Velvet Verbosity

Don’t worry, I won’t let you forget about the campaign to boycott Goodyear Tire Company starting on Mother’s Day if they don’t make good on what a jury originally awarded Ms. Ledbetter. I’m persistent like that.

But for serious…I still need all your help. I need you to not let your readers forget about it. There’s so much in the world to be concerned about. There’s so little time to do anything about it all. I know. Here’s an opportunity to just sign up to NOT do something. To NOT spend your money with a corporation that allowed unfair pay practices, not just for Ledbetter, but for other women in the company too, and got away with it. Here’s your chance to do something by NOT doing much of anything at all. How often does an offer like that come along?

Well, except for you bloggers. You, YOU I need to do something. To not let this slip away and get forgotten. If you haven’t already, you can add the campaign button to your blog. You can post the campaign link every day at the beginning or ending of your posts. You can gently remind your readers that they too can blog about the campaign and then take but a few seconds to sign up for the boycott. You can stumble and Digg these stories, and the original campaign. You can do what bloggers do best…TALK!

Because bloggers are awesome like that.  If only Dooce would blog about it.

I STILL don’t have time to write the long and thoughtful post I would like on this case, but I thought I could at least provide you with some excellent links on the Ledbetter vs. Goodyear case so that you can decide for yourself if you think Goodyear should be boycotted until they make good on what a jury originally awarded Ledbetter. Yesterday Jeffrey commented on my first post announcing the campaign suggesting that pay discrimination is a myth and that Ledbetter lost her case because she failed to prove discrimination. I’ve read the Supreme Court case, and it is not true that she failed to prove discrimination. If you read the case with an educated eye, as well as refer to the original case that she won, it is clear that she failed to prove discrimination within the bogus time constraint for discrimination cases.

If you visited yesterday, you will remember that I have started a campaign to boycott Goodyear Tire Co by getting 10,000 supporters to boycott starting on Mother’s Day. Of course 10,000 is just a start. After all, the more the merrier. If you haven’t signed up for the campaign, please do!

To understand the case better, I would recommend you start your reading here (Cornell Law School).

For further information:

• Lilly Ledbetter: Peaceful Revolution: Equal Pay for Equal Work- Time for the Senate to Vote - Living on The Huffington Post

  This piece was co-authored by Lily Ledbetter and Joan Blades. I can’t believe I need to write this blog. The 1964 Civil Rights Act made equal pay for equal work the law of the land. For almost 50 years Americans have had the justice system to turn to when they suffer pay discrimination. Last year the Supreme Court upended this law by making it essentially unenforceable.

• The Stagnant Artist: Back to the Stone Ages

  Another blogger who has picked up the campaign.

  tags: Ledbetter

• LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO.

• David Drake: Lilly Ledbetter vs Goodyear:
  The Lefty Blogosphere’s Most Overrated,
  Biggest Non-Story Of The Year (so far!)

  A dissenting view, but Velvet Verbosity thinks you need to hear both sides to accurately decide for yourself which side you fall on. “The ruling by the court is right-on. Look at it this way, she waited 19 years to file suit and then files suit within 180 days of her final paycheck? This woman is none too bright. She forges along in her daily work routine for 19 years, clueless that others may - may - be earning more than her, coupled with the fact of Goodyear saying her performance reviews were substandard. Like I wrote, this woman is none too bright. Some Liberal female bloggers have written that there should be absolutely no statute of time limitations on cases like this. Well, keep on living in your tiny, brainless bubble gals.”

• On the Legal Front: Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire Co.: A Divided Supreme Court Causes Quite a Stir January 2008

• Opinion L.A. : Los Angeles Times : Who’s afraid of Lilly Ledbetter?

