Links Roundup 6 March - 19 March 2013
Mar. 19th, 2013 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamer_easyThe most crucial tactic in Australia's brutalisation of refugees is keeping them, and the conditions of their imprisonment, out of sight of the voters. So it's no surprise that the Australian Human Rights Commissioner has been told she cannot visit Nauru or Manus Island to assess and deal with the detainees' complaints.
Lance Parkin shares a hilarious global warming graph from the DailyMFail.
Skewering media pity for the Steubenville rapists. Having compassion for them would be one thing; bewailing the fact that they met with justice, and erasing their victim, is another. (See also: Steubenville rape and India gang rape show India isn’t so 'backward'.)
The Crown Prosecution Service in the UK has released a study of false allegations of rape and domestic violence, and concludes that they are rare: over the 17-month period studied, there were 5,651 prosecutions for rape, but only 38 for false reports of rape. As the CPS points out, you can't just divide one figure by the other, but it does give you an idea of the comparative scale of the problems - by my back of the envelope calculations, over 400,000 rapes took place during the same period.
A proposal for women-only carriages on Sydney trains at night. An important point is that although a woman's chances of being assaulted are not high, the fear of assault keeps women from going out at night. (This is what Susan Brownmiller meant when she said rape keeps "all women in a state of fear".)
If you're going to New York City, be sure you don't bring condoms.
A photographer captures domestic violence, then is blamed for not intervening, not entirely fairly (she did more than the witnesses to the Steubenville rapes did). A blogger asks why "we're so willing to blame everyone but the abuser for the abuse". (I can't believe he didn't come after her and her camera - it took guts to stay and document the crime.)
Maryland, my home away from home, has repealed the death penalty.
Money money money: US chain CostCo's way of maximising profit per employee: pay them well and give them health insurance. "'Instead of minimizing wages, we know it's a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity, commitment and loyalty.'... Costco makes more than $10,000 in profits per employee, while Walmart takes home about $7,400 per worker." A two-thirds cut to family planning services will cost Texas an estimated $273 million in 2014-2015 - that's cost, not save. Meanwhile in Australia, the "gender gap" in pay is apparently costing us $195 billion a year, or 13% of the GDP, IIUC.
Study debunks notion that men and women are psychologically distinct: "'Although gender differences on average are not under dispute, the idea of consistently and inflexibly gender-typed individuals is. That is, there are not two distinct genders, but instead there are linear gradations of variables associated with sex, such as masculinity or intimacy, all of which are continuous.' ... the differences between men and women should be viewed as a matter of degree rather than a sign of consistent differences between two distinct groups."
Lance Parkin shares a hilarious global warming graph from the Daily
Skewering media pity for the Steubenville rapists. Having compassion for them would be one thing; bewailing the fact that they met with justice, and erasing their victim, is another. (See also: Steubenville rape and India gang rape show India isn’t so 'backward'.)
The Crown Prosecution Service in the UK has released a study of false allegations of rape and domestic violence, and concludes that they are rare: over the 17-month period studied, there were 5,651 prosecutions for rape, but only 38 for false reports of rape. As the CPS points out, you can't just divide one figure by the other, but it does give you an idea of the comparative scale of the problems - by my back of the envelope calculations, over 400,000 rapes took place during the same period.
A proposal for women-only carriages on Sydney trains at night. An important point is that although a woman's chances of being assaulted are not high, the fear of assault keeps women from going out at night. (This is what Susan Brownmiller meant when she said rape keeps "all women in a state of fear".)
If you're going to New York City, be sure you don't bring condoms.
A photographer captures domestic violence, then is blamed for not intervening, not entirely fairly (she did more than the witnesses to the Steubenville rapes did). A blogger asks why "we're so willing to blame everyone but the abuser for the abuse". (I can't believe he didn't come after her and her camera - it took guts to stay and document the crime.)
Maryland, my home away from home, has repealed the death penalty.
Money money money: US chain CostCo's way of maximising profit per employee: pay them well and give them health insurance. "'Instead of minimizing wages, we know it's a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity, commitment and loyalty.'... Costco makes more than $10,000 in profits per employee, while Walmart takes home about $7,400 per worker." A two-thirds cut to family planning services will cost Texas an estimated $273 million in 2014-2015 - that's cost, not save. Meanwhile in Australia, the "gender gap" in pay is apparently costing us $195 billion a year, or 13% of the GDP, IIUC.
Study debunks notion that men and women are psychologically distinct: "'Although gender differences on average are not under dispute, the idea of consistently and inflexibly gender-typed individuals is. That is, there are not two distinct genders, but instead there are linear gradations of variables associated with sex, such as masculinity or intimacy, all of which are continuous.' ... the differences between men and women should be viewed as a matter of degree rather than a sign of consistent differences between two distinct groups."
no subject
Date: 2013-03-20 11:29 am (UTC)Wow. I knew about the syringes (not uncommon in the US) but I really hadn't realised they were using condoms as a means of "proving" involvement in sex work. Sheesh.