Sign the card for the Obamas’ 20th wedding anniversary!

Women in Egypt protested outside the Upper House of Parliament against provisions Islamists are trying to incorporate into the constitution, like giving more power to clerics and incorporating sharia law.

OMFG. The Connecticut State Supreme Court overturned the sexual assault conviction of a man who raped a woman with severe cerebral palsy because they figured she should have been capable of “biting, kicking, scratching” to communicate her non-consent.

“10 Honest Thoughts On Being Loved By A Skinny Boy” by Rachel Wiley.

Serbia is considering banning this weekend’s pride parade.

For those of you planning to make it through the first presidential debate tonight with copious amounts of drinking, here’s MoJo’s official debate bingo!

An important new campaign called #ImHere is highlighting the terrible choice millions of immigrant women face in the United States: between keeping themselves and children safe and keeping their families together. The human rights group Breakthrough made this heartwrenching video:

Click here for transcript.

Norma Ortiz, an activist and former undocumented immigrant, has a story like this. She explains:

I endured abuse by my partner, while worrying constantly about my then three-year-old son. But, because of my immigration status, I feared what would happen if I contacted the authorities. When I finally did make the decision to call, my fears turned out to be all too real.

Instead of helping us get away from my abusive partner, police arrested me. I spent five days in jail, separated from my son, before authorities moved me to immigration custody and began deportation proceedings.

Norma was ultimately able to secure a special visa offered under the Violence Against Women Act–which, as Zerlina noted yesterday, is being held up by Republicans in part because they want to roll back these protections for women exactly like Norma. Read More »

This summer, when Rep. Todd Akin expressed his belief that a woman cannot get pregnant from “legitimate rape” because “the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down,” it seemed unlikely that anyone could top such a stunning display of ignorance about how women, their bodies, and pregnancy works. And yet! Here’s Todd Akin in 2008 revealing that he’s a bit iffy on how an abortion works too. Video via ThinkProgress:

Read More »

Once again, women are suing Wal-Mart for discriminating against them based on their gender, seeking  “to end Wal-Mart’s discriminatory practices regarding the pay and promotion of female employees.”

Tuesday, Three women from Tennessee claimed they were denied training opportunities and were paid less than their male co-workers and are seeking class-action status for current and former female employees at stores in Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Mississippi. One of the women suing, Bobbie Millner, accidentally received the paycheck of another worker who was male and earned thousands more a year, although he was less experienced.  A Wal-Mart manager explain the discrepancy by saying “men needed to earn more.”

In 2011, the Supreme Court rejected a class action suit that represented 1.5 million women suing for discrimination. The court argued that the discrimination was too varied to be considered nationwide discrimination. If only they had set out a clear and consistent policy and guidebook!

And again, Walmart’s excuse is our discrimination against workers is too diverse, official policy, and not inflicted on every single woman who works for us, so we’re innocent. I’m not kidding. Walmart spokesperson Randy Hargrove said “As we have said all along, these claims are unsuitable for class treatment because the individual situations are so different and because the claims of these three people are not representative of the hundreds of thousands of women who work at Wal-Mart.”

In totally related news, as Allison Kilkenny reports, hundreds of people gathered on Monday at a major Walmart distribution center Monday in Elwood, Illinois,  to support workers who have been on strike since mid-September over issues including sexual harassment.