  Who’s afraid of Lilly Ledbetter? Not Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Both came out in favor of a congressional bill that would make it easier for victims of pay disparity to charge discrimination in court. That’s what Lilly Ledbetter tried to do, but the Supreme Court ruled against her, adhering closely to a law that says discrimination must be reported within 180 days of its occurrence. As the editorial board wrote earlier this week:

• Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. ___ (2007), is an employment discrimination decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Alito held for the five-justice majority that employers are protected from lawsuits over race or gender pay discrimination if the claims are based on decisions made by the employer 180 days ago or more. This was a case of statutory rather than constitutional interpretation. The plaintiff in this case, Lilly Ledbetter, characterized her situation as one where “disparate pay is received during the statutory limitations period, but is the result of intentionally discriminatory pay decisions that occurred outside the limitations period.” In rejecting Ledbetter’s appeal, the Supreme Court said that “she could have, and should have, sued” when the pay decisions were made, instead of waiting beyond the 180-day statutory charging period.

• Ledbetter, Lilly v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. - Medill - On the Docket

• LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO.

  To show how far the Court has strayed from interpretation of Title VII with fidelity to the Act’s core purpose, I return to the evidence Ledbetter presented at trial. Ledbetter proved to the jury the following: She was a member of a protected class; she performed work substantially equal to work of the dominant class (men); she was compensated less for that work; and the disparity was attributable to gender-based discrimination. See supra, at 1–2. Specifically, Ledbetter’s evidence demonstrated that her current pay was discriminatorily low due to a long series of decisions reflecting Goodyear’s pervasive discrimination against women managers in general and Ledbetter in particular. Ledbetter’s former supervisor, for example, admitted to the jury that Ledbetter’s pay, during a particular one-year period, fell below Goodyear’s minimum threshold for her position. App. 93–97.Although Goodyear claimed the pay disparity was due to poor performance, the supervisor acknowledged that Ledbetter received a “Top Performance Award” in 1996. Id., at 90–93. The jury also heard testimony that another supervisor—who evaluated Ledbetter in 1997 and whose evaluation led to her most recent raise denial—was openly biased against women. Id., at 46, 77–82. And two women who had previously worked as managers at the plant told the jury they had been subject to pervasive discrimination and were paid less than their male counterparts. One was paid less than the men she supervised. Id., at 51–68. Ledbetter herself testified about the discriminatory animus conveyed to her by plant officials. Toward the end of her career, for instance, the plant manager told Ledbetter that the “plant did not need women, that [women] didn’t help it, [and] caused problems.” Id., at 36.10 After weighing all the evidence, the jury found for Ledbetter, concluding that the pay disparity was due to intentional discrimination. Yet, under the Court’s decision, the discrimination Ledbetter proved is not redressable under Title VII. Each and every pay decision she did not immediately challenge wiped the slate clean. Consideration may not be given to the cumulative effect of a series of decisions that, together, set her pay well below that of every male area manager. Knowingly carrying past pay discrimination forward must be treated as lawful conduct. Ledbetter may not be compensated for the lower pay she was in fact receiving when she complained to the EEOC. Nor, were she still employed by Goodyear, could she gain, on the proof she presented at trial, injunctive relief requiring, prospectively, her receipt of the same compensation men receive for substantially similar work. The Court’s approbation of these consequences is totally at odds with the robust protection against workplace discrimination Congress intended Title VII to secure. See, e.g., Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S., at 348 (“The primary purpose of Title VII was to assure equality of employment opportunities and to eliminate … discriminatory practices and devices … .” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 418 (1975) (“It is … the purpose of Title VII to make persons whole for injuries suffered on account of unlawful employment discrimination.”).

• The Overlooked Explosive News Story « Just Above Sunset

• TESTIMONY OF LILLY LEDBETTER BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

  Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member for inviting me. My name is Lilly Ledbetter. It is an honor to be here today to talk about my experience trying to enforce my right to equal pay for equal work. I wish my story had a happy ending. But it doesn’t. I hope that this Committee can do whatever is necessary to make sure that in the future, what happened to me does not happen to other people who suffer discrimination like I did.

Let’s show the business world that with Social Media behind us, citizens do not need to wait in frustration for fair policies to be passed. We can send powerful messages quickly and efficiently by sharing and organizing on the internet, and then with solidarity choosing to not spend our money with companies that we feel are getting away with unfair practices. We can, as a combined force, effect change.

Join these other bloggers in sharing the Goodyear Boycott Campaign.

