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blacklesbothatlovestowrite · 1 year

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On My Mama Pt 1

OOC Shuri

Shuri x reader, Riri x Reader, Shuriri x Reader.

Summary: Shuri and Riri bet on who can cuff Y/n first. However the road to getting there is a hell of a ride when Y/n absolutely despises Shuri and Riri by association.

Trigger warning: Mama's that are jealous of their daughter.

When they say she get it from her mama, Imma say You fucking right....

Riri sat on the hood of her car pretending to listen to Shuri ramble on about her latest plaything. After everything happened and she'd secured Wakanda again she decided to take a break and try schooling in America.

She was beyond advanced so her going was purely for the college experience which she was learning to love. She was drinking, smoking and partying to numb the pain of losing her entire family.

As worried as Riri was at times, she knew Shuri was in control of her extracurricular activities. She kept a watchful eye over the Wakandan Princess. She knew that her friend would find her way when she was ready.

"Damn..." Shuri says and Riri whips her head around in the direction that's captured Shuri's attention too used to the African girl's American lingo she'd caught onto.

Both girls eyes were focused on the brown skinned beauty with dark eyes and perfect plump lips. You were beautiful beyond words and they were captured by your looks.

You

"She's fine..." Riri mutters, her eyes watching as you walked on campus with black sunglasses, a silk press down to your waist, a black midriff top that showed ample cleavage without showing too much and a pair of baggy boyfriend jeans with stilettos.

"Who is that?" Shuri demanded.

"Y/n L/n." A passing student says, she was overly cheerful and only too willing to gossip. "She's a genius with a nasty attitude."

Riri stifled a laugh as you walked by, she could tell you heard what the girl said and rather than respond you simply bumped the girl and kept on walking.

"You could say excuse me!" The girl shouts, pissed at your audacity. When you don't respond she mumbles. "Bitch..."

"Why are you still here?" Riri raises a brow, and the girl's eyes widen before she makes herself scarce. She couldn't stand bitches that gossiped. Even though she was grateful for learning your name.

"I call dibs!" Shuri quickly says.

"Bitch, fuck you." Riri scoffs. "Don't you got that 40 something year old cougar? Save some pussy for the rest of us."

"Like you could handle her. She's like 5'8." Shuri smirks, as she stares down at Riri.

"Height don't mean shit. I can still tame a stallion." Riri gloats.

"Ok, if you can get her to go out with you she's all yours." Shuri says.

"I'm not playing no childish game with you Shuri." Riri snaps, she hates how competitive Riri can be when it comes to women. Her competitive side was reserved solely for inventing, business and vigilante activities.

"You saying you think you can't bag her?" The taller girl raised a brow, a devilish grin on her lips.

"Fuck outta here, I'm from Chi Town. I'm definitely bagging her." Riri snorts as if it were really a question.

The two scientists shook hands, a silent agreement going unsaid. Neither planned on playing fair, after all all was fair in love and war right ?

The whole morning you'd been in a foul mood. You and your mother were beefing and she still wouldn't stop calling you. You were so angry at her and for the first time in your life you wanted nothing to do with her for an indefinite time.

Maybe you were being immature, maybe you weren't. However you couldn't process what she'd done and even worse what she'd caused. Everything seemed to be falling down all around you and you felt as if you had no one to turn to.

"Y/n, right?" You hear and look up. You see the girl from earlier, Riri Williams. You knew her from the run down one of the Sorority girls gave you, you'd barely lasted twenty minutes in that home before you said fuck it and left.

If your mother thought you were going to her sorority house she was sadly mistaken. You scored a huge dorm room to yourself by miracle and had spent the day moving in.

"Yes?" You state Riri up and down. She was attractive, and very cocky. She was known all over campus for her business in helping the underachieving, lazy kids that had no business being there pass their classes with moderate grades.

"I just wanted to come and introduce myself." Riri holds her hand out. You look from her face to her hand.

"Ok. You've done that. Bye." You say dryly. Before looking down at your nails.

"Ahhhh so your little friend was right about you being full of attitude." Riri chuckles, eying you with interest. You were making her want you more. There was nothing she liked more than a bratty girl full of attitude. She loved fucking the attitude out of stubborn women and making them submit to her.

"A, I have no friends. B, I could care less what some nosy bitch said about me." You roll your eyes. You were unimpressed with Miss Riri Williams or her acquaintance, friend or whatever the hell Shuri Udaku was to her.

"Ok then, how about I become your friend?" Riri winks, flashing her perfect pearly teeth.

"No." You decline, crossing your arms.

"No?" She looks shocked.

"No, No thank you, No thanks, I decline, I don't think so, Fuck no." You deadpan. You watch as her eyes narrow at your words.

She steps so close to you, your noses are touching. She looks turned on, her pupils dilating as she looked you over with a smirk.

"You're insanely attractive when you act like a little brat." She shakes her head. "It may be no for now, but it'll be yes soon."

And with that she walks away leaving you in the hallway of your door as she enters the room across from yours and closes the door.

"Great." You huff realizing she's your neighbor.

You'd spent three days getting used to campus and your dorm. Riri was constantly bumping into you, she'd go as far as putting flowers outside your door. You could admire her effort, but you weren't allowing yourself to be distracted.

Your classes were a breeze. You barely had to think when it came to your work both in class and outside of it. Your professors were quickly starting to like you as you were engaged, ahead of the curve and not obnoxious with your answers like the other two high achievers on campus.

You walked through the courtyard wanting to find something to eat after two back to back classes with no breakfast because of procrastination.

"Hey, Y/n!" You hear and let out a huge sigh at the sight of Shuri Udaku heading your way. You sped up not interested in any conversation with the girl.

"Wait..." She exclaims, quickly catching up to you and moving to block you.

"What?!" You glare at the tall woman, who's fresh twist out hung in her face. The sight of her sickened your stomach.

"I just wanted to see if you wanted to go out with me?" She asks, flashing her grills. You swallow as you notice her pouty lips turning up.

"You're serious aren't you?" You stare at her incredulously.

"I mean it can't be hard to fathom that I would want to date you, Can it?" She laughs.

"I mean considering just how audacious you are, yes I believe it is." You grumble, annoyed she was stopping you from getting something to eat. You were starving.

"Audacious?" She repeats. She looks confused. "Because I want to take you out?"

"Ha!" You snort. "You don't even know who I am do you?"

"I do, you're a beautiful, bright girl that's caught my eye." She replies, while thinking of what Riri said about you being tough to crack.

"Apparently not the only one." You roll your eyes, before moving to walk around her only for her to capture your wrist in her hand.

"I am currently single. I'm not with anyone." Shuri assures. But her words fall on deaf ears.

"Is that what you call it? Single? So you don't have to deal with the aftermath of your shitty decisions?" You hiss. She was pissing you off. You snatched your wrist away from her.

"Did I mess with one of your friends?" She asks, while scratching her neck.

"I have no friends. I'm sure your buddy told you that when I rejected her several days in a row. Or maybe she didn't, someone that cocky and relentless hates the word no." You shrug.

"So what's with the animosity?" Shuri inquires, confused as to why you seemed so put off by her. Sure she had a reputation of partying a lot, having sex with women that she found attractive that were willing to have no strings attached hookups. But that wasn't reason to dismiss her the way you were.

"How you can live with yourself is wild to me." You take a deep breath as you fight the urge to deck the princess of a foreign country with special privileges.

"Live with myself about what?"

"I'm M/N's daughter. (Mom's name)" You watch as her eyes widen and her mouth drops open.

"Maybe next time you wreck someone's family, you'll at the very least learn who their immediate relatives are so you don't hit on them too." You huff, and start heading towards the food court on campus.

"Y/n!" She calls and you swivel around curious as to how she'll try to work her way out of that one.

"I see why your body's so unpolite... You get it from your mama." She smirks watching as your face darkens.

"Did you just...." You stare in shock at her words. Nope. You didn't dislike her. You hated her.

You spin on your heels and storm off not even giving her the opportunity to say anything else.

"You fucked her mother???!!!" Riri's rolling on the floor. She can't stop laughing at Shuri's predicament.

"It's not funny." Shuri snaps. She was annoyed, fucking M/N was a foolish choice. As attractive as the woman was she was cross faded and looking for an escape. It'd only happened once and she'd let her mouth run recklessly to you. She couldn't believe the words that left her mouth.

