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WomenSex, power and humiliation: eight lessons women learned from Monica Lewinsky’s shaming She was a 22-year-old intern, he was the most powerful man in the world – yet everyone blamed her for their affair. As the story is retold in a new drama, this is what that vicious period taught usZoe Williams@ More
When medical staff prepped Shawn Thierry for an emergency C-section, she knew something was very wrong. After an epidural, excruciating pain ran through her legs. Soon, she could barely breathe.“I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest and that I might die,” she said.She screamed for her doctor to put her under anesthesia – which happened to be the solution. The epidural, Thierry later found out, was given too high in her spine, causing a paralysis that inched toward her heart.“I was an attorney who had full private healthcare coverage and I almost died,” said Thierry, of the birth of her daughter in 2012. “I cannot imagine what the outcome would be for the thousands of other African American women without health insurance.”Years later, as a member of the Texas House, Thierry was “stunned” to learn of the state’s maternal mortality crisis.The US has the highest maternal death rate among similarly developed countries and is the only industrialized nation where such deaths are rising. But according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Texas the maternal mortality rate is above the US average, at 18.5 deaths per 100,000 live births.Black women in the state are “disproportionately” affected, accounting for 11% of live births but 31% of maternal deaths. Wide racial and ethnic disparities exist nationally too.I was shocked that black mothers like myself are three times more likely to die than our white counterparts“I was shocked that black mothers like myself are three times more likely to die than our white counterparts,” said Thierry. “And no one in the legislature was really talking about it.”She has repeatedly filed legislation to combat the glaring problem. Her proposals included racial bias training for medical professionals and a bill to fix a “severe” maternal health data backlog by creating a centralized registry.They did not advance in 2019, or in the current legislative session which ends this weekend. Focused on restricting abortion rights, the male- and Republican-dominated state legislature has dragged its feet on maternal mortality.Health advocates were cautiously optimistic that in 2021 Texas lawmakers would at least usher through a proposal to extend Medicaid care to a year after birth.Lawmakers did take action. A proposal was sent to Governor Greg Abbott on Friday. But it stopped short of providing the full Medicaid expansion.‘A large racial disparity’A state maternal mortality and morbidity review committee found that out of pregnancy related deaths in Texas in 2013, about a third occurred 43 days to a year after the end of pregnancy. It also discovered that nearly 90% of such deaths were preventable. Among the leading underlying causes of death with the highest chance of preventability were infection, hemorrhage, preeclampsia and cardiovascular conditions.“It was really striking,” said Dr Amy Raines-Milenkov, a University of North Texas Health Science Center professor and member of the review committee. “We found that most of these deaths could have been prevented but the system is just not set up to prevent them. And we found a large racial disparity, which is a reflection of how we in society value women, especially African American women.”Since 2016, the committee’s No1 recommendation to help save lives has been to extend Medicaid coverage postpartum for low-income mothers to a year. Currently, Texas kicks new moms off Medicaid after 60 days, leading to delayed and less preventative care. The American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists support longer postpartum care.“So many health problems can develop in this really sensitive time period, so it is critical that new moms have that full year of extended coverage,” said Raines-Milenkov. “To think new mothers can identify problems, get timely appointments and follow up with their doctors within just two months of having a baby is unrealistic. Anything less than 12 months is really insufficient.”The Biden administration recently initiated incentives for states to expand postpartum coverage to 12 months. Illinois was the first to have its extension approved and other states including Florida and Virginia hope to implement measures soon.Toni Rose, a Dallas representative, joined Thierry in filing HB 133, to do just that in Texas. The Republican-dominated House passed the bill with rare bipartisan approval and nearly 70 groups, from the Texas Medical Association to the rightwing Texas Public Policy Foundation, expressed support.When it comes to saving the lives of Texas mothers, ‘splitting the difference’ is not appropriateHowever, the ultra-conservative Texas Senate – which ushered through extremist anti-abortion bills in March – did not pass the bill until the final minutes of its session. Even then, the legislation was not what was proposed. Without explanation, Republican Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham reduced the year of coverage to six months.Rose called the legislation a “victory” but said it still “falls short”. Thierry expressed dismay.“The data is clear that women are still at risk of maternal mortalities and pregnancy related complications for up to one year postpartum,” she said. “While the six months negotiated by the Texas Senate is better than the status quo, many new mothers will still be deprived of quality healthcare at a time when they are most vulnerable.