Protesting Women Withhold Sex for Change

(It’s Lysistrata come to life!  Aristophanes would be so proud….)

Kenyan activists have undertaken a campaign to withhold sex from their husbands (in political leadership) for a week, to put pressure on them to enact needed national changes to recognize the needs of the average citizen.  This effort by the Women’s Development Organisation has garnered even more attention, as one man is suing the group for damages inflicted by his wife’s participation in the protest!

- Recession is Changing the Gender Distribution in the Workforce

A handy little infographic and report over at the Center for American Progress details the ways the economic recession is shifting the distribution of jobs in the US, and what impact this is having on the gendering of the workforce: 

The recession is playing out differently by gender because men and women tend to work in very different industries…. Larger job losses among men have occurred because the recession is hitting traditionally male working-class jobs, even though the crisis is being prolonged by the financial sector’s troubles.

The bottom line?  Because of cuts in predominantly male job sectors, the percentage and importance of female breadwinners is rising. 

Which means that perhaps it’s finally time to take women as seriously on the job!?  Pay equity and workplace respect are not just for the benefit of women, but whole families (as they always have been).  Maybe we’ll start to learn this culturally, too, now.