"Nah, this is good." Riri chuckles, trying to stop the laughter. She had tears streaming down her face. "You just made this too easy."

"I'm not giving up. M/n owed her family loyalty and fucking decency. I didn't even know she was married, let alone a mother. I met her at a club and fucked her in the bathroom, she didn't even act like a mother." Shuri groans. This was what she got for not being more selective in the women she slept with. Attraction was her only thing as she had no plans of seeing them more than once.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Riri gasps, trying to catch her breath. "And her mama a freak? I'm definitely bagging her, all that anger and attitude is fucking hot. And what's more she can't stand you so I now have a way of getting closer."

"Fuck you, Ri..." Shuri growls, the whole situation was pissing her off. And more than that she felt guilt. The look in your eyes when she'd said what she did hit her deep. She regretted her words. She had a terrible habit of speaking in anger.

"Nah nigga, I'm good. Go fuck on M/n." Riri bursts into laughter again, watching as Shuri gets angry and storms out of her dorm; slamming the door behind her.

You laid in your bed sniffling, you hated that you cared so much about what happened with Shuri and your mother.

You were so angry because had your mother not been such a whore you'd still have your father. She'd cheated on him, and when he found out he'd left the house in a rush too angry to even be near her. He barely made it five minutes into his drive before he'd gotten into the accident that took his life.

You hated her so much. You couldn't understand how she could be so selfish. How she could do what she'd done. How she pretended to give a fuck about him at his funeral knowing she caused his death.

You'd made it clear you hated her and that you would never forgive her. Despite all the nasty things you'd said to her, your father was still gone and you were all alone. You'd cut off all your friends. And only went home to sleep, choosing to study all day at a cafe while you waited for the semester to begin.

You think the worst thing about everything wasn't even the fact you hated Shuri. But why you hated her. You were attracted to her, you'd had the biggest crush on her since she'd shown up on your social media feed when she enrolled in college in America.

And that made you sick with guilt.

Should I continue?

Bonus chapter dedicated to whoever helps me figure out how to make a tag list for those that want a continuation.

#SoundCloud #riri x reader #riri x you #princess shuri #shuri black panther #shuri udaku #shuri smut #shuri x fem!reader #shuri x black!reader #shuri x fem #shuriri #shuriri x reader

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officiallordvetinari · 2 months

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Below are 10 featured Wikipedia articles. Links and descriptions are below the cut.

On February 17, 1974, U.S. Army Private First Class Robert Kenneth Preston (1953–2009) took off in a stolen Bell UH-1B Iroquois "Huey" helicopter from Tipton Field, Maryland, and landed it on the South Lawn of the White House in a significant breach of security. Preston had enlisted in the Army to become a helicopter pilot. However, he did not graduate from the helicopter training course and lost his opportunity to attain the rank of warrant officer pilot. His enlistment bound him to serve four years in the Army, and he was sent to Fort Meade as a helicopter mechanic. Preston believed this situation was unfair and later said he stole the helicopter to show his skill as a pilot.

J. R. R. Tolkien, a fantasy author and professional philologist, drew on the Old English poem Beowulf for multiple aspects of his Middle-earth legendarium, alongside other influences. He used elements such as names, monsters, and the structure of society in a heroic age. He emulated its style, creating an impression of depth and adopting an elegiac tone. Tolkien admired the way that Beowulf, written by a Christian looking back at a pagan past, just as he was, embodied a "large symbolism" without ever becoming allegorical. He worked to echo the symbolism of life's road and individual heroism in The Lord of the Rings.

The construction of the first World Trade Center complex in New York City was conceived as an urban renewal project to help revitalize Lower Manhattan spearheaded by David Rockefeller. The project was developed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The idea for the World Trade Center arose after World War II as a way to supplement existing avenues of international commerce in the United States.

The Coterel gang (also Cotterill, fl. c. 1328 – 1333) was a 14th-century armed group that flourished in the North Midlands of England. It was led by James Coterel—after whom the gang is named—supported by his brothers Nicholas and John. It was one of several such groups that roamed across the English countryside in the late 1320s and early 1330s, a period of political upheaval with an associated increase in lawlessness in the provinces. Coterel and his immediate supporters were members of the gentry, and according to the tenets of the day were expected to assist the crown in the maintenance of law and order, rather than encourage its collapse.

Eunice Newton Foote (July 17, 1819 – September 30, 1888) was an American scientist, inventor, and women's rights campaigner. She was the first scientist to confirm that certain gases warm when exposed to sunlight, and that therefore rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels could increase atmospheric temperature and affect climate, a phenomenon now referred to as the Greenhouse effect. Born in Connecticut, Foote was raised in New York at the center of social and political movements of her day, such as the abolition of slavery, anti-alcohol activism, and women's rights. She attended the Troy Female Seminary and the Rensselaer School from age 17–19, gaining a broad education in scientific theory and practice.

Simonie Michael (Inuktitut: ᓴᐃᒨᓂ ᒪᐃᑯᓪ; first name also spelled Simonee, alternative surnames Michel or E7-551; March 2, 1933 – November 15, 2008) was a Canadian politician from the eastern Northwest Territories (now Nunavut) who was the first Inuk elected to a legislature in Canada. Before becoming involved in politics, Michael worked as a carpenter and business owner, and was one of very few translators between Inuktitut and English. He became a prominent member of the Inuit co-operative housing movement and a community activist in Iqaluit, and was appointed to a series of governing bodies, including the precursor to the Iqaluit City Council.

The St. Johns River (Spanish: Río San Juan) is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and it is the most significant one for commercial and recreational use. At 310 miles (500 km) long, it flows north and winds through or borders twelve counties. The drop in elevation from headwaters to mouth is less than 30 feet (9 m); like most Florida waterways, the St. Johns has a very slow flow speed of 0.3 mph (0.13 m/s), and is often described as "lazy".

Warlugulong is a 1977 acrylic on canvas painting by Indigenous Australian artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. Owned for many years by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the work was sold by art dealer Hank Ebes on 24 July 2007, setting a record price for a contemporary Indigenous Australian art work bought at auction when it was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia for A$2.4 million. The painting illustrates the story of an ancestral being called Lungkata, together with eight other dreamings associated with localities about which Clifford Possum had traditional knowledge. It exemplifies a distinctive painting style developed by Papunya Tula artists in the 1970s, and blends representation of landscape with ceremonial iconography. Art critic Benjamin Genocchio describes it as "a work of real national significance [and] one of the most important 20th-century Australian paintings".

William Samuel Sadler (June 24, 1875 – April 26, 1969) was an American surgeon, self-trained psychiatrist, and author who helped publish The Urantia Book. The book is said to have resulted from Sadler's relationship with a man through whom he believed celestial beings spoke at night. It drew a following of people who studied its teachings.

Zebras (US: /ˈziːbrəz/, UK: /ˈzɛbrəz, ˈziː-/) (subgenus Hippotigris) are African equines with distinctive black-and-white striped coats. There are three living species: Grévy's zebra (Equus grevyi), the plains zebra (E. quagga), and the mountain zebra (E. zebra). Zebras share the genus Equus with horses and asses, the three groups being the only living members of the family Equidae. Zebra stripes come in different patterns, unique to each individual. Several theories have been proposed for the function of these patterns, with most evidence supporting them as a deterrent for biting flies. Zebras inhabit eastern and southern Africa and can be found in a variety of habitats such as savannahs, grasslands, woodlands, shrublands, and mountainous areas.

#wikipedia polls

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beardedmrbean · 1 month

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A group called "Muslim Women for Harris-Walz" is disbanding after the Uncommitted National Movement said it was told a Palestinian American speaker couldn't address the Democratic National Convention.

Uncommitted delegates began a sit-in outside the United Center in Chicago on Wednesday night after being informed that their request for a speaking slot had been denied. Abbas Alawieh, a delegate from Michigan and co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement, told reporters that he received a call from a convention official on Wednesday, who said: "Abbas, the answer is no."

The movement emerged during Democratic primary contests when those angry over the Biden administration's backing of Israel's war in Gaza were encouraged to deny the president their support by voting "uncommitted." They are calling for Vice President Kamala Harris, who is leading the Democratic ticket after Biden dropped his re-election bid, to endorse an arms embargo to Israel and back a permanent ceasefire.

Muslim Women for Harris-Walz said on social media that it could not continue its efforts to elect Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, after the decision to deny a Palestinian American speaker time on the convention's main stage.