“Given that this is an issue in which I have both personal and professional experience, I am disappointed. When it comes to saving the lives of Texas mothers, ‘splitting the difference’ is not appropriate.”Marsha Jones, executive director of the Afiya Center, a Dallas group that supports Black women with reproductive healthcare, said the lack of substantial progress was partly a reflection of the legislature’s misplaced priorities and lack of diversity.The Texas legislature is comprised mostly of white males: 61% of lawmakers in the House and Senate are white, even though white Texans make up just 41% of the population. Women are vastly outnumbered by men.“Black women are dying at an alarming rate for reasons that could be prevented and our state leaders cut down the main proposal that a state-appointed committee recommended to help them – why would that even happen?” said Jones. “I think it’s because it’s so easy to dismiss Black women’s lives.”The legislature expended time and energy on restricting abortion access, including passing one of the most extreme bans in the country, which allows any citizen to sue an abortion provider, as well as a “trigger” bill that bans the procedure in the event Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which safeguards the right to abortion, is overturned by the US supreme court.Both measures were “top legislative priorities” for the Senate leader, Lt Gov Dan Patrick, who did not make maternal mortality a listed priority.“It seems the only time we want to stand up and care about a life is when it’s in the womb,” Rose told Republicans on the House floor in May.‘Women are obviously choosing a life’In an ideological quest to punish abortion affiliates, Republicans have decimated the Texas reproductive health safety net by blocking low-income Medicaid patients from receiving life-saving preventative care at Planned Parenthood, a move resulting in reduced access to contraception and increased rates of Medicaid births, according to the Texas Policy Evaluation Project.A recent study in the medical journal Contraception showed a correlation between high maternal mortality rates and states that pass abortion barriers.“We have a maternal health crisis and conservative legislators once again made anti-choice bills a priority,” said Thierry. “They fail to realize all the women threatened by maternal deaths are obviously choosing life – they shouldn’t have to do so in exchange for their own.”Lawmakers made no significant gains for Medicaid in general. Texas is home to the highest number of uninsured residents in the US as well as the highest percentage of uninsured women of childbearing age, but it has declined to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and Republicans blocked legislative efforts to help extend healthcare coverage for the working poor.Texas has one of the steepest Medicaid eligibility requirements in the US. Of 1.4 million Texans who would benefit from expanded Medicaid, 75% are people of color.“Once again, we are kicking the can down the road with many of these solutions,” said Thierry. “It’s absolutely imperative we continue to work on reducing maternal mortality. One death is too many, especially when it’s preventable.” More
Donald Trump is reportedly working on a social media platform of his own, after being banned from Twitter and Facebook for inciting the Capitol riot.He has also launched a new website, which presents a highly selective history of his single term in power and offers the chance to book appearances or personal greetings.But Trump has also said he may not need his new platform, because the short, often tweet-length statements he now propels into journalists’ inboxes from Mar-a-Lago in Florida communicate his views as effectively as any tweet ever could.On Sunday the former president seemed to test the theory, mimicking world leaders including Pope Francis, if not echoing their sense of dignity and appeals for peace on a major religious holiday, by releasing a statement to mark Easter Sunday.“Happy Easter to ALL,” Trump said, “including the Radical Left CRAZIES who rigged our Presidential Election, and want to destroy our Country!”The presidential election was not rigged, however often Trump repeats a lie repeatedly thrown out of court. Joe Biden beat him by more than 7m votes and by 306-232 in the electoral college.But for Trump supporters, the statement may have carried a raucous echo of what were for them happier times, when he regularly tweeted diplomatic communiqués such as: “Sorry losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest – and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.”Tellingly, Trump’s Easter statement did not set off the kind of explosions in the news media his tweets once did. Instead of prompting deadline scrambles and front-page headlines, it seemed to engender a sort of mild ennui.“Jesus couldn’t have said it any better,” wrote Ken Vogel of the New York Times.The writer Robert Schlesinger asked: “What is the phrase my religious friends use when in doubt? What would Jesus whine?”David Frum, once a speechwriter for George W Bush, now a prominent Trump critic on the American right, called it “an Easter Sunday message of resentment and rage”. “It’s an enduring good joke,” he added, “that Donald Trump has zero understanding of Christian faith – and that if he ever did understand it, he would 100% oppose and reject it.”A few hours later, Trump tried again. This time, his statement simply said: “Happy Easter!” More
To paraphrase one of the most iconic tweets of the past 10 years, Amazon’s recent denial about employees not being forced to urinate in bottles at work has people asking a lot of questions already answered by the denial.
