Sunday, December 22

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What Trans Moms Worry About When Things Go Back To ‘Normal’ And Discuss Their Unique Parenting Challenges During The Pandemic
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LGBTQ

What Trans Moms Worry About When Things Go Back To ‘Normal’ And Discuss Their Unique Parenting Challenges During The Pandemic

Between 25% and 50% of transgender adults in the U.S. have children. Some have kids before coming out as trans, others adopt or foster, and some use egg or sperm cells they’ve frozen – usually before starting hormone replacement therapy. As a sociologist who studies inequality and reproduction, I noticed that there are few discussions of how trans people – particularly trans women – experience parenthood. So in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I interviewed 50 transgender women – both current and prospective parents – from across the country and from diverse racial and class backgrounds. Some obstacles brought on by the pandemic affect transgender and cisgender – or nontrans – parents alike. For example, many struggle to balance child care and employment or have designed new parenting...
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State Laws Are Beginning To Recognize That Domestic Violence Isn’t About Just Physical Violence
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Journalism, SEX & RELATIONSHIPS

State Laws Are Beginning To Recognize That Domestic Violence Isn’t About Just Physical Violence

Three or more U.S. women are murdered every day by their current or former intimate partner. That may in part be due to a failure of state laws to capture the full range of behavior that constitutes domestic abuse. The law continues to treat intimate partner violence like a bar fight – considering only what happened in a given incident and not all the prior abuse history, such as intimidation and entrapment. Research shows, however, that domestic abuse is not about arguments, short tempers and violent tendencies. It’s about domination and control. Men who kill their female partners usually dominate them first – sometimes without physical violence. Indeed, for 28% to 33% of victims, the homicide or attempted homicide was the first act of physical violence in the relationship. Most state...
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4 Essential Reads – How Do You Talk To Your Child About Violence?
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Journalism

4 Essential Reads – How Do You Talk To Your Child About Violence?

Children are exposed to images of violence almost every day, whether through the media or in real life. Consumption of violent imagery can take a harmful toll on a child’s mental and emotional well-being, research shows. Parents, especially those with young children, may be asking themselves how to talk about violence with their kids. Here are four articles from The Conversation U.S. that offer insight into how to have hard conversations with children about violence. 1. Teach children to be resilient Vanessa LoBlue, an assistant professor of psychology at Rutgers University-Newark, writes about ways parents can foster a supportive environment to help children develop resilience in stressful situations. Genuinely listening to children talk about how they feel not only shows care and acc...
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Teens Use Viral Trend TikTok To Speak Out About Their #MeToo Sexual Harassment Experiences
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LIFESTYLE

Teens Use Viral Trend TikTok To Speak Out About Their #MeToo Sexual Harassment Experiences

A recent TikTok video that has been liked by almost half a million people encourages girls to record themselves putting one finger down for every time they have been sent unsolicited dick pics, begged for nudes, catcalled, repeatedly asked out after already saying no, and forced to do something sexual when they didn’t want to. Similar videos about sexual assault posted by young women became popular in 2020. The new video is aimed at teens and focuses on sexual harassment. By calling attention to how common sexual harassment is for teen girls, the “Put a finger down: Sexual harassment edition” video has become the 2021 TikTok teen version of the #MeToo movement of 2017. This trend brings together two nearly universal realities in the lives of teen girls: the ubiquitous presence of social ...
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2 Things To Know About Jury Bias And 2 Ways To Reduce It – Chauvin Conviction
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VIDEO REELS

2 Things To Know About Jury Bias And 2 Ways To Reduce It – Chauvin Conviction

Shortly after the guilty verdicts were revealed in former police officer Derek Chauvin’s trial for murdering George Floyd, legal experts suggested Chauvin will appeal, arguing that his right to a fair trial was threatened by extensive pretrial publicity. Video of Derek Chauvin with his knee on the neck of George Floyd for more than nine minutes was shared around the globe on social media and drew international outrage. The publicity around Floyd’s death will likely underlie any Chauvin appeal. To help place the jury’s unanimous decision on all three charges in context, here are some important facts about juries. Pretrial publicity and other biases High-profile incidents of police killings often result in widespread pretrial publicity about the defendant and victim. The Derek Chauvin case ...
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Questions America Needs To Ask About Seeking Racial Justice In A Court Of Law – Derek Chauvin Trial
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Questions America Needs To Ask About Seeking Racial Justice In A Court Of Law – Derek Chauvin Trial