"We cannot in good conscience, continue Muslim Women for Harris-Walz, in light of this new information from the Uncommitted movement, that VP Harris' team declined their request to have a Palestinian American speaker take the stage at the DNC," the group said in a statement posted on Instagram.

"We pray that the DNC and VP Harris' team makes the right decision before the convention is over. For the sake of each of us."

The group said the family of an Israeli hostage "has shown more empathy towards Palestinian Americans and Palestinians, than our candidate or the DNC has. This is a terrible message to send to Democrats. Palestinians have the right to speak about Palestine."

Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, the parents of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, spoke at the convention on Wednesday and called for a ceasefire deal that brings home the hostages and "ends the suffering of the innocent people in Gaza."

Newsweek has contacted Muslim Women for Harris-Walz for comment via social media. The Harris campaign and convention organizers were contacted for comment via email outside of business hours.

A humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is continuing 11 months after Israel launched its offensive in response to the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, which killed 1,200 people in Israel and saw some 250 people taken hostage. About half were released during a weeklong ceasefire in November.

At least 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, The Associated Press reported, citing the Gaza Health Ministry, but many more dead are feared buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed in airstrikes. It has devastated much of Gaza and displaced the majority of the territory's 2.3 million residents, often multiple times.

Pro-Palestinian protesters have marched in Chicago every day of the convention.

A forum to discuss the plight of Palestinians in Gaza took place at the convention on Monday. But the decision to allow the parents of an Israeli hostage to speak from the main stage on Wednesday night, while excluding a Palestinian voice prompted accusations of double standards.

"@DNC: Why are you saying that Israeli children are more valuable than Palestinian children? Where is our shared humanity?" Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, wrote on X. "Stop erasing Palestinians. We exist. We deserve to be heard."

In a statement on Wednesday, the Uncommitted movement said it supported the decision to allow the parents of the hostage to speak, but urged the party to "reject a hierarchy of human value by ensuring Palestinian voices are heard on the main stage."

The statement said: "Excluding a Palestinian speaker betrays the party's commitment in our platform to valuing Israelis and Palestinian lives equally. Vice President Harris must unite this party with a vision that fights for everyone, including Palestinians.

"The difficulty in approving even a single Palestinian American speaker among the dozens of speakers on the convention stage sends a troubling message to our anti-war voters, suggesting they aren't truly included in this party."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also joined calls to allow a Palestinian voice to speak at the convention.

"Just as we must honor the humanity of hostages, so too must we center the humanity of the 40,000 Palestinians killed under Israeli bombardment," she wrote on X. "To deny that story is to participate in the dehumanization of Palestinians. The @DNC must change course and affirm our shared humanity."

#nunyas news #sigh #wonder if people are going to start saying #either side is doing what they are doing #because kammy's hubby is Jewish

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evidence-based-activism · 3 months

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Hope this isn't a weird question, but do women do well in positions of leadership? The constant statement that women are too emotionally to lead is getting tired.

I feel like that's a really unfair statement anyways considering women were kept out of leadership positions, and now many women refuse to lead. That's okay, not saying women must. However for the ones that do, I'd like to know some female leaders I could look up to.

Not weird at all! In short, literature on this topic suggests that women in leadership positions perform either the same or better than men.

First, there are a few laymen oriented articles that address this topic [1, 2, 3]. These were written by the American Psychological Association [1] and Forbes [2, 3] and are heavily sourced. I'll be referencing some (but not all) of their sources as well, but they should be easy to follow if you want to read more. The articles use links instead of a reference list, however, so if you find a broken link, consider using the WaybackMachine on archive.org to find a copy of the source.

Subjective Perceptions

The Harvard Business Review has gathered a large dataset on subjective ratings of leader performance as evaluated by peers, superiors, and subordinates. From this dataset, they found that women outscored men on 17 of 19 "leadership capabilities", replicating their earlier results and indicating that on-average female leaders have a greater subjective performance than male leaders [4].

The American Psychological Association (APA) conducted a meta-analytic review of "16 nationally representative U.S. public opinion polls ... extending from 1946 to 2018" [5] found that a public opinion shift took place over this time, such that women are now rated as either equally or higher than men for competence, intelligence, and communion (broadly: concern for others). Men have retained a slight advantage in ratings of agency (broadly: self-oriented goal attainment).

Beyond that, the "mere presence" of a female leader led people to anticipate fairer treatment [6].

And a Pew Research Center survey from 2008 found that people ranked women either equal to or higher than men on most leadership traits (e.g., honest, intelligent) and political performance skills. Almost 70% of people indicated women and men make equally good political leaders. However, despite women's clear advantage when asking about specific skills, when directly asked who makes a better leader only 6% of people said women and 21% said men. This suggests that people's answer to this second question may be driven by sexist stereotypes (i.e., despite ranking women's leadership skills as better, people still default to belief in male leadership). [7]

All in all, this suggests that people believe that women are either equally or more qualified than men to lead (even if that doesn't translate to an explicit endorsement of female leaders over male leaders). So ... what about objective measures?

Political

A 2020 review on the impact of female political leaders [8] found strong evidence that more women representatives is related to lower levels of corruption, along with some evidence that more women in politics leads to better implementation of social programs, more legislation on neglected issues, and less conflict/human rights abuses. Women in politics are also more likely to prioritize human rights and access to "care" (e.g., health care, welfare, education, international aid, equal rights, etc.).

Another report [9] linked increased women’s political representation with greater legal equality and economic performance, and suggests that women's political representation leads to these outcomes. (While causation cannot be definitively established, the longitudinal research suggests a causal relationship such that having more female leadership leads to these positive outcomes.)

One way to objectively evaluate differences in men's and women's political leadership, is to examine differences in outcomes from a major global events like the COVID-19 pandemic.

This 2021 review [10], found female leaders (at country and state level) had a quicker response to the pandemic onset, lower fatality rates, and greater humanitarian response than male leaders. Given the comparatively low number of female leaders, some of these results were not statistically significant, but the pattern of results is still strongly suggestive. In any case, female leaders were at least as capable as male leaders in responding to the pandemic.

The above results are confirmed by a 2022 country-level analysis [11], and these results were strongly statistically significant, indicating that female leaders resulted in lower cases and deaths.

In fact, a Brazilian study [12] found that in addition to female leaders outperforming male leaders (in terms of a lower rate of COVID deaths and hospitalizations), local female leaders were able to mitigate the damage done by an irresponsible national leader (Bolsonaro). In short, "when faced with the decision between enforcing health measures against COVID-19 or trying to conquer the votes of local Bolsonaro supporters, our results suggest that female mayors were more likely to prioritize measures that can save lives".

All in all, female political leaders are either equal to or better than male political leaders.

Corporate

To start with, this 2017 review [13] indicates that some literature on financial outcomes suggests "firms run by female CEOs often report better ROA [return on assets], ROE [return on equity], and sales performance". However, they also indicate that research looking at a broader population (i.e., beyond "large firms in the United States"), does not always find this relationship. Even then, however, women's financial performance under a female leader is still equivalent to financial performance under a male leader.

An additional review [14], found similar results, with some finding a positive impact of female leadership on firm performance and others finding no difference between male and female leaders.

Other sources indicating increased profit under female leaders include:

A McKinsey & Company report [15] found greater diversity (i.e., sex and race) was associated with greater profitability. Specifically, the top 25% (top-quartile) most diverse companies worldwide had a 21% likelihood of outperforming their bottom-quartile peers.

A report by S&P Global, found firms with female CEOs and/or CFOs generated $1.8 trillion in excess profits and superior stock price performance [16].

An additional study [17] on 2 million companies across 32 countries in Europe found "a strong positive association between the share of women in senior positions and firms' ROA [return on assets]".

Beyond pure profit indicators, female corporate leaders are associated with:

Greater corporate responsibility [13]

Better internal management [13]

Lower firm risk [14, 20]

Better corporate credit rating [14]

Greater (bank) stability [18]

Fewer environmental violations [21]

Greater innovation [22]

Now, a reasonable criticism of all of this, is that this research is correlational and cannot establish causation. (The omnipresent problem in social research!) To a degree, this is a problem that cannot be fixed (i.e., there is no way to definitively prove causation without a controlled experiment). However, there are techniques that can provide strong support for causation. One such paper provides support against "reverse causation" (i.e., the idea that firms increase female representation when performing well), and found female representation among corporate board leadership predicts positive future performance [19]. This provides support for (but, again, cannot technically prove) a causal relationship between women's leadership and corporate performance.