• Two Women Blogging
• Telecommuting Journal
• The Stagnant Artist
• LouCeel
• The Junkys Wife
• Green Girl Today
• You should be here! C’mon bloggers, let’s show corporate America where it’s at! (If I’ve missed you, please email or comment and I’ll add you.)

I have NO time to write as I have a busy work day and a busy play night ahead, but I want to alert you all to a campaign I’ve started on www.thepoint.com.   There is a lot to this story, but let me get to the pith.  Goodyear screwed over a woman, Lilly Ledbetter, then got out of it on a legal loophole (she’s not the only one, but she has become the poster child).  I’m looking for 10,000 + supporters to boycott Goodyear by Mother’s Day until Goodyear makes good on the disparity.

I’ll post a full story with links tomorrow morning.  For now,

• you can read about the campaign here.
• you can join the campaign here
• you can digg the campaign here

And of course, you can really really help by passionately spreading the word via any and all social tools you use.  Telephone, word of mouth, social bookmarking, Facebook, Myspace, and your blogs!!  Of course, your blogs!  Please help me out in making a difference, in letting corporations know they can buy out policy makers, they can hide behind lawyers and legal loopholes, but they can never hide from consumers.

If you know nothing else about this, know that Ledbetter asked only for $60,000 in the beginning.  She was trying to be fair.  More than Goodyear did.

The problem with blogs is that you have to keep giving them attention. There’s been so much activity in my life lately, and I’d love to be sharing it here, but the nature of being busy is that some things have to slip. For me, it’s been writing.

The big news is that I have embarked on an interesting art project that has been percolating in the underground of my mind for some time. 4 or 5 years ago, I saw the movie The Pillow Book. It is not a story for the feint of heart, but the imagery is stunning and left a mark on me I’ve never forgotten. The idea of writing on the body has been with me ever since. I knew then that someday this would come to some kind of fruition, and for me the idea has come.

I am still working on articulating the vision. I will be asking various men to write a piece of prose or poetry in response to women’s experience in the world, in our culture, but also throughout history and across many cultures. A world where we are often not safe simply because of our gender, and nothing more. As some of you know, I’ve gone off on a few tangents here regarding some feminist issues. I also expressed that I was never keen on being an “angry” feminist. It always left a bad taste in my mouth. On the other hand, being a woman, and not knowing a single woman, including myself, that has escaped unscathed from male to female violence, whether physical, sexual, or emotional, I cannot sit idle and silent. This has been a lifelong personal struggle for me. I know so many wonderful men who have seen the damage done to women, and who grieve themselves over it. I see no usefulness in creating more division between the sexes, and I’ve struggled with how to communicate to men what it is we women are upset about and why.

Then, in a beautiful moment, many of my passions came together at once. An opportunity to bring together many loves into one project. Men will write, from the heart, to women (as a general body of people) and I will write these “pieces” somewhere on their body and create a photographic record of this.

There are some difficulties with the project. In fact, there will be a lot of experimenting before I get it right. I am putting together a portfolio now in order to apply for an arts grant. So, here are some of the things I need to figure out.

1. What is the best paint or ink to use, and what tool will best work to administer that ink or paint. The difficulty is that it needs to be non-toxic to the skin, the tools should be pleasant enough to the skin, and the consistency should be neither too thick or too thin. Too thick makes it difficult to write legibly. Too thin makes it run or bleed on unsmooth surfaces. So far I’ve experimented with eyeliner as it is made to be used on skin. Liquid eyeliner works decently well and I’ve had the most success with that so far. However, it is expensive for very small amounts, and the brush, while allowing great control, has such a small grip that it makes it uncomfortable for me to write very long. Pen eyeliners are problematic as they actually don’t give nice sharp lines. Even the best ones tend to leave ragged edges. Today I picked up some good paintbrushes and various types of washable paints and I am now experimenting with those. I will also be experimenting with soy-based ink and calligraphy pens and a glass quill.
2. Photographing. In my first round, we got some very good shots, but I found I had to sacrifice good form shots for getting a clear shot of the writing, or the opposite. I will need to experiment with different lenses, lighting, size of writing, and poses to find the best formula.
3. The biggest obstacle will be to properly convey to the subjects what my intention is and to thus draw out of them powerful and meaningful messages to women. The ultimate goal here is to bridge the gap, to get people thinking, and to get people (men and women) to be more thoughtful toward one another, not just in their personal interactions, but in how they behave and engage generally with the world.

