Free Republic

Four days after their prime-time showdown, the tit-for-tat between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden is still going strong. Some Harris allies said Monday they saw sexism and desperation in the backlash from the former vice president's camp. They were outraged after an ally of Biden suggested she had allowed her ambition to get the best of her when she challenged the former vice president’s long opposition to busing for school desegregation. And at least one black leader aligned with a rival campaign rose to Harris’ defense, too. “Why couldn’t she be ambitious? She’s running for president of the United States,”...

<p>On her latest track, Kesha wants to know “What if rich, straight white men didn’t rule the world anymore?” The singer’s new song, “Rich, White, Straight, Men,” released to YouTube as a surprise for fans, takes on modern political and social concerns.</p>

The US Supreme Court's decision on an Indiana abortion law rankled Planned Parenthood president Leana Wen who found their ruling allowing the disposition of remains provision to stay in force "an affront," while praising their striking down of a provision prohibiting abortions to be undertaken for reasons of the race, sex, or disability of the child "a lucid expansion of Roe v. Wade framework." "It is our position that a woman's right to abort an unwanted child is an unalienable right," Wen said. "This means that no subordinate unit of government has any authority to restrict it in any way....

Democrat Illinois state Rep. Dianne Pappas believes that the answer to preventing abortions is that men should be castrated and charged to store their sperm. Pappas had met with pro-life critics of the Reproductive Health Act, one of whom recounted the meeting and her statements on the Wayne Township Republican website. “We tried to keep politics out of this equation, as we were here to represent the parish members for Pro-Life. I personally, introduced myself as a business owner, who is a licensed insurance agent. Two minutes into the discussion, she revealed her views on the topic and how we...

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — As Peter Johnson and Emily Neal waited for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to arrive at Barley’s, a brick-lined sports bar in southwestern Iowa, they gamed out possible nominees in the Democratic presidential primary. Mr. Johnson, a 27-year-old law student, said the large field was a great equalizer, and “if at the end of it we get an old white guy, someone who represents the status quo, it’ll be because they’ve proven themselves.” Ms. Neal, a dental hygienist, made an agonized face at Mr. Johnson, her boyfriend. Wouldn’t something be lost, she asked, if the historically diverse slate...

During an interview on E!'s Busy Tonight, Mandy Moore revealed that she and host Busy Phillips are both up for the role of Adelaide in the a movie musical version of Guys and Dolls. However, Moore went on to say that the casting directors of the film are only casting male leads first before considering any female roles. During the conversation, Moore said, "I just want to get in the room. I'll sing I'll do whatever I have to do and they're like they want to cast the male leads first and then they'll talk about who the ladies are."...

A group of German authors, comedians and academics have added fuel to the flames of an increasingly bad-tempered culture war over language bias by calling for a fightback against “ridiculous linguistic constructions” designed to make German more gender-neutral. In an open letter published by the Dortmund-based German Language Association, signatories including the philosopher Rüdiger Safranski, novelist Peter Schneider, comedian Dieter Hallervorden and the former head of the country’s domestic intelligence Hans-Georg Maassen, hit back against calls for more gender-neutral generic nouns..(snip) ...The protest letter, headed “An end to gender nonsense!” and published shortly before International Women’s Day, argues that the...

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York believes that the stream of attacks that GOP lawmakers and the conservative media spew her way stem from her gender. “I am as powerful as a man, and it drives them crazy,” the freshman congresswoman told David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, after she emerged as the Republican Party’s bête noire over the course of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference that ended on Saturday. Ocasio-Cortez was responding to comments made by a writer for the feminist news outlet Jezebel, who said women in politics are characterized as either “hideous harpies,” such...

Next week the University of California, San Diego’s prestigious Scripps Institution of Oceanography is the location for an intriguing academic conference. It’s devoted to the microorganisms that exist on and within all of us. But participation by a much larger type of organism will be significantly restricted. The microbiome describes the community of tiny living things that exist on a human body, for example, while the metabolome describes chemicals found in a particular biological sample, such as blood. The UC San Diego website informs: "During the first day of this event, leading researchers will present on the emerging science of...

“Ivanka Vacuuming” is now a thing in the nation’s capital. Because art, or something.The exhibit, on display at CulturalDC’s former Flashpoint Gallery in Washington, D.C., is a piece of “performance art” where an Ivanka Trump lookalike wearing a pink dress with bows and stiletto shoes vacuums crumbs off a plush, pink carpet. To make the spectacle interactive, onlookers are encouraged to take crumbs from a pedestal and throw them at her to vacuum up.“Inspired by a figure whose public persona incorporates an almost comically wide range of feminine identities – daughter, wife, mother, sister, model, working woman, blonde – Ivanka...