Again, this indicates that female corporate leaders are either equal to or better than male corporate leaders.

Other

Political and corporate leadership are the two big categories where most of the research has been done. There are a few other relevant studies I'll describe here:

UNICEF (a part of the UN) reports that "women-led schools may perform better than men-led schools" as "learning outcomes ... for both girls and boys in female-led schools are higher" [23]

An experiment investigating team performance found "a positive and significant effect of female leadership on team performance" specifically "driven by the higher performance of team members in female-led teams" [24]

Unfortunately, the above study also found that "in spite of the higher performance of female-led teams, male members tended to evaluate female leaders as less effective, whereas female members have provided more favorable judgments", suggesting that men's interpretations of women's leadership abilities doesn't align with objective outcomes [24]

While not specifically about female leadership, a large study found that the "collective intelligence" of a group (essentially the IQ of a group rather than an individual) increases with the proportion of women in the group [25]

In addition, this review [26] describes a number of female leaders, so you may interested in it for "some female leaders [you] could look up to"

Women and Emotions

Lastly, I wanted to address "the constant statement that women are too emotionally to lead".

In terms of objective (or, as objective as we can get) measurements of emotional variability, there is little evidence that any sex differences exist, and if they do exist they are likely to be so small they would be (practically speaking) negligible [29].

However, an interesting study [27] examined "emotional expression content" by considering "feminine display rules" (suppression of negative emotions + simulation of positive emotions) and "masculine display rules" (suppression of positive emotions + simulation of negative emotions). As expected, women tended to follow feminine display rules, while men followed masculine display rules. However, this paradigm suggests it's not the amount of expressed emotion that varies by sex but the type of expressed emotion. Importantly, they also found that only the feminine display rules were associated with subjective distress.

A different study [28] examined sex differences in emotion regulation, specifically looking at two prosocial mechanisms and five antisocial mechanisms. They found women and men reported similar endorsement of 1 prosocial and 1 antisocial mechanism, women reported greater endorsement of the other prosocial mechanism, and men reported greater endorsement of the other 4 antisocial mechanisms.

One of the first articles I linked [2] discusses how women outperform men on prosocial behaviors/emotions (e.g., self-control, kindness, moral sensitivity) and men "outperform" women on antisocial behaviors/emotions (e.g., narcissism, aggression, etc.). To be clear, this is almost certainly a result of differences in socialization. That is: these differences are not "biological" or predetermined, instead society expects women to be more prosocial and men to be more antisocial, and we (tend to) meet those expectations.

All together, this suggests that men and women are both expected to modify their emotional expression (although the expectation for women is more likely to cause distress), women are more likely to display more prosocial and less antisocial emotions/behaviors, and women are more likely to deal with emotion constructively.

Ironically, based on the literature in the previous sections, society's expectations for women (i.e., empathy, team work, care for other people, etc.) are part of what drives their superior leadership performance over men.

TL;DR:

Women are either equal or better leaders than men based on: subjective evaluations, objective evaluations of political leaders, and objective evaluations of corporate leaders.

Women — in general and in leadership roles — improve the performance of people in their group.

Women and men likely don’t differ in emotional experience, but are both expected to modulate their emotional expression (in different ways).

Socialization and societal expectations induce more prosocial behavior in women and antisocial behavior in men. (Likely contributing to women’s superior leadership.)

References under the cut:

Novotney, A. (2023, March 23). Women leaders make work better. Here’s the science behind how to promote them. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/women-girls/female-leaders-make-work-better

Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2021, March 7). If women are better leaders, then why are they not in charge? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomaspremuzic/2021/03/07/if-women-are-better-leaders-then-why-are-they-not-in-charge/

Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2022, March 2). The business case for women in leadership. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomaspremuzic/2022/03/02/the-business-case-for-women-in-leadership/

Zenger, J., & Folkman, J. (2019, June 25). Research: Women score higher than men in most leadership skills. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/06/research-women-score-higher-than-men-in-most-leadership-skills

Eagly, A. H., Nater, C., Miller, D. I., Kaufmann, M., & Sczesny, S. (2020). Gender stereotypes have changed: A cross-temporal meta-analysis of U.S. public opinion polls from 1946 to 2018. American Psychologist, 75(3), 301–315. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000494

Joshi, M. P., & Diekman, A. B. (2022). My fair lady? Inferring organizational trust from the mere presence of women in leadership roles. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 48(8), 1220–1237. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211035957

Men or women: Who’s the better leader? (2008, August 25). Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2008/08/25/men-or-women-whos-the-better-leader/

Cowper-Coles, M. (2020). Women Political Leaders: The Impact of Gender on Democracy. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/giwl/assets/women-political-leaders.pdf

Wyman, O., & Weh, D. (2023). Representation matters: Women political leaders. Oliver Wyman Forum. https://www.oliverwymanforum.com/global-consumer-sentiment/2023/sep/representation-matters-women-political-leaders.html

Luoto, S., & Varella, M. A. C. (2021). Pandemic leadership: Sex differences and their evolutionary–developmental origins. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 633862. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.633862

Chang, D., Chang, X., He, Y. et al. The determinants of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality across countries. Sci Rep 12, 5888 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09783-9

Bruce, R., Cavgias, A., Meloni, L., & Remígio, M. (2022). Under pressure: Women’s leadership during the COVID-19 crisis. Journal of Development Economics, 154, 102761. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102761

Gipson, A. N., Pfaff, D. L., Mendelsohn, D. B., Catenacci, L. T., & Burke, W. W. (2017). Women and leadership: Selection, development, leadership style, and performance. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 53(1), 32–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886316687247

Serena, Z. (2020). Do women leaders improve firm performance? European Journal of Economics and Management Sciences, 2, 21–26. https://doi.org/10.29013/EJEMS-20-2-21-26

Dame Vivian Hunt, Lareina Yee , Sara Prince, & Sundiatu Dixon-Fyle. (2018). Delivering through Diversity. McKinsey & Company . https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/delivering-through-diversity

Sandberg, D. J. (2019). When Women Lead, Firms Win. S&P Global. https://www.spglobal.com/content/dam/spglobal/corporate/en/images/general/special-editorial/whenwomenlead_.pdf

Christiansen, L. E., Lin, H., Pereira, J., Topalova, P., & Turk, R. (2016). Gender Diversity in Senior Positions and Firm Performance: Evidence from Europe. IMF Working Papers, 16(50). https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513553283.001

Sahay, R., Cihak, M., N’Diaye, P., Barajas, A., Kyobe, A., Mitra, S., Mooi, Y., & Yousefi, R. (2017). Banking on women leaders: A case for more? IMF Working Papers, 17(199). https://doi.org/10.5089/9781484318164.001

Qian, M. (2016). Women’s leadership and corporate performance (ADB Economics Working Papers). Asian Development Bank. https://www.adb.org/publications/womens-leadership-and-corporate-performance

Perryman, A. A., Fernando, G. D., & Tripathy, A. (2016). Do gender differences persist? An examination of gender diversity on firm performance, risk, and executive compensation. Journal of Business Research, 69(2), 579–586. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.013

Liu, C. (2018). Are women greener? Corporate gender diversity and environmental violations. Journal of Corporate Finance, 52, 118–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2018.08.004

Chen, J., Leung, W. S., & Evans, K. P. (2018). Female board representation, corporate innovation and firm performance. Journal of Empirical Finance, 48, 236–254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jempfin.2018.07.003

Brossard, M., & Bergmann, J. (2022, March 8). Can more women in school leadership improve learning outcomes? | Innocenti Global Office of Research and Foresight. UNICEF | for Every Child; UNICEF. https://www.unicef.org/innocenti/stories/can-more-women-school-leadership-improve-learning-outcomes

De Paola, M., Gioia, F., & Scoppa, V. (2022). Female leadership: Effectiveness and perception. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 201, 134–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.07.016

Woolley, A. W., Chabris, C. F., Pentland, A., Hashmi, N., & Malone, T. W. (2010). Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. Science, 330(6004), 686–688. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1193147

Abdul Wahab, Shazanah; Mohamad Rasidi, Nuur Mohamad Firdaus; Wahab, Samsudin. Influences of Women’s Leadership Performance Towards the Corporate, Political and Social Success: A Review and Research Agenda. Asian Journal of Research in Business and Management, [S.l.], v. 2, n. 4, p. 54-68, dec. 2020. Available at: https://myjms.mohe.gov.my/index.php/ajrbm/article/view/11571.

