Be Exploited By the People You Know! Scott Lemieux, Lawyers , Guns & Money, April 25, 2014

Ahead of today’s vote at Northwestern, the actions of proponents of the NCAA’s indefensible status quo were predictable:

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Coach Pat Fitzgerald, a former football star who is revered on campus, has framed a vote for the union as a personal betrayal.

“Understand that by voting to have a union, you would be transferring your trust from those you know — me, your coaches and the administrators here — to what you don’t know — a third party who may or may not have the team’s best interests in mind,” Fitzgerald wrote to the team in an email.

And don’t kid yourself: the people and organizations reaping huge amounts of money off of your unpaid, physically taxing labor, and yet impose extraordinary rules that prevent you from even being compensated by third parties, totally have only your interests at heart.

“Due process? What due process? We’re rescuing hookers!” Donna Gratehouse, Blog for Arizona, April 17, 2014

I’m just going to say that Project ROSE strikes me as a ghastly cross between a Crisis Pregnancy Center and a 12 step program, with police and prosecutorial force behind it. But even if it were the most fantastic prostitution diversion program ever devised, the way they get people into the program is fraught with violations of due process. They are really trying to claim that handcuffing people and taking them to a location where they are not permitted to leave is not an arrest? They are really trying to claim that being “assessed for eligibility” by cops is not an interrogation? They are seriously acting like sex work suspects being required to make incriminating statements about themselves and a deal with prosecutors to avoid being charged and put in jail is somehow fine and that all the above can happen without the suspects being advised that they can talk to a lawyer first?

Rashida Manjoo is right about British sexism – even if it is worse elsewhere, Laura Bates, The Guardian, April 17, 2014

Nobody suggests that we should stop worrying about burglary in the UK just because rates happen to be higher in another country. Women are suffering human rights violations all over the world – they should be taken seriously everywhere and at every level. It isn’t a competition, and bleating that sexual violence is statistically less common here than in other countries is of zero value to the tens of thousands of UK women experiencing it on a daily basis. Though it might come as a huge surprise to some, it is also quite possible to take action against multiple different forms of abuse and gender inequality simultaneously – there is no need for one issue to “trump” another, any more than we abandon prosecutions for fraud because murders are taking place.

IT HAPPENED TO ME: I Received Rape Threats After Criticizing a Comic Book, Janelle Asselin, xoJane, April 23, 2014

My post about the harassment has carried further than I imagined it would, as it is an ever-present part of my experience in comics that the women I know get rape threats. I’m one of thousands of women getting threatened with rape online. But for some reason my story resonated with comics pros and fans.

I think this points to what a powder keg comics has become regarding issues of gender and inclusiveness. Many, many people are fed up with the fact that women can’t state an opinion without getting threatened with rape. If you’re not threatened with rape, you’re told you’re not qualified, you’re not good enough, you’re not welcome here.

A lot of dudes wanted me to prove I’d gotten rape threats, often implying I was making it up for attention. Others felt it was derailing the true discussion, which was of course superhero breasts. Still others really wanted me to know they disagreed with me about the cover, but that they thought rape threats were wrong.

Photo credit: Tom Woodward [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Flickr.