As Gillette has come under increasing competition from low priced competitors such as Dollar Shave Club and Harry's, along with a resurgent Schick who is offering refill cartridges that fit Gillette razors, its market share has dropped from 70% to 50% over the past decade. Gillette has been forced to drop the price of its razors by about 15% over the past few years and is on the verge of losing master brand status. It is within this competitive context that Gillette debuted its “We Believe in the Best in Men” ad campaign on its website yesterday, part of an...

In February 2016, Giulianna Di Lauro, a Latino outreach strategist for Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential operation, complained to her supervisor that she had been harassed by a campaign surrogate whom she drove to events ahead of the Democratic primary in Nevada. She said the surrogate told her she had “beautiful curly hair” and asked if he could touch it, Ms. Di Lauro said in an interview. Thinking he would just touch a strand, she consented. But she said that he ran his hand through her hair in a “sexual way” and continued to grab, touch and “push my boundaries” for...

Former staffers of Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign alleged in a New York Times report published Wednesday that they dealt with sexism and harassment while working on the White House bid. The Times interviewed nearly a dozen former state and national staffers who worked on Sanders's 2016 campaign, with several women detailing instances of harassment and criticizing how their superiors handled their claims. The report comes as Sanders is considering launching a White House bid for 2020. One staffer who worked in Nevada said a supervisor ran his hands through her hair in a "sexual way" while the...

Well, well, well, it turns out that Planned Parenthood might not be the immaculate champion of women’s rights they insist to be. Well we all knew that, but it sure is nice to see it as an official story written by The New York Times. In a Thursday report, The New York Times exposed the abortion giant’s “discrimination” against its own pregnant employees. The Times cited the firsthand accounts from several Planned Parenthood employees, including assistant Ta’Lisa Hairston, who complained the “reproductive rights” provider ignored her doctor’s requests that she be allowed to take breaks for the sake of her...

Not that it matters to the left, but a study from Harvard University titled Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? proves the gender wage gap is indeed a myth because of the obvious reasons: work choices between men and women. Why do men make more than women? Their choice of jobs and working a lot of overtime. In order to prove their point, authors Valentin Bolotnyy and Natalia Emanuel looked at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). It is unionized, which means men and women are treated the same and have to follow the same rules and receive the...

Artificial intelligence is “shockingly” racist and sexist, a study has revealed. Researchers looked at a range of systems and datasets and found examples where AI had provided inaccurate information for women and minorities.

BEIJING — China’s vibrant technology scene is searching for people like Shen Yue. Qualifications: Must be attractive, know how to charm socially awkward programmers and give relaxing massages. Ms. Shen is a “programmer motivator,” as they are known in China. Part psychologist, part cheerleader, the women are hired to chat up and calm stressed-out coders. The jobs are proliferating in a society that largely adheres to gender stereotypes and believes that male programmers are “zhai,” or nerds who have no social lives. “They really need someone to talk to them from time to time and to organize activities for them...

A majority of Democrats — 61 percent — describe Republicans as “racist, “bigoted,” and “sexist,” according to a Monday-published poll commissioned by Axios. Thirty-one percent of Republicans describe Democrats the same way. The online poll surveyed 3,215 U.S. adults, and has a margin of error of three percentage points. Fifty-four percent of Democrats view Republicans as “ignorant,” with 49 percent of Republicans similarly viewing Democrats. Fifty percent of Republicans cast Democrats as “evil,” with 44 percent of Democrats doing the same with Republicans.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and 176 Democrat members of Congress have sponsored a bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that removes the references to women. “Children, youths, and adults" are replacing the wording “women and children.” What to make of this? Confusion about what gender means now that “male and female” are being removed from the liberal agenda? Acquiescence to an activist, identity politics that seeks to elevate fluid gender perceptions above biological sex? It’s a travesty women would no longer be the focus of the Violence Against Women Act. The left’s double speak around sexism...

After reportedly telling TIME magazine that the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential candidate “better be a while male,” Michael Avenatti issued a series of defenses for his comments via Twitter. The prominent lawyer denied making any such remarks, calling them “bullsh**t.” In an interview with TIME published on Thursday, Avenatti discussed the next Democratic presidential candidate. Avenatti himself has toyed with the idea of running, and has not ruled out the possibility. “I think it better be a white male,” Avenatti told TIME. “When you have a white male making the arguments, they carry more weight. Should they carry more weight?...