Simpson, P. A., & Stroh, L. K. (2004). Gender differences: Emotional expression and feelings of personal inauthenticity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(4), 715–721. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.4.715

Zimmermann, P., & Iwanski, A. (2014). Emotion regulation from early adolescence to emerging adulthood and middle adulthood: Age differences, gender differences, and emotion-specific developmental variations. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 38(2), 182–194. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025413515405

Weigard, A., Loviska, A. M., & Beltz, A. M. (2021). Little evidence for sex or ovarian hormone influences on affective variability. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 20925. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-00143-7

#feminism #patriarchal culture

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petermorwood · 9 months

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Crisps / Chips again

Associated with this post, here's an artefact, two anecdotes and an opinion.

The artefact is a slightly dented but still remarkably airtight "Charles Chips" tin.

It was bought, full, many years ago from the Vermont Country Store, from whom we subsequently bought reflll packs - given their size, "sacks" would be more accurate - which were shipped to Ireland in sturdy cardboard boxes.

VCS no longer carry Charles Chips in either tin or refill. I know. I checked. BUT...

The Charles Chips company, which per Wikipedia was doing just fine in 1990 then got sold and went bankrupt twice in less than three years (gosh!) is Back In Business, and note has been taken, with considerable interest - oh, you bet - that they do international shipping...

*****

Anecdote No. 1 is from when @dduane lived in Bala Cynwyd near Philadelphia, in what was known as "The House of Dangerously Single Women" (ahem). She tells me that the household used to get Charles Chips delivered to the door about twice a week, by the company's own vans.

Speaking as a long-time crisp fan, I found that both very neat and a source of mild envy. :->

Anecdote No. 2 is from 30-ish years ago, when we were in New York for something or other and, being rather jetlagged with our internal food clocks out of whack, did our usual thing and went out for a walk.

Curiously enough, this involved visiting several food stores and supermarkets where we bought a lot of Interesting Foreign or Much Missed (i.e. American, in both instances) junk food for grazing on back in our hotel room.

In one of them DD was about to lay claim to a huge bag of Wise potato chips (its bag would have been the design in the middle)...

...while nattering to one of the shop staff how much she missed them. He told her that a new delivery was expected in about 20 minutes and if she wanted to wait, she'd get much fresher chips.

And So It Came To Pass.

Well done, that guy!

*****

Finally, while Saratoga Springs may have been where potato crisps / chips were popularised, standardised, commercialised or whatever, it's definitely not where they were invented.

Even the oft-repeated "creation myth" frequently has its hard-to-please celebrity demanding to have his potatoes sliced and fried really thin "The Way I Had Them In France" - which kinda sorta suggests they were, um, being made there just like that well before the Saratoga thing happened.

Myths are okay, even marketing myths - so long as they're recognised as myths and not shilled as true by places with reputations like the Smithsonian.

*****

It's a bit like the still-current nonsense about spices being used in medieval kitchens to disguise bad meat. As far as I've been able to find out, this originated with a historian called J. C. Drummond in the late 1930s - yup, just before World War Two - simply because he didn't know his period terminology.

"Green" meant fresh - even nowadays, an inexperienced or immature person is "green" - so green cheese was newly made, and green meat was newly slaughtered, unaged and consequently tough and flavourless.

Just ask any steak fan the difference between a fresh steak and a 30-day dry aged one.

Drummond, in his overspecialised-scholarship wisdom, assumed that "green venison" meant meat which had gone off, and that a recipe to improve it with spices was to cover the bad smell and taste.

In fact it was somewhere between a marinade and a rub, meant to improve the tenderness and flavour of fresh meat as if it had aged for a while, thus shortening the waiting time between killing a beast and getting it to the table of a hungry court.

As I've said before, it's always easier for no-proofs-given pop history to dismiss medieval people as (insert derogatory observation here) than take the time needed to explain why and how they in their time were not that different to us in ours.

*****

PS: when looking for that previously posted stuff about green meat I found a post where, with even less evidence than Saratoga Springs inventing crisps, a Brit poster claimed Brits invented curry.

Snrk.

Among other more or less pertinent observations, I mentioned that what Brits invented was BRITISH curry, and anyone who has read "Nanny Ogg's Cookbook" will know what I meant by that... :->

#food and drink #snack foods #nostalgia #anecdotage #Charles Chips #Wise Potato Chips #Nanny Ogg's Cookbook #GNU Terry Pratchett

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justinspoliticalcorner · 2 months

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Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day:

I remember the feeling of hands inside me. Pulling, tugging, moving things aside. My emergency c-section wasn’t painful, but that feeling of being invaded was somehow worse than physical hurt. For years, the thought of the surgery would send me into a PTSD panic, my knees literally buckling and vomit coming up the back of my throat. In my memory, my arms are tied down while I’m being cut—but I know that’s not true. It’s just my brain’s way of making the powerlessness of the moment seem tangible.

Because I was so early in my pregnancy, just 28 weeks along, doctors had to cut me both horizontally and vertically, making it life-threatening for me to have a vaginal birth in the future and increasing my risk for uterine rupture. I didn’t know it then, but I would never have another child. So when I see anti-abortion groups blithely suggesting that women with life-threatening pregnancies should be forced into c-sections rather than easier, safer, and less traumatic abortions—it feels personal. Because I chose my medical nightmare; it was necessary to save both my life and my daughter’s. I can’t imagine the horror of going through such a thing unnecessarily, or at 16 weeks pregnant instead of 28. What if my tied-down arms weren’t a post-traumatic illusion, but a legal reality?

For nearly a year, I’ve been tracking this growing strategy: Some of the most powerful anti-abortion organizations in the country are using carefully-worded legislation and seemingly-credible clinical recommendations to codify medical atrocities—pushing doctors to force pregnant women into unnecessary labor and c-sections, even before fetal viability and sometimes even when a fetus has died. Why would anyone do such a thing? The answer is as simple as it is awful: Anti-abortion groups and lawmakers want to prove that abortion is never necessary to save a person’s life. The problem is that they know pregnancy can be deadly, especially in the United States. Rather than admit abortion can be life-saving, their solution is to force doctors to end deadly pregnancies in any other way—even if it means torturing women in the process.

Anti-abortion lawmakers and activists are so desperate to divorce abortion from health care, they’d prefer to see us dead than allow critically ill women to get care they disagree with. I mean that literally. This is how they kill us. With the sly shifting of medical standards and surreptitiously-placed legislative language. Because while these people are cruel, they’re certainly not stupid. Anti-abortion extremists know the only way to normalize medical torture is to move quietly and slowly. After all, dystopias aren’t created in a day. They’re built, law by law and talking point by talking point, through medical regulations, bureaucracy, and fear. From a Supreme Court ruling in Idaho to timid guidance from hospital administrators in Louisiana—anti-abortion groups don’t need to own up to their grim vision when they have others embedding the nightmare bit by bit.

That’s not to say they haven’t been busy themselves. Using extremist groups with credible-sounding names—like American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs or the Charlotte Lozier Institute—the anti-abortion movement has carefully disguised radical calls to hurt women as simple scientific recommendations. They’ve inserted the nonsense term ‘maternal fetal separation’ into legislation, court cases and conservative talking points, removing ‘abortion’ in an attempt to further the lie that the procedure is never necessary. They've published papers and trotted out ‘experts’ who claim it’s “medically standard” to force women into c-sections or vaginal labor when their lives are at risk. Again, even when it’s too early for a fetus to survive.

Anti-abortion legislators have done their job too, passing laws that allow their state to define what conditions are life-threatening during pregnancy and the best course of action for doctors. They’ve written mandates that emergency terminations be performed in a way that “provides the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive.” If states must be forced to save women’s lives, it appears, they’ll make sure we suffer greatly for the trouble. It’s not a coincidence that reports coming out of anti-abortion states show a sharp rise in c-sections. With their license and freedom on the line, doctors and hospitals are falling in line. One Texas OBGYN who was directed to give a septic patient a hysterotomy told researchers, “The morbidity is going to be insane.”