So, that is one big reason I haven’t been writing here very much lately. My mind is pretty engaged with this project at the moment. Feel free to write to me if you would like to make an offering of any kind to the project, whether it is an idea, materials, cashola, or just a kind word.

Girls Accepting Sexual Assault At School As Fact Of Life: Reports

The article doesn’t actually make any correlations between over 20% of girls being sexually assaulted in Toronto schools and expecting it and the pornification of our culture. The only conclusions the experts can draw is to say that the problem is that “most kids don’t actually know what sexual assault is”. Really? Now why wouldn’t they know what sexual assault entails when this is the generation of kids that grew up with “innappropriate touching” education? And why, like the title suggests, are girls accepting this as part of school life?

Someone please give me an intelligent answer to this, because I’d really like to hear it. Be forewarned, don’t use the party line that this has been going on all along, because I’m not buying it. I went to school. Boys cat-called, and on dates they sometimes tried to get more than they were going to get, but I don’t remember one single incident of a girl telling me that a guy followed her into the bathroom and stuck his hands down her shirt, and she thought this was to be expected! There have been times in history and places on the map where women have been subjected to this type of treatment, and that’s because they lived in a time or culture of oppression. How do we explain that in a time and place where women are supposed to more or less have equal rights, that this is happening? How do we explain the conflict between being told we are in a “sex-positive” and “sexually liberated” culture that brings us such gems as Girls Gone Wild and the fact that young girls don’t feel safe getting their EDUCATION? Is it at all possible that the sex industry that has leaked into every facet of our daily life and portrays women liking being objectified, used, and abused and as nothing more than a commodity to be obtained for male pleasure is having any influence at all on young minds?

All I ask is that you open your eyes and take a look around. Listen to the music. It’s not just about sex, it’s about sexually degrading women. Pay attention to the television, the movies, the ads, the stuff that is all around us everyday and how it is not just about sex, but about women being objects. Do this for a few days. Do it honestly. Then come back and give me your answer.

While you’re thinking about it, you can start with this thoughtful video: Hip Hop - Beyond Beats and Rhymes. Pay particular attention to what the people on the street are saying starting at about three minutes in. Watch the full length video here.

***On a lighter note, “note to self”. When putting on a turtleneck sweater, if the neck is so tight you feel like you’re being birthed all over again, it’s time to stop putting said turtleneck sweater in the dryer. Capiche?

This is what happens when you tell your savvy 15 year old daughter that, NO, she cannot get her belly button pierced because it sends the wrong message and all that. And if you don’t know, this is Pink.

From one blog to another I discovered The Angry Black Woman, writings from a gender and race activist. I was a little surprised to see Gloria Steinem being raked over the coals so I had to go see what that was about. Turns out Steinem had made a faux pas in the way she said something, and managed to really piss some people off. I’ll get back to you on what side of this argument I fall on. I haven’t read everything in depth yet. At first glance though, it seems there might be somewhat of an overreaction. The tagline from this blog is “Why are black people angry all the time? Probably some dumb shit you did.”

This is why I never formally became a feminist. What I mean is, I didn’t want to go to meetings, I didn’t want to march in marches, I didn’t want to be involved because I didn’t want to live my life feeling angry. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t speak up about women’s rights, or expect and demand them for myself. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t sometimes feel incredibly outraged about some things. It’s just that I remember my first encounter with an open feminist, and it was brutal. My first year in college, I was invited to participate in a new leadership council for all the colleges in Vermont. There was this young woman there, and as soon as you were introduced she would immediately announce she was a feminist. She was on the defensive every second, just waiting to strike. During group workshops, no one could finish a complete sentence before she was standing up and calling someone a sexist pig or enlightening us about the evil patriarchy. If she had been right even half of the time, I might’ve been more sympathetic to the cause, but if a man was chosen to speak first she was on her feet. If a woman was called on to answer a certain question, she found evil intent behind it and railed. On and on it went all weekend without pause. If she wasn’t speaking, she was listening only so much as to hear anything that she could be angry about. She had what I like to call, “angry ears”.

