Shall We Call Me Shallow?

The average prison sentence for men who kill their intimate partners is 2 to 6 years. Women who kill their partners are sentenced, on average, to 15 years.¹⁷ A pair of Maryland cases vividly illustrates this inequality in sentencing.¹⁸ In one case, a judge in Baltimore County, Maryland sentenced Kenneth Peacock to 18 months for killing his unfaithful wife. The very next day, another judge in the same county sentenced Patricia Ann Hawkins to three years in prison for killing her abusive husband. Significantly, the prosecutor in the Peacock case requested a sentence twice as long as the one imposed, while the prosecutor in the Hawkins case requested one-third of the sentence imposed.

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The Michigan Women’s Justice & Clemency Project (via illegalplumpudding)

“As many as 90% of the women in prison today [2008] for killing men had been battered by those men.¹⁵”

(via bananapeppers)

Another reason the argument that Kasandra Perkins should have had a gun to protect herself falls flat. 

Despicable

The masculine mystique is institutionalized in work structures, according to three new studies forthcoming in the Journal of Social Issues. Just as women who display “masculine” ambitions or behaviors on the job are often penalized, so are men who engage in traditionally female behaviors, like prioritizing family involvement. Men who take an active role in child care and housework at home are more likely than other men to be harassed at work. Men who request family leave are often viewed as weak or uncompetitive and face a greater risk of being demoted or downsized. And men who have ever quit work for family reasons end up earning significantly less than other male employees, even when controlling for the effects of age, race, education, occupation, seniority and work hours. Now men need to liberate themselves from the pressure to prove their masculinity. Contrary to the fears of some pundits, the ascent of women does not portend the end of men. It offers a new beginning for both. But women’s progress by itself is not a panacea for America’s inequities. The closer we get to achieving equality of opportunity between the sexes, the more clearly we can see that the next major obstacle to improving the well-being of most men and women is the growing socioeconomic inequality within each sex.

- The Myth of Male Decline - NYTimes.com (via aminatou)

YES. Exactly.

That’s not a measure of something we should be ashamed of.

- Michael Bloomberg on New York City’s growing income gap, noting that the city had worked “very hard” to lure wealthy residents. (via officialssay)