To people who value fetuses above women, that’s a price they’re willing to pay. Indeed, all of this cruelty starts to make morbid sense when you understand that the broader anti-abortion goal goes beyond forced c-sections or redefining medical standards. They are trying to make Americans numb to women suffering and dying during pregnancy. They’re treating it as unpreventable—natural, even—so that voters don’t bat an eye when the maternal mortality numbers skyrocket.

Jessica Valenti reports on the rise of c-sections post-Roe and dishonest efforts to divorce abortion from healthcare by anti-abortion zealots in her Abortion, Every Day blog.

#Abortion #C Sections #Reproductive Health #Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization #Fetal Viability #Pregnancy #Abortion Is Healthcare

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ausetkmt · 1 year

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Black women have made important contributions to the United States throughout its history. However, they are not always recognized for their efforts, with some remaining anonymous and others becoming famous for their achievements. In the face of gender and racial bias, Black women have broken barriers, challenged the status quo, and fought for equal rights for all. The accomplishments of Black female historical figures in politics, science, the arts, and more continue to impact society.

Marian Anderson (Feb. 27, 1897–April 8, 1993)

Underwood Archives / Getty Images

Contralto Marian Anderson is considered one of the most important singers of the 20th century. Known for her impressive three-octave vocal range, she performed widely in the U.S. and Europe, beginning in the 1920s. She was invited to perform at the White House for President Franklin Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1936, the first African American so honored. Three years later, after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Anderson to sing at a Washington, D.C. gathering, the Roosevelts invited her to perform on the steps of the Lincon Memorial.

Anderson continued to sing professionally until the 1960s when she became involved in politics and civil rights issues. Among her many honors, Anderson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.

Mary McLeod Bethune (July 10, 1875–May 18, 1955)

PhotoQuest / Getty Images

Mary McLeod Bethune was an African American educator and civil rights leader best known for her work co-founding the Bethune-Cookman University in Florida. Born into a sharecropping family in South Carolina, the young Bethune had a zest for learning from her earliest days. After stints teaching in Georgia, she and her husband moved to Florida and eventually settled in Jacksonville. There, she founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute in 1904 to provide education for Black girls. It merged with the Cookman Institute for Men in 1923, and Bethune served as president for the next two decades.

A passionate philanthropist, Bethune also led civil rights organizations and advised Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin Roosevelt on African American issues. In addition, President Harry Truman invited her to attend the founding convention of the United Nations; she was the only African American delegate to attend.

Shirley Chisholm (Nov. 30, 1924–Jan. 1, 2005)

Don Hogan Charles / Getty Images

Shirley Chisholm is best known for her 1972 bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination; she was the first Black woman to make this attempt in a major political party. However, she had been active in state and national politics for more than a decade and had represented parts of Brooklyn in the New York State Assembly from 1965 to 1968. She became the first Black woman to serve in Congress in 1968. During her tenure, she co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus. Chisholm left Washington in 1983 and devoted the rest of her life to civil rights and women's issues.

Althea Gibson (Aug. 25, 1927–Sept. 28, 2003)

Reg Speller / Getty Images

Althea Gibson started playing tennis as a child in New York City, winning her first tennis tournament at age 15. She dominated the American Tennis Association circuit, reserved for Black players, for more than a decade. In 1950, Gibson broke the tennis color barrier at Forest Hills Country Club (site of the U.S. Open); the following year, she became the first African American to play at Wimbledon in Great Britain. Gibson continued to excel at the sport, winning both amateur and professional titles through the early 1960s.

Dorothy Height (March 24, 1912–April 20, 2010)

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Dorothy Height has been described as the godmother of the women's movement because of her work for gender equality. For four decades, she led the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW )and was a leading figure in the 1963 March on Washington. Height began her career as an educator in New York City, where her work caught the attention of Eleanor Roosevelt. Beginning in 1957, she led the NCNW and also advised the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA). She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.

Rosa Parks (Feb. 4, 1913–Oct. 24, 2005)

Underwood Archives / Getty Images

Rosa Parks became active in the Alabama civil rights movement after marrying activist Raymond Parks in 1932. She joined the Montgomery, Alabama, chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1943 and was involved in much of the planning that went into the famous bus boycott that began the following decade. Parks is best known for her December 1, 1955, arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat to a White rider. That incident sparked the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott, which eventually desegregated that city's public transit. Parks and her family moved to Detroit in 1957, and she remained active in civil rights until her death.

Augusta Savage (Feb. 29, 1892–March 26, 1962)

Archive Photos / Sherman Oaks Antique Mall / Getty Images

Augusta Savage displayed an artistic aptitude from her youngest days. Encouraged to develop her talent, she enrolled in New York City's Cooper Union to study art. She earned her first commission, a sculpture of civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois, from the New York library system in 1921, and several other commissions followed. Despite meager resources, she continued working through the Great Depression, making sculptures of several notable Black people, including Frederick Douglass and W. C. Handy. Her best-known work, "The Harp," was featured at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, but it was destroyed after the fair ended.

Harriet Tubman (1822–March 20, 1913)

Library of Congress

Enslaved from birth in Maryland, Harriet Tubman escaped to freedom in 1849. The year after she arrived in Philadelphia, Tubman returned to Maryland to free her family members. Over the next 12 years, she returned nearly 20 times, helping more than 300 enslaved Black people escape bondage by ushering them along the Underground Railroad. The "railroad" was the nickname for a secret route that enslaved Black people used to flee the South for anti-slavery states in the North and to Canada. During the Civil War, Tubman worked as a nurse, a scout, and a spy for Union forces. After the war, she worked to establish schools for formerly enslaved people in South Carolina. In her later years, Tubman also became involved in women's rights causes.

Phillis Wheatley (May 8, 1753–Dec. 5, 1784)

Culture Club/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Born in Africa, Phillis Wheatley came to the U.S. at age 8, when she was captured and sold into enslavement. John Wheatley, the Boston man who enslaved her, was impressed by Phillis' intellect and interest in learning, and he and his wife taught her to read and write. The Wheatleys allowed Phillis time to pursue her studies, which led her to develop an interest in poetry writing. A poem she published in 1767 earned her much acclaim. Six years later, her first volume of poems was published in London, and she became known in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The Revolutionary War disrupted Wheatley's writing, however, and she was not widely published after it ended.

Charlotte Ray (Jan. 13, 1850–Jan. 4, 1911)

Charlotte Ray has the distinction of being the first African American woman lawyer in the United States and the first woman admitted to the bar in the District of Columbia. Her father, active in New York City's Black community, made sure his young daughter was well educated; she received her law degree from Howard University in 1872 and was admitted to the Washington, D.C., bar shortly afterward. Both her race and gender proved to be obstacles in her professional career, and she eventually became a teacher in New York City instead.

#10 of the Most Important Black Women in U.S. History #Black Women #Black Women Matter #Black Lives Matter #us history

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mariacallous · 17 days

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Watching Fox News these days is like being at open-mic night at a marginal comedy club.

Rightwing pundits, like a lineup of amateur comics, are trying out their new material and hoping it kills. So far, not so much.

Take Jesse Watters (please). The primetime successor to Tucker Carlson was grasping at straws – yes, literal straws – the other day as he looked for a way to put down Tim Walz. How best to mock the popular Minnesota governor who is Kamala Harris’s running mate?

“Women love masculinity and women do not like Tim Walz, so that should just tell you about how masculine Tim Walz is,” Watters said on the roundtable talk show he co-hosts, The Five.

With that setup, he tried to prove his point.

“The other day you saw him with a vanilla ice-cream shake. Had a straw in it. Again, that tells you everything.”

The joke, or whatever it was, didn’t really land. Most people know that Walz is the opposite of a wimp. He’s a famously regular guy – America’s dad – who will use his newfound power to demand that all Americans own jumper cables and know how to use them.

The straw-grasping is getting a little desperate these days as Harris and Walz spread their forward-looking message, and as their rivals – the felon and adjudicated sex offender Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance – prove themselves less appealing by the day.

“Fox is really feeling the loss of Tucker Carlson right now,” theorized Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, the progressive media-watchdog non-profit, who watches a lot of rightwing cable news as part of his job.

“He was very effective at lifting something from the rightwing fever swamp and making it into a coherent message” that could spread through the conservative ecosystem.

Failing Tucker’s contributions to the commonweal, Fox and its pundits are floundering. They keep trying new approaches to replace their well-honed attacks on Biden – his family’s supposed corruption (“Biden crime family”) and his age (“senile”).