This turned me off feminism for quite a while. Later, when I returned to college, I took a woman’s studies class. Oh lord, I thought I was going to hurl sometimes. About mid-semester, 9/10ths of my classmates were arguing for changing the language in all great historical literature, including the bible mind you, to be gender neutral. I was the only woman in the class arguing against this. It was a simple argument really. “Um, you can’t rewrite history. That would be bad.”

I spent the next four years at an all woman’s college where issues of gender and women’s issues were constantly at the forefront. You couldn’t escape it if you tried, and while I was still on board that women should get to vote, get to have a shot at leadership, be seen as equal, and so on, I sometimes felt tired at the endless discussion and anger.

The truth is, it’s hard to strike a balance as a woman. I spent most of my life not very angry about these issues. Mostly this was because I was raised to just believe that I had all the same rights, and to be treated as though I did. I was also blessed with many male friends who were incredibly respectful, intelligent, aware, and kind and there was very little “battle of the sexes” banter or joking that salts and peppers so many other conversations. For the most part, we were just “human” with each other, and respect was paid to our shared humanity. In other interactions, however, it was made clear (and became more clear with time) that most of humanity still engages in disrespect to other humans ranging from the subtle (seemingly innocuous) to the gross.

Earlier tonight, I believe due to having made myself ultra-sensitive through all of my recent reading, and a recent painful experience, I retaliated on a comment that “offended” me and my retaliation was sharp, quick, and cruel. I didn’t even think about it, it just flew out of my mouth, and I regretted it the second it came out. It came from a place of hurt and rage, and wanting someone else, someone from the other team, to feel what we women sometimes feel. So, while my conscience feels humbled and shamed for saying it, my intellect and my emotion feels vindicated. Typically, when women, or frankly anyone else who isn’t at the top of the heap, says, “Could you stop hurting me?”, they are told that they are just being too sensitive. So tonight I turned the tables. I didn’t plan to, I didn’t think it out, but there it came. Still, I wish I hadn’t said it.

I never really did believe that “an eye for an eye” was the best way to prove a point. I truly wish it wasn’t the only way that some people can hear your message. I had my “angry ears” on. Sometimes, it just gets so tiring to speak rationally, to spend exhaustive amounts of time and energy explaining just why some statements, some behaviors, some ways of thinking, at the very minimum support the relentless subtle disrespect of another’s humanity. Sometimes, when you’re hurt and angry enough, you simply dispense with the peace talks, and just push the red button to launch a verbal weapon of mass destruction (yes Bush and your lackies, I got me some of those VWMDs). If I had even stopped there, maybe I would have been justified. But no. The person was clearly stunned and hurt, and later when I wanted to apologize and I wasn’t allowed to talk about it, I said some more crap. In the end, I didn’t accomplish closing the gap, I managed to make it wider.

Tomorrow I endeavor to “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”, or to at least find the balance. I think that tagline, “Why are black people angry all the time? Probably some dumb shit you did.”, could be adjusted to any situation, only replacing the “some dumb shit you did” to “not being listened to, respected, and honored”. Yeah, when we don’t get that, anger sets in, and it fecking festers people. Even though I regret what I said, not only because it was cruel, it was unusual too, not to mention simply not true. But I was angry from all the times I had tried to rationally point out why some things are hurtful and had my feelings minimized or brushed off.

So here’s the lesson of the day. When you continually hurt and disrespect a woman, then tell her that her expressed wishes to be respected are invalid, overly sensitive, or some other poppycock, either through your words or actions, she is going to do one of two things. Tell you right where you can go, or she’s going to swallow her feelings and vomit them all over you, or someone else, later. This is the nature of repression. When the latter happens, it won’t necessarily be timely, correct, and it is sure to be stinky and unpleasant if not downright toxic.

