sexist Twitter trolls like they’re flies.
 
While Smith was preparing to set an Olympic record for Great Britain in the clean-and-jerk event, men (and some women) on Twitter were busy saying she wasn’t attractive enough, or that she was manly, or that there was something wrong with her body because she was so muscular.
 
So Smith took to her blog to respond:

[We] don’t lift weights in order to look hot, especially for the likes of men like that. What makes them think that we even WANT them to find us attractive? If you do, thanks very much, we’re flattered. But if you don’t, why do you really need to voice this opinion in the first place, and what makes you think we actually give a toss that you, personally, do not find us attractive? What do you want us to do? Shall we stop weightlifting, amend our diet in order to completely get rid of our ‘manly’ muscles, and become housewives in the sheer hope that one day you will look more favourably upon us and we might actually have a shot with you?!

 … Lizzie Armitstead is one of the U.K.’s Olympic darlings. On Saturday, she won a silver in the 140 kilometer bicycle road race — the first medal for the host country.

But while Armitstead was thrilled with her win, she also took advantage of the limelight to bring attention to something that was annoying her — Olympic sexism, and a lack of leadership on the issue from those who head up athletic associations.

“It’s something that can get overwhelming and very frustrating, the sexism that I experience in my career,” she continued. “But it’s something that as an elite athlete that you just get used. At the moment there’s not much I can do to change it but after my (athletic) career I hope to.”