Over the past week, Fox tried to gin up controversy over Harris’s “code-switching” – the use of a different accent or speaking style when speaking to Black audiences. Fox’s White House correspondent Peter Doocy pressed the question at an official press briefing.

“Since when does the vice-president have what sounds like a southern accent?” Doocy demanded. The press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, dismissed him and moved on after posing a query of her own: “Do you think Americans seriously think this is an important question?”

Maria Bartiromo focused on this “southern accent” scandal on her Fox Business show, using a clip of Harris speaking to an audience in Detroit about how unions have helped win benefits for all Americans, like paid sick leave and a five-day work week, by repeating the phrase: “You’d better thank a union member.”

The pro-Trump cable network didn’t help its own cause with that one. “The funny thing about Fox News being mad at Harris for code-switching,” one observer noted on X, “is they had to play the clip of her talking about how great unions are over and over again.” You can’t buy that kind of media exposure.

The well-circulated photograph of Tim Walz’s family members wearing pro-Trump T-shirts fizzled, too, though it got a good ride on Fox for a day or two. Soon enough, it became clear that these were mostly distant cousins, a Nebraska branch of the family. Walz’s sister told the Associated Press she didn’t even recognize them. Walz does have an older brother who favors Trump, but most Americans are familiar with family disputes over politics.

Gertz told me that Fox pundits were sent reeling by Harris’s ascension and are “very shook by the ‘weird’ narrative” that Tim Walz has popularized. That’s the idea that Trump, Vance and their ilk are deeply strange people – way out of the mainstream with their nasty putdowns of “childless cat ladies” and their outlandish conspiracy theories. It applies all too well to the Fox personalities as well as the politicians they promote.

There’s time, of course, for Fox to come up with an effective message. Until something hits, we’re going to see a lot of painful tryouts.

The alternative, of course, is obvious: just don’t turn it on.

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amaditalks · 6 months

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Heather Cox Richardson is a US based political historian, who connects facts from our history to current events to provide context. She writes daily on Substack, this is an excerpt from her March 17 post. It’s a longer read but very crucial toward understanding the American right’s plans for the future of this country, as illustrated by the close connections of The Heritage Foundation, a powerful right wing think tank, and Viktor Orbán, the autocratic prime minister of Hungary.

“The tight cooperation between Heritage and Orbán illuminates Project 2025, the plan Heritage has led, along with dozens of other right-wing organizations, to map out a future right-wing presidency. In Hungary, Orbán has undermined democracy, gutting the civil service and filling it with loyalists; attacking immigrants, women, and the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals; taking over businesses for friends and family, and moving the country away from the rules-based international order supported by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

In the January interview, Roberts told Garcia-Navarro that Project 2025 was designed to jump-start a right-wing takeover of the government. “[T]he Trump administration, with the best of intentions, simply got a slow start,” Roberts said. “And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.”

Project 2025 stands on four principles that it says the country must embrace. In their vision, the U.S. must “[r]estore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children”; “[d]ismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people”; “[d]efend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats”; and “[s]ecure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls ‘the Blessings of Liberty.’”

In almost 1,000 pages, the document explains what these policies mean for ordinary Americans. Restoring the family and protecting children means making “family authority, formation, and cohesion” a top priority and using “government power…to restore the American family.” That, the document says, means eliminating any words associated with sexual orientation or gender identity, gender, abortion, reproductive health, or reproductive rights from any government rule, regulation, or law. Any reference to transgenderism is “pornography” and must be banned.

The overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the right to abortion must be gratefully celebrated, the document says, but the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision accomplishing that end “is just the beginning.””

#project 2025 #heritage foundation #fascism

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stephensmithuk · 15 days

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The Hound of the Baskervilles: The Man on the Tor

E. Remington and Sons, founded in 1816, was an American company known for firearms and typewriters, manufacturing the first commercial model of the latter. The typewriter part of the business was sold off in 1886 and via a series of corporate changes, the company is now part of Unisys. Not that it makes typewriters anymore.

The earliest known use of the word "sexy" comes from a letter by Arnold Bennett in 1896.

This is a period where people, especially of class, very much cared about avoiding scandal. A married woman visiting a single man late at night would be a scandal.

At this time Laura Lyons would have to prove that her estranged husband had committed both adultery and abandoned her. Proving the former would usually require a private detective of some form, beyond the means of most people.

A red letter day is one of special significance. In the UK, there are certain days where English High Court judges wear scarlet robes instead of the normal black. This would include religious festivals and the Sovereign's birthdays (official and actual), but I am unable to find an updated official list to reflect the situation with the current King.

Red Letter Days is also the name of a company that sells "experiences" like tank driving days or a cream tea at a posh hotel.

While Franklin possibly isn't aware of it as it was a common turn of phrases, the term "double event" was used in a postcard purporting to be from Jack the Ripper sent the day after that serial killer murdered two women in the space of an hour.

The Court of Queen’s Bench, now the Court of King's Bench, is the division of the High Court dealing with things like personal injury, libel and breach of contract:

Frankland clearly does not remember that you cannot sue the Sovereign. He could sue the Devon County Constabulary though, which has since become the Devon and Cornwall Police.

Tins for food were widespread at this time. They were made of iron, soldered with a tin-lead alloy, which could lead to poisoning by the latter until Max Ams developed a seam in 1888 that only required the solder on the outside.

A pannikin is a metal cup coated in enamel.

"Spartan" means austere. The city state of Sparta in ancient Greece was known, in a rather mythologicalised fashion, for its heavily militarised society, eschewing personal comfort for this. It attracted a lot of admirers as a result, including playing a big part in fascist beliefs. Their reputation for physical prowess has also seen several sports teams adopt their name, like AC Sparta Prague, who dominate the Czech association football game.

There is also of course 300...

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #history #factoids #acd canon #houn #the hound of the baskervilles #this is dartmoor!

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todaysdocument · 11 months

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Telegram to President Woodrow Wilson from Jane Addams and Other Women Regarding the Deportation of Emmeline Pankhurst

Record Group 85: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service Series: Subject and Policy Files File Unit: Appeal of Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst for admittance for visit, English Suffragette

This telegram petitioned the Department of Labor and their decision to deport Emmeline Pankhurst, a British suffragette. The authors wanted the board to reconsider and maintain "America's devotion to liberty."

Telegram The White House, Washington 6 PO.FD. 283 139 extra 10:25 p.m. Sa, Chicago, Ill., October 18, 1913. The President. Whereas, the Associated Press reports to the American public that Mrs. Pankhurst's deportation has been ordered by the board of inquiry at Ellis Island and, Whereas, such action is in direct violation of the traditions and customs of the United States which has always been hospitable to the political offenders and revolutionists of all nations, and, Whereas, our sister republic, France, is at the present moment sheltering Christabel Pankhurst, Now, therefore, be it resolved: That we, the undersigned women of Chicago, protest against this flagrant violation of our long established public policy, and, Be it further resolved: That we respectively petition the Department of Labor in reviewing the case of this distinguished English woman to reconsider the decision of the Board of Inquiry and to admit Mrs. Pankhurst; thus maintaining the high traditions of America's devotion to liberty and right of free speech. (Signed) Jane Addams, Louise DeKoven Bowen, Mary Rozette Smith, Mary McDowell, Margaret Dreier Robins, Harriet Taylor Treadwell, President Chicago Political Equality League; Margaret A. Haley, Business Representative Chicago Teachers' Federation; Ida L. M. Furstman, President Chicago Teachers' Federation; Mrs. Harriet S. Thompson, Director Chicago Political Equality League; Edith A. Phelps, Anna Nichols, Laura Dainty Pelham,

Telegram The White House, Washington 6 PO. Sheet 2- Chicago, Ill., Octo. 18, 1913. to the President. Stella Miles Franklin, Kathleen Hamill, Mary Foulke Morrisson, Anna Monroe, Edith Wyatt, Caroline Packard, Leonora Pease, Secretary Socialist Women's League; Mrs. L. Brackett Bishop, Marion M. Griffin, Margaret B. Dobyne, Mary E. Galvin, Judith W. Loewenthal, Agnes Nestor, E. Beatrix Dauchy, Belle Squire, Anna Willard Timneus, Emma Steghagen, Grace Wilbur Trout, Florence Holbrook, Catharine Goggin, Mary Anderson, Sophonisba Breckinridge, Edith Abbott, Esther Dresden, President Young Women's Suffrage Association; Amy Walker, Francis Harden, Anna Harden, Catharine Goggin, Mary V. Donoghue, Wilma Rhinesmith, Julia Donoghue, Serina Hayes, May E. Brown.

