Linda Redrave, a complainant in the Jian Ghomeshi trial, waives publication ban in order to help sexual assault complainants.
HBO airs new film Confirmation, a dramatization of Anita Hill’s testimonies against US Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas in the landmark 1991 Senate hearings that made “sexual harassment” a visible issue in the American workplace. Hill pens reflection on the events brought up by the film:
“Despite greater awareness of the issue today, sexual harassment remains a problem… There is still hope. Brave women and men continue to come forward and share their experiences. Some file complaints, others do not, but coming forward in whatever manner helps illuminate the problem and offers the possibility of eliminating it… Many errors were made in the Thomas confirmation hearing. But despite them all, my testimony was not a mistake. And, even with the painful memories that ‘Confirmation’ brings back, yes, I would do it again.”
Nina Totenberg, the NPR reporter who broke the Clarence Thomas sexual harassment story recounts what happened.
Linguist Debbie Cameron explains why it is deeply sexist to refer to males as the default human beings.
“‘[N]on-men’ remains problematic from a linguistic point of view. It cannot easily be made to function as an inclusive, feminist or non-sexist term, because it repeats the most basic and ubiquitous of all sexist linguistic gestures: treating men as the default human beings while relegating women to what the radical feminist linguist Julia Penelope dubbed ‘negative semantic space.’”
Speaking of default human beings, a popular video game is now randomizing player characters’ race and sex. White male gamers are furious that they are not the default subject.