In a tweet sent last night, the official Amazon News account for the behemoth corporation, whose CEO, Jeff Bezos, saw his personal net worth increase by $70bn during the pandemic, wrote: “You don’t really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you? If that were true, nobody would work for us. The truth is that we have over a million incredible employees around the world who are proud of what they do, and have great wages and health care from day one.”
In under 12 hours the tweet has been quote-tweeted 9,000 times. (For those unversed in the dark Twitter metric arts that’s … not good.)
Molly Jong-Fast🏡
(@MollyJongFast)
This tweet has absolutely completely convinced that the peeing in bottles thing happened and probably worse. https://t.co/mnjYAOkwbe
March 25, 2021
The thousands of gleeful and mocking rejoinders to Amazon’s post came with good reason. The company is currently in the midst of a public relations battle with a group of workers in Alabama attempting to unionize. In an attempt to forestall such a historic move, Amazon has been on a campaign to illustrate just how well, in fact, they treat their workers. It doesn’t seem to be working! Numerous high-profile labor organizers, celebrities and politicians like Bernie Sanders have joined the side of the striking workers. The Vermont senator is set to travel to Alabama on Friday to meet with them.
The botched PR response in question in this case came as a reply to a tweet from another lawmaker, the Wisconsin congressman Mark Pocan, who himself was responding to jabs thrown by another Amazon executive, Dave Clark. Clark had attempted to draw a snarky analogy between his company and the success record of Sanders in his home state, saying: “I often say we are the Bernie Sanders of employers, but that’s not quite right because we actually deliver a progressive workplace.”
So far, so utterly not convincing – as was picked up on swiftly. “I was the person who found the pee in the bottle. Trust me, it happened,” tweeted author James Bloodworth, who worked undercover at Amazon for his book Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain.
James Bloodworth
(@J_Bloodworth)
I was the person who found the pee in the bottle. Trust me, it happened. https://t.co/U76UlDRWSO
March 25, 2021
Some likened the tweet to a form of corporate gaslighting akin to an abusive relationship – while others mocked pity for the person who sent it out. “Sending thoughts and prayers to the Amazon News account manager being forced to swallow Jeff Bezos’ entire boot with every tweet,” one person chipped in.
While the $15 an hour paid by Amazon in the US is better than some other companies, workers have long spoken out about brutal conditions, a dangerous, high-paced job, and, in fact, having to urinate into bottles for fear of being seen as wasting too much time on the clock.
Wagatwe Wanjuki 🇰🇪 🇧🇸
(@wagatwe)
“if I were REALLY abusive, she wouldn’t stay.” https://t.co/ZxBbb7rjyt
March 25, 2021
“We broke this news,” tweeted the Business Insider editor-in-chief, Nicholas Carlson – pointing out that Amazon’s excuse, that it was contractors (rather than employees) forced to pee in bottles made the story even worse than it looked.
But why believe them – or the many outlets that reported on this story? – others joked, after all, who wouldn’t trust information about Amazon’s work practices to be impartial when written by … Amazon News?
Some have pointed out the irony of the tweet falling so close to the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
Dan Olson
(@FoldableHuman)
You don’t really believe that people burn to death in textile factories, do you? If that were true then no one would work for The Triangle Waist Company! The truth is we have over a million incredible workers who are proud of what they do. https://t.co/p6gzShSnDJ
March 25, 2021
Perhaps all is not lost here for Amazon, though. There may end up being an upside when the fracas has subsided.