#archivesgov #1910s #women's suffrage #suffragette #emmeline pankhurst #jane adams #October 18 #1913

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 months

Text

Mike Luckovich

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 5, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 06, 2024

Christi Carras of the Los Angeles Times reported today that the reality TV industry has collapsed. From April to June, reality TV production in the Los Angeles region fell by 57% compared to the same period in 2023; that’s a 50% drop over the five-year average, excluding the Covid-induced production shutdown. The immediate reasons for the dropping production are systemic to the business, Carras reports, but the change seems to represent Americans’ souring on the blurring of reality and entertainment that gave us the Trump era.

Trump rose to political power thanks to his appearances on reality TV, which claimed to be unscripted but was actually edited to emphasize ruthless competition among people striving for ultimate victory in a closed system. The Apprentice launched in 2004, and its highly edited episodes portrayed its star, Trump, as a brilliant and very wealthy businessman despite his past failures.

Since 2015, Trump has offered a simple narrative of American life that did not reflect reality. Using the sort of language rising authoritarians use to attract a disaffected population, he promised those left behind economically by forty years of supply-side economics that he would bring back manufacturing, close tax loopholes, promote infrastructure, and make healthcare cheaper and better. He also promised sexists and racists who wanted to roll back the gains women and racial and gender minorities had made since the 1950s that he would, once again, center white, heteronormative men.

He never delivered on his economic promises: manufacturing continued to decline, he cut taxes for the wealthy and for corporations, “infrastructure week” became a national joke, and rather than expand the Affordable Care Act, Republicans repeatedly tried to kill it. But Trump and his followers did center those who had gravitated toward the MAGA movement for its cultural promises. Now, in 2024, that gravitation means that the Republican Party has become an antidemocratic vehicle for Christian nationalism.

In the 2024 contest, Trump has continued to push a fake narrative, but his ability to dominate the political conversation is slipping. Last Wednesday, his interview before the National Association of Black Journalists began more than an hour late; Trump publicly blamed the delay on the association’s technology, and there was, in fact, a brief issue with the audio. But it turns out that the delay was due primarily to Trump’s not wanting to be fact-checked during the interview. He was not willing to go on stage without a promise that the journalists would permit him to say whatever he wanted. They declined.

Trump’s determination to have a friendly audience to promote his narrative was behind the dust-up over planned presidential debates. Trump has not sat down for an interview with any but friendly right-wing interviewers. He agreed to a September 10 debate on ABC News back when he assumed the Democratic presidential nominee would be President Joe Biden. As soon as Biden said he would not accept the nomination, Trump suggested he would not be willing to follow through with the ABC News event if Vice President Kamala Harris was his opponent.

Over the weekend, he announced that he would be willing to debate Harris on September 4, but only on his terms: he wants the Fox News Channel—which had to pay a $787 million settlement for lying that Trump won the 2020 election—to host such an event, and he wants the arena full of people. Essentially, he wants to set up the conditions for one of his rallies and then “debate” Harris in that right-wing bubble.

But Harris has stood firm on the previous agreement, condemning Trump’s trash talk about her and daring Trump instead to “say it to my face.” She is taunting him for chickening out of the arranged debate, and says she will follow through with the September 10 event to which both campaigns agreed. Trump’s new plan doubles as a way to get out of debating altogether: he’s saying that if she doesn’t show up at his event, he won’t debate her at all.

At the same time, Americans have seen the Biden-Harris administration actually do the hard work of governing, completing the promises Trump made but didn’t deliver. Manufacturing has surged under Biden, with factories under construction and about 800,000 manufacturing jobs created. The Biden-Harris administration more fully funded the IRS to go after tax cheats, passing the mark of recovering more than $1 billion from high-income, high-wealth individuals earlier this month and scoring a $6 billion judgment against Coca-Cola Co. for back taxes just last week. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is rebuilding the nation’s roads and bridges, and a record high number of people have enrolled in affordable health coverage plans since January 2021.

The difference between sound bites and the hard work of governance was illustrated last week when Biden and Harris were the ones who pulled off a complicated multi-country swap that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich—whom Trump had repeatedly boasted that he alone could get Russian president Vladimir Putin to release—along with fifteen other Russian-held prisoners.

That focus on complicated governance rather than sound bites has paid off in the Indo-Pacific region as well. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wrote in the Washington Post today that “enhanced U.S. power in the [Indo-Pacific] region is one of the most important legacies of this administration.”

They note that “[n]o place on Earth is more critical to Americans’ livelihoods and futures than the Indo-Pacific.” It generates nearly 60% of global gross domestic product and its commerce supports more than 3 million U.S. jobs, while the area’s security challenges—North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and China’s provocations at sea—have far reaching effects.

As the U.S. turned inward during the Trump administration, China’s power grew, and when Biden and Harris took office, America’s standing in the Indo-Pacific was at “its lowest point in decades.” Biden’s transformation of the nation’s Indo-Pacific policy “is one of the most important and least-told stories of the [administration’s] foreign policy strategy,” the authors write. Biden’s team replaced one-to-one relationships in the region with wider partnerships: AUKUS, a new security partnership comprising Australia, the U.K., and the U.S.; a trilateral summit with Japan and South Korea; and a summit with Japan and the Philippines. It elevated the Quad—Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S.—and hosted both the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum. With 13 other countries, it created the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity.

These partnerships do not translate to easy slogans, but they have strengthened defense and supply chains and helped address climate change. “Our security partnerships across the Indo-Pacific” make “us and our neighbors safer and stronger,” they wrote.

The stock market fell today, with the big indices—the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq Composite, and the S&P 500—all sliding. The Dow, which measures 30 of the nation’s older, prominent companies, and the S&P 500, which measures 500 of the largest companies on the U.S. stock exchanges, took their biggest daily losses since September 2022, although they still remain up about 60% from the time of Biden’s election.

In June, Moody’s Analytics assessed that the economy would grow less under Trump’s policies than under a continuation of Biden’s, but today, Trump promptly wrote: “Stock markets are crashing, jobs numbers are terrible, we are heading to World War III, and we have two of the most incompetent ‘leaders’ in history.” His running mate, J.D. Vance, followed that up by blaming Vice President Kamala Harris. “The stock market is crashing because of weak and failed Kamala Harris’ policies and the world is on the brink of WW3,” he said.

But what is really at stake here is the complicated business of balancing the economy as it has come out of the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. The Biden-Harris administration made the decision to invest money in ordinary Americans, and it worked: the U.S. came out of the pandemic with a stronger economy than any other nation.

That economic strength came with inflation, both because people had more money to spend thanks to higher wages and because that cash meant that corporations could continue to charge higher prices: the net profits of food companies, for example, are up by a median of 51% since just before the pandemic, according to Tom Perkins of The Guardian, and one egg producer’s profits went up by around 950% (not a typo). To get inflation under control, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell—a Trump appointee, by the way—kept interest rates high.

He has been under pressure to cut interest rates in order to keep the economy humming but has not, and on Friday a jobs report showed that U.S. employers had added fewer jobs than economists had expected, while the unemployment rate ticked up. This hiccup in the booming economy prompted investors to sell.

Fine-tuning the economy through interest rates is like catching an egg on a plate. Economist Robert Reich notes that the economy will continue to need the antitrust regulations the administration has put in place to bring down costs, and just today federal judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google illegally maintained a monopoly for internet searches, a decision likely to influence other antitrust lawsuits the government has undertaken.

Voters seem increasingly aware of the difference between image and reality. Today the hospitality workers’ union UNITE HERE, which plays a big role in Nevada politics, endorsed Vice President Harris for president. Trump had tried to court the union with a promise to end taxes on tips, a plan Americans for Tax Fairness says avoids increasing the low minimum wage for waitstaff and instead opens the door to tax abuse by high-income professionals who reclassify their compensation as tips.

Union president Gwen Mills told Josh Boak of the Associated Press that Trump was just “making a play” for votes. The union says its members will knock on more than 3.3 million doors for Harris in swing states.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#reality TV #election 2024 #governance #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters from An American #antitrust #unions #voters

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