What’s Current: Founder of Bikram’s yoga ordered to pay $6.5M in sexual harassment suit

Bikram Choudhury

Founder of Bikram’s hot yoga, Bikram Choudhury, ordered to pay $6.5M in sexual harassment lawsuit. Bikram’s yoga empire comes crashing down, as he also faces six other sexual assault lawsuits, five of which from women he allegedly raped.

“[Minakshi “Miki”] Jafa-Bodden worked as head of legal and international affairs at Choudhury’s Los Angeles yoga school from spring 2011 until March 2013, when she said she was abruptly fired from her six-figure position for refusing to cover up an investigation into a rape allegation…

… Additionally, Jafa-Bodden said Choudhury sexually harassed and inappropriately touched her, and tried to get her to stay with him in a hotel suite.” (via CBC)

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Abortion is as old as pregnancy. “4,000 Years of Choice” celebrates the history of abortion, tracking practices all the way back to 3000s BCE. The organzation’s founder, Heather Ault, says:

“Women always have and always will have abortions… It’s fundamental to human existence, and all human societies around the world have practiced forms of controlling pregnancy, to various degrees of effectiveness with the tools and knowledge they had available at that time, whether it be toxic herbs, early surgical methods or magic and spells.”

“What does desperation look like?” (An essay on what it’s like to be pregnant and unable to have a baby.)

An 11-year-old girl, “sick of reading about white boys and dogs,” launches #1000BlackGirl Books.

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After rejecting Charles McKinney’s sexual advances in a bar, Janese Talton-Jackson was followed outside by the man and shot to death.

Susan Cox

Susan Cox is a feminist writer and academic living in the United States. She teaches in Philosophy.