Jeet Heer
(@HeerJeet)
Amazon corporate bosses are reading this tweet and torn between 1) we gotta fire this social media person and 2) We need to make sure we’ve cornered the market on cheap pee bottles, that’s a lucrative market. https://t.co/vIJK0OOfVy
March 25, 2021
Bezos’s Washington DC mansion has been reported to have 25 bathrooms for his own use. More
Black-owned fashion label Telfar has won the Fashion Design of 2020 award from London’s Design Museum for its vegan-leather, gender neutral shopping bag, capping off a change-making period for the brand.In a 12-month period where fashion has been forced to question its eurocentric outlook in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, Telfar has upended the idea of luxury fashion as white, privileged and purely aspirational.The Telfar shopping bag has doubled as a celebrity favourite (fans include Solange, Issa Rae and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) and a symbol of the brand’s community-led outlook.“In an era where true luxury is having a functioning health and social security system, I think their slogan – ‘Not for you, for everyone’ – rings very true,” Emily King, guest curator at the Design Museum said, celebrating their win.Since designer Telfar Clemens and his business partner Babak Radboy created the label in 2005, the duo have been early outliers in fashion’s inner circle. In September they created a range of luxury durags – a cornerstone of black haircare yet banned by the NBA, the NFL, malls, schools and workplaces across America.“[They] magnify the importance of black style,” said author Carol Tulloch. “Telfar Clemens believes in ‘living your fashion life’ – that is, being who you are on a day-to-day basis.”Embossed with the TC [Telfar Clemens] logo, the award-winning shopping bag was dubbed the “Bushwick Birkin” to articulate that this “it” bag wasn’t just for a chosen few.“Well, there is some truth to that – it’s everywhere in Brooklyn. But it’s not the whole story,” Clemens told the Guardian. “The thing we are really proud of is that we sell a lot of bags in places that do not have a single fashion store – that are off the radar for fashion and culture: Chattanooga, Birmingham, Oakland, [Washington] DC, Baltimore.“Bushwick is cool, but what is really unique to our bag is those other cities.”Clemens said he realised gradually the bag was part of a bigger moment.“It was when we would see it several times in a day and definitely not know any of the people who were wearing it! Also when our families started requesting them.” More
Feel the Bern, not the cold, with your own pair of winter-proof hand warmers – here’s how to stitch them at homeWhile it was Michelle Obama’s hair that brought the glamour to Joe Biden’s inauguration day, it was Bernie Sanders’ mittens that delivered the memes. Sitting at the event in a winter coat and mittens, arms and legs crossed, he was the yin to the rest of the Capitol’s sharp-suited yang – and promptly Photoshopped into Edward Hopper paintings, scenes from Glee and the vice-presidential debate, replacing the fly atop Mike Pence’s head. Continue reading… More
It’s not every day that you get to inaugurate the 46th president of the United States, the first female vice-president of color, or attend the inauguration, period. But for Bernie Sanders, it’s also not often he gets enough time in the middle of the day to run errands and take care of his mail either.The former presidential hopeful has drawn side eyes for turning up to the inauguration day sans formal attire – instead looking like he was stopping by between doing his laundry and going to the post office. Wearing a winter jacket, oversized mittens and holding a manila envelope, the Vermont senator at least gets top marks for one thing: “absolutely crushing Vermont dadcore”.But for those wanting to get the Sanders’ look, it could be difficult to get hold of his mittens – those were a gift from a teacher in Vermont, Jen Ellis, according to local press. The mittens are very on-brand for Sanders, who popularized the Green New Deal in the US, as they are made with wool repurposed from sweaters and fleece made from recycled plastic bottles.(Much to Ellis’ surprise, after she gifted Sanders the mittens, he wore them on the campaign trail for two years straight. At least his fingers won’t be feeling the Bern in today’s sub-zero weather.)Sanders is no stranger to becoming a meme – indeed, a video of him asking supporters for money in 2020 led to numerous jokes made at his expense.Luckily for those who know the meme well, Sanders turned up at the inauguration wearing that same Burton jacket – he’s thrifty like that! – leading to a slew of new memes written in the style in which the Vermont senator usually asks for money.“I am once again asking for a space heater,” said one. (My own take involves imagining Sanders at the post office shortly after speeches today: “I am respectfully asking you to have this sent by Thursday,” he will ask, handing over the manila envelope.)Sanders has often been ribbed for putting the practical over the ceremonial – abstaining from mingling at events, dallying in niceties and, it would appear, even bothering to upgrade from the $1 mask he bought at the bodega last March.But others find his Grandma energy quite endearing. It takes some resolve – or obliviousness – to care so little about sartorial conventions that not even such a historic day would drive you to make an effort. Perhaps not caring is the new chic. More
