What’s Current: Women sue Google for sex-based discrimination

Three women, all former Google employees, are suing the company for sex-based discrimination. The lawsuit cites a recent Department of Labor review that revealed a significant pay disparity between male and female employees.

Three days ago, 19-year-old Kenneka Jennings was found dead in a freezer in a Chicago-area hotel. Police have not yet determined or released the cause of death. Video taken at the party Jennings was attending at the hotel was posted to Facebook, prompting online speculation that Jennings was deliberately harmed and criticism of the police response.

A B.C. prosecutor has argued that Patrick Brown, a BC man who was found guilty of criminal harassment for creating a “revenge website” designed to humiliate and threaten his ex-wife, should be sentenced to four years in prison. The website is still online.

Robert Hodges, a California man has been arrested and charged with assaulting his wife and murdering their three children.

Elaine Elinson at Truthdig looks at the link between violence against women and female incarceration:

“The prevalence of physical abuse may be the most open secret behind the growing incarceration of women. Ann Cammett, associate dean of the law school at City University of New York, has developed innovative programs in several states for women facing the challenges of reentry in the age of mass incarceration. ‘I rarely had a client who had not been a victim of physical or sexual abuse,’ Cammett told me. ‘When I started interviewing women in prison, [every person] had a history of violence in their lives.’”

Lisa Steacy

Lisa Steacy is an Assistant Editor at Feminist Current. She has a B.A. in Women & Gender Studies from the University of Toronto. However, the women she met in her five years as a frontline worker and collective member with Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter deserve almost all of the credit for her feminist education. She lives in Vancouver with her partner and their cats.