Friday, September 26, 2008

Gender Discrimination Suit Against Bloomberg LP Grows

The number of plaintiffs in a gender discrimination suit filed against Bloomberg LP grew last week from 58 to 72. According to New York Magazine, one in seven female employees who became pregnant in the last six years are now plantiffs in the lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Bloomberg LP last fall.

According to the Associated Press , the EEOC claims Bloomberg LP discriminated against women after they disclosed their pregnancies by regularly demoting them, reducing their professional duties, and, according to Reuters, replacing them with "junior" male employees.

http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=11295

Racism - alive and well

Louisiana State Lawmaker Considering Legislation to Fund Sterilizations

Louisiana State Representative John LaBruzzo is considering proposing a plan that would pay poor women $1,000 to be sterilized. He has said the program would be voluntary, could involve sterilization of both women and men, could encourage other forms of birth control, and could include tax incentives that would encourage people in higher socio-economic classes to have more children.

Shana Griffin, interim director of the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic said that "if we really want to improve the lives of people in our communities we would think about raising the minimum wage, holistic health care, improving labor laws, employment opportunities for all people and the educational system….Instead he wants to use a form of medical experimentation and forces sterilization on poor women of color, using their economic status as a way to make them more vulnerable to the offer."

Link

Monday, September 22, 2008

Video games good for kids

Far from turning teenagers into anti-social loners, video games help them engage with friends and community, says a report.
The Pew Internet study of US teenagers found that few play alone and most join up with friends when gaming.
It found that many used educational games to learn about world issues and to begin to engage with politics.
The report also found that gaming had become an almost universal pastime among young Americans.



Read the rest of this BBC News article.

Read the Pew report.

Saturday, September 20, 2008