Repression leads to oppression, and both make the repressed and oppressed angry. I wish I knew the antidote to this. I do actually. We need to treat all humans with respect and dignity in all of our thoughts, words, and actions. As I should have done. As someone else did with me tonight by apologizing for some jokes that, upon reflection, he thought I might have found offensive.

Lately my blog has taken a decided and sudden turn toward feminist issues. Let me explain. Some recent exposure to men who objectify women without batting an eyelash and as long as it’s not anyone they know, and “no one is getting hurt”, has compelled me to look for the evidence that this justification is ludicrous. Not only have I found sufficient evidence to confirm my gut feelings, I’ve found enough evidence to make my gut sick.Second, raising two children in a culture that is becoming rapidly disconnected as fast as it is connecting, and becoming increasingly media driven and pornified, I am reaching a point of ORANGE ALERT.

In my research, I found Sparkle Matrix, who has opened my eyes to issues I wasn’t even thinking about. Take this rape campaign poster that clearly blames the victim. Horrified as I was, still, I thought Sparkle Matrix’s interpretation of the intention was overkill. After all, Britain was trying right? Maybe their attempts were slightly misguided, but change and progress is a slow and painful process. Lighten up already! At least there WERE posters being made.

Then, because it was on my mind, I brought this up to a few people, and I was a little dismayed that they could not immediately see the connection between the message and victim blaming.

Still, I thought, we’re making progress, right? No. Not enough.

We’re not making enough progress when Harriet McCormick, a bright young woman who lives in the very same country that produced those progressive anti-rape posters, made the mistake of getting drunk and blamed herself, suffered for almost a year, before finally taking her own life. This woman would have contributed great things to society. She was already on her way to doing so. Instead, she took her life because she couldn’t live with the guilt, the trauma, or the conflict between the two. I wonder what her rapist is doing today? I wonder if he is giving his life in service to others? I wonder if he is racked with guilt? Somehow, sadly, I doubt it.

The thing is, Sparkle Matrix and others are right on this issue, and I see that now. Maybe one out of three rapes happen when a woman is drunk, but three out of three happen when there is a rapist involved. Why focus on the 1 out of 3? Why focus solely on the woman’s responsibility in the possibility that she will be raped? Why not focus on teaching men that rape is just wrong. It’s wrong. It’s always wrong. And you know what else? Women do NOT fantasize about being raped. Not the way real rape happens, but I will talk about that in another post. The reality is, it’s more like this.

What’s more, I did a Google search after reading the story of this girl to find the post I had read about the rape campaign posters. I found this one instead. Maybe I’m just being overly sensitive after reading about a young woman throwing herself off a bridge and plummeting to her death, leaving behind family and friends to pick up the pieces. Maybe I’m just being a silly woman. Maybe I’m just being an angry feminist.

Or maybe this ad is using sex to sell anti-rape. How else would you get a guy to look at it, right? “Must put a woman in panties on poster”.

When people think it’s no big deal that anti-rape campaigns use such misguided messages as these, please read her story. Read it over and over until you are sick with the idea that the message in our culture is still to blame the victim, and to still use women’s bodies to sell everything from deoderant to “please don’t rape us, it hurts”.

People, it is 2008. When the hell are we going to evolve? And women…it is time for the next wave of rebellion. Honest to goddess, it really really is.

Stay tuned for “A Letter to Men”, “A Letter to Boys”, “A Letter to Women”, “A Letter to Girls”. (John B., I’m talking about it.)

And if you’re not angry enough yet, read on here about how a convicted rapist of children was just buried with full military honors. If you are angry, sad, or otherwise moved, please share this, bookmark it, and talk about it.

Doris Lessing never liked being aligned with feminist writings and had this to say about it:

What the feminists want of me is something they haven’t examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness. What they would really like me to say is, ‘Ha, sisters, I stand with you side by side in your struggle toward the golden dawn where all those beastly men are no more.’ Do they really want people to make oversimplified statements about men and women? In fact, they do. I’ve come with great regret to this conclusion.

– Doris Lessing, The New York Times, 25 July 1982