There is a difference between enforcing the law and being the law. The world is now witnessing another in a long history of struggles for racial justice in which this distinction may be ignored. Derek Chauvin, a 45-year-old white former Minneapolis police officer, is on trial for third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for the May 25, 2020, death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man. There are three questions I find important to consider as the trial unfolds. These questions address the legal, moral and political legitimacy of any verdict in the trial. I offer them from my perspective as an Afro-Jewish philosopher and political thinker who studies oppression, justice and freedom. They also speak to the divergence between how a trial is conducted, what rules gove...
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4 Essential Reads: Wild Weather, About Tornadoes And Thunderstorms
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ENVIRONMENT, VIDEO REELS

4 Essential Reads: Wild Weather, About Tornadoes And Thunderstorms

Springtime in the U.S. is frequently a season for thunderstorms, which can spawn tornadoes. These large storms are common in the South and Southeast in March and April, then shift toward the Plains states in May. Scientists have warned that 2021 could be an active tornado year, partly because of a La Niña climate pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Past research has suggested that La Niña increases the frequency of tornadoes and hail by concentrating hot, humid air over Texas and other Southern states, which helps to promote storm formation. These four articles from The Conversation’s archives explain how tornadoes form, why night tornadoes are more deadly, and how in rare cases thunderstorms can take a different but equally destructive form – a derecho. We also look at a neglected asp...
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Here’s What I learned About Big Ben And Online Information Overload When I Went Down The ‘Rabbit Hole’ To Debunk Misinformation
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IMPACT

Here’s What I learned About Big Ben And Online Information Overload When I Went Down The ‘Rabbit Hole’ To Debunk Misinformation

Big Ben was stolen from Palestine. So claimed an elderly woman, in Arabic, in a retweeted clip I received recently. Yes, that Big Ben: the great bell in the iconic clock tower of London’s Palace of Westminster. The British took it, she said, from a tower they demolished at Hebron Gate in Jerusalem in 1922. The claim pulled me up short. It seemed so outlandish. Who would invent something so easy to refute? And why? The woman spoke with great conviction, but could she really believe what she was saying? And if this was a hoax, then who was perpetrating it on whom? These questions sent me down a Big Ben rabbit hole. A matter of seconds Before I share what I discovered, let’s pause here for a moment, where many would have shrugged and moved on. You’d have to have some prior interest in the...
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About The Byzantine Empire – White Supremacists And QAnon Enthusiasts Are Obsessed – But Very Wrong
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Religion

About The Byzantine Empire – White Supremacists And QAnon Enthusiasts Are Obsessed – But Very Wrong

From Charlottesville to the Capitol, medieval imagery has been repeatedly on show at far-right rallies and riots in recent years. Displays of Crusader shields and tattoos derived from Norse and Celtic symbols are of little surprise to medieval historians like me who have long documented the appropriation of the Middle Ages by today’s far right. But amid all the expected Viking imagery and nods to the Crusaders has been another dormant “medievalism” that has yet to be fully acknowledged in reporting on both the far right and conspiracy theorist movements: the Byzantine Empire. Byzantium – or more properly, the medieval Roman Empire – controlled much of the Mediterranean at the height of its territorial rule in the mid-sixth century. Centered in modern-day Istanbul from A.D. 330 to 1453, ...
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The Biggest US Donors Gave $25 Billion In 2020 What That Says About High-Dollar Charity Today
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BUSINESS

The Biggest US Donors Gave $25 Billion In 2020 What That Says About High-Dollar Charity Today

According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the top 50 Americans who gave the most to charity in 2020 committed to giving a total of US$24.7 billion to hospitals, homeless shelters, universities, museums and more – a boost of roughly 54% from 2019 levels. David Campbell, Elizabeth Dale and Jasmine McGinnis Johnson, three scholars of philanthropy, assess what these gifts mean, the possible motivations behind them and what they hope to see in the future in terms of charitable giving in the United States. What trends stand out? Campbell: Pandemic. Pandemic. Pandemic. The share of giving that went to social service nonprofits, food banks and homelessness assistance groups rose sharply. At the same time, performing arts organizations, largely shut down as a result of the pandemic and starved of...
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