- Journalist Moira Donegan comes out as the woman who started the “Shitty Media Men” spreadsheet, explaining the way it went viral and the backlash she encountered as a result. She writes:
“In the beginning, I only wanted to create a place for women to share their stories of harassment and assault without being needlessly discredited or judged. The hope was to create an alternate avenue to report this kind of behavior and warn others without fear of retaliation. Too often, for someone looking to report an incident or to make habitual behavior stop, all the available options are bad ones…In the weeks after the spreadsheet was exposed, my life changed dramatically. I lost friends: some who thought I had been overzealous, others who thought I had not been zealous enough. I lost my job, too. The fear of being exposed, and of the harassment that will inevitably follow, has dominated my life since. I’ve learned that protecting women is a position that comes with few protections itself.”
- Women in Canada who work full time still earn 74.2 cents for every dollar that male workers make, and the country is losing ground in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap rankings. Meanwhile, in Hollywood, Michelle Williams reportedly received one per cent of the $1.5 million Mark Wahlberg earned for reshooting scenes in a movie.
- A seven year old girl, Zainab Ansari was raped and murdered in Pakistan. Her body was found in a garbage bin in the city of Kasur earlier this week. No one has been arrested, the police chief has been fired for negligence, and there have been protests in several cities.
- Helen James was discharged from the U.S. Air Force in 1955 as “undesirable” because she was a lesbian. Now, at 90, she’s filed a lawsuit demanding that her record be changed.