Posted on 09/09/2015 4:45:23 PM PDT by Timber Rattler
Stephanie Burns came up with the idea for Chic CEO, a free online platform for female entrepreneurs, in 2008, when she was getting her MBA. Many of her friends had lost jobs in the recession and were asking her for tips on how to start their own businesses. After hosting about 15 friends at her San Diego home to exchange advice, Burns realized there was a market for offering entrepreneurial guidance to women. A year later, she launched her company.
Up until 2014, the focus of her work involved providing practical business advice to women in the form of free, easy-to-follow online materials. Every so often, Burns also organized networking events for women at which attendees could sip cocktails and chat about work. It was to one of these gatherings, held at an Italian restaurant last April in downtown San Diego, that two men showed up.
What happened next would be the fuel for lawsuits against her, her company, the company that her business partner’s husband owned and the restaurant. It would ultimately lead to the demise of Burns’ company, and still threatens to derail the women-in-tech events that have begun popping up in Silicon Valley.
Two men named Allan Candelore and Rich Allison, who had each prepaid a $20 registration fee on the Chic CEO website, tried to enter the restaurant. According to a legal complaint that they later filed with National Coalition for Men president Harry Crouch, Burns turned them away at the door, saying the event “was only open to women.” They took a photo, left the premises, then promptly initiated legal action, turning to a 1959 California law originally written to prevent discrimination against minorities and women.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Aren't they still using a 1950s law to integrate schools?
Ten, twenty, thirty years ago, women’s rights groups did exactly the same to men’s organizations. In doing so, they established the legal precedents now being used against women only organizations.
In turn, this was based on the evisceration of the idea that there is an unmentioned “right of association” in the constitution. That people had a natural right to associate with those they wanted to associate with, and in normal civilian society, to *not* be forced to associate with those they do not wish to associate with. (Outside of the military, prison, emergencies, etc.)
While the origins of this are assumed to begin with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the truth is that the end of the right of association was enabled with the 16th Amendment (the income tax), and the 17th Amendment (the direct election of US senators).
Both of these definitively ended the idea that the public are citizens of their individual states, insofar as that the federal government had to go through the individual states to have direct contact with citizens. That is, the states acted as a *buffer* against federal intrusion into our lives. And this was stripped away.
From that point, the “federal beast” was released, wanting involvement in every particular of our lives, always striving to be more intrusive, omnipresent, voyeuristic, and controlling.
And a big part of this was in negating our right of association. That the federal government has the authority to decree who will be our neighbors and our friends. Who we may do business with, and how.
agreed. very good discussion at that link. I like the fact that the author used the incident to make a bigger point about abuse of our legal system in general.
We SHOULD be fighting off the H1B heathens.
As Martin Luther Enterprise once said, I have a dream that one day, women everywhere will judge men by what’s in their character, not their pants.
While I don’t agree with the the juvenile idea that everyone must associate and serve everyone the truth is this is the logical end of anti-discrimination foolishness. Why is it that left wingers tend to think that the rules they craft to give them an advantage and power over others to FORCE them to submit to their will will not be turned on them? Its fitting though sad. America where art thou?
I am ALL FOR IT, they wanted it, they can live with the rules they created. Personally Idon’t think it goes far enough, Iwant Federal Criminal Prosecution fortheir Blatant Sexual Discriminatory Business Practices. They would not Think Twice if it was the other way around!
Smash the Patriarchy!
“Take away his power!”
Feminazism isn’t about equality or equal access. It is about revenge, pettiness, and suppressing men.
It is the same as diversity events excluding whites.
Accuse the old dominant group of having privilege now while excluding it from events, discriminating against them in hiring and promotions and contracts and scholarships, all while saying they have to be discriminated against because they have privilege.
Though any group that had privilege (per the liberal definition of racism) would have the power to make sure it isn’t discriminated against.
While the origins of this are assumed to begin with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the truth is that the end of the right of association was enabled with the 16th Amendment (the income tax), and the 17th Amendment (the direct election of US senators).
Take the 17th Amendment for example. There was so much corruption and power mongering in state level in selecting those senators something had to change. Can you imagine how bad it must have been to get enough people behind the idea of changing the constitution? The 17th amendment did not solve the problem but did defer the problem. Do not speak so despairingly about it, even today, many conservatives want to pass more laws to solve problems.
Lets take another perspective on it. There is local corruption (judge, sheriff, or mayor) so what do the people do? They go around the corruption to a higher authority, state laws to change it. Then there is state corruption and what do the people do? They go to a higher authority, the federal government, to solve it, thinking a direct vote by the people will stop the corruption and power concentration because the senator is responsible directly to the people, not the state legislature.
Now we have a corrupt federal government. Make sure we understand the REAL CAUSE of the problem before we comment about the past or propose a solution for the future.
And also reflect on who is the next higher authority ..............
My problem with this is if men can’t have men-only places or meetings then why are women-only places or meetings okay?
You don’t end discrimination by replacing one form of it with a new one.
Ken White is one of the best legal bloggers around.
The problem with the 17th Amendment is that the appointment of senators was part of one the grand balances of power found in the constitution.
The founding fathers realized that words on paper become invalid almost as soon as they are written, and that bodies of men invariably become corrupt. So their idea was to make many balances of bodies of men with competing interests, in groups of three or sometimes four.
The most well known of these balances of power is with the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government. The idea was, assuming one of the three is corrupt, the other two will gang up against it, to get it under control.
But this had to interact with “the powers behind the throne”. In this case, the people had their democratic body in the House of Representatives. The states had their federal body in the senate. An artificial, ad hoc body, the Electoral College, was created to choose the president, based on the selection of electors by the people, via their states.
And finally, the president would nominate justices to the Supreme Court, who would be confirmed by the senate (at the direction of the states, who appointed the senators). So justices would also be inclined to support federalism.
The “federal senate” also had control over foreign treaties and presidential cabinet officers.
But, using the excuse of senate corruption, the 17th Amendment threw a lug wrench into the process. By making senators directly elected by the people, states were stripped of a LOT of power. The senators themselves became “free agents”, who only had to be concerned with what their state wanted every six years, to be reelected. In effect, they have become like the senate of ancient Rome.
And perhaps worst of all, the states no longer had their senators to block federal intrusiveness into the lives of the people. Before the 16th Amendment (Income Tax) and the 17th Amendment, the only direct interface of the federal government with the people was through the census. (And the Post Office, if you want to count that.)
And even that was *supposed* to be limited to just an actual enumeration, not an opportunity to compile huge dossiers on citizens. Even the military draft had to go through the states. The federal government could make laws about the people, but it was up to the states to enforce them, unless they crossed state lines, which make them part of national jurisdiction.
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