NWLC’s Weekly Roundup: June 18 – 22

Welcome to this week’s roundup! This has been such a busy week leading up to the 40th Anniversary of Title IX on Saturday. Help us celebrate! Visit our new Faces of Title IX website and our Title IX anniversary blog carnival to read different women’s personal experiences with this milestone law. Want to share a Title IX story of your own? Let us know what it is here!

This week, we also have stories about one blogger’s experience with online sexual harassment and bullying, how Olympics sports commentators don’t give female athletes credit where credit is due, and some updates on the Michigan state representative banned for saying “vagina” mid-debate – read on for more!

Even after 40 years of Title IX, we still have a lot of work to be done to end sex-based discrimination. It occurs on the field, on the job and also on the internet, and many women are the targets of online sexual harassment and cyberbullying. Anita Sarkeesian, pop cultural blogger for Feminist Frequency, was violently threatened and attacked for wanting to cover women’s portrayal in video games in her Kickstarter project the other week.

We’re not the only ones appalled by the vitriol spewed at Sarkeesian over this incident. The silver lining: Sarkeesian You can refuses to be silenced despite the misogyny and violent attacks directed at her – and to us, this is a clear-cut example of bullying, digital or not.

Excited for the upcoming summer Olympics? We are, too! Countless female athletes have achieved success on the playing field over  the past 40 years but sadly, many people still don’t take female athletes as seriously as their male counterparts.

According to new studies on past television coverage of the Olympics, even when female athletes compete at the highest levels of professional sports, their success is more often attributed to luck or looks than to their talent and hard work. Check out the video clip below to learn more.

And now, to Michigan, where last week we told you about State Representatives Lisa Brown and Barb Byrum were barred from speaking in the Michigan House for saying "vagina" (yes, “vagina”) during the debate over a piece of anti-abortion legislation. On Monday, supporters of Reps. Brown and Byrum rallied outside the Michigan capitol to protest Speaker Bolger’s childish response of banning them from the floor.

They were joined by Eve Ensler, who organizing a performance of “The Vagina Monologues” on the statehouse steps. The performance starred nine women legislators and Rep. Brown, using, as Rachel Maddow put it, “the word that must not be named more than 100 times.”

This week Rep. Brown also authored an op-ed expressing her outrage in The Detroit News, saying, “These lawmakers — predominantly men — have no problem passing laws about my vagina. But when I dared mention its name, they became outraged.” Gets right to the heart of the matter, don’t you think?

If the word “vagina” continues to make certain Michigan legislators squeamish, perhaps the outraged response suggests that they end their attacks on women’s health to avoid using the word.

Also of interest this week:

Phoebe Hart’s “ORCHIDS: My Intersex Adventure”
Making good video games for girls
Abortion rate for women in their 20s drops because of increased access to birth control
Interview with Patti Smith
China sends first female astronaut into space

That’s all for now! What have you been reading? Let us know by sharing a link in the comments or emailing it to us at djackson(at)nwlc(dot)org.