When Theresa May appeared in US Vogue in 2017, even her deliberately anodyne choice of a posh-end-of-the-high-street dress by British label LK Bennett did not prevent this newspaper calling the Annie Leibovitz shoot a “defining moment” which, “like Margaret Thatcher in the tank turret looking like a cross between Boudicca and Lawrence of Arabia … might easily become a signifier of all that is flawed in her prime ministerial style”. Michelle Obama’s bare upper arms appeared no fewer than three times on the cover of Vogue during her White House years, causing pearl-clutching uproar at the sight of her toned triceps.A political Vogue appearance is such a white-hot issue that it causes controversy even when it doesn’t happen. Donald Trump recently weighed in to complain about “elitist” Vogue having snubbed Melania, notable by her absence from the magazine over the past four years. Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris’s Vogue debut, in the February issue of the magazine’s US edition, is the latest in a long line of political covers to have caused a media storm. Sunday’s release on social media of the rather different newsstand and digital covers quickly fuelled a wave of criticism. Had Harris’s skin tone been “washed-out” by thoughtless or even culturally insensitive lighting? Was it disrespectful, on the newsstand cover, to present Harris wearing her battered Converse trainers, rather than giving her a stately makeover? Was Harris’s team led to believe that the more formal portrait in Michael Kors tailoring, apparently destined for digital editions, would appear on newsstands, too?Vogue has sprung to the defence of images that show Harris at “her casual best” in “styling choices that were her own”. Tyler Mitchell, who in 2018 became the first African American photographer to shoot a US Vogue cover, explains in an accompanying online article that a much-maligned pink-and-green backdrop was chosen to honour Harris’s sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, of which Mitchell’s aunt was also a member. Mitchell, who “grew up from a young age deeply understanding the rich history of these sororities and their significance … wanted the set design to pay homage to that history, to [Harris’] status as an AKA, and Black sororities and sisterhoods worldwide.”A Vogue appearance is rarely anything but controversial for women in politics, but the invitation remains apparently irresistible, nonetheless. To be a cover star – and especially for Vogue – is to be the avatar of a cultural moment. To have your image publicly displayed beneath that Vogue font is perhaps the closest any public figure will ever get to having their profile on a stamp or, while still living, their face on a banknote. And in an increasingly atomised media landscape, a Vogue cover is one of the few platforms with the cut-through to reach disparate audiences. It is shared on Instagram, discussed in newspapers, and on display at the supermarket checkout.When Hillary Clinton appeared on the cover of Vogue in 1998 it was in a floor-length velvet gown and pearl drop earrings, smiling beatifically from a stateroom banquette beside an urn spilling red roses. The letters of Vogue were spelt out – in gold – directly on top of the curlicued gilt frame of one of the wall’s oil paintings. The message was clear: a Vogue cover is as close to an official portrait as pop culture gets. Which is why the row around Vogue’s latest cover is not really about Mitchell’s lighting rig, or Harris’s shoes. Rather, these portraits are a lightning rod for a country grappling with a moment of cultural reckoning around gender, race and power.Harris’s stretchy black trousers are a little wrinkled around the knees, the kind of imperfection you might expect to have been smoothed out by a watchful assistantThe relaxed and smiling images were taken in the dizzy post-election relief of November, but landed online a few days after the storming of the Capitol had dialled the emotional tone of politics back up to febrile. This, perhaps, has left them out of step with the particular moment. In the more casual of the two portraits, Harris’s stretchy black trousers are a little wrinkled around the knees – just a tiny imperfection, but the kind that you might expect to have been smoothed out by a watchful assistant before the shutter clicked. Perhaps the informality was judged by the editorial team to chime better with the era of WFH dressing than slick tailoring. Perhaps it was intended to channel Harris’s now famous leggings-clad victory moment. (“We did it, Joe!”).Certainly, any likeness to the 2009 cover for Newsweek of Republican former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, posing in her gym gear, is unintentional. Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who after a close relationship with the Obamas has been in self-imposed exile from the circles of political power during Trump’s presidency, will surely be looking to align herself as friend and ally of the incoming Democrat administration.The current British Vogue is more overtly political than ever before, and wears its activist heart on its cover – the magazine equivalent of its sleeve. Recent cover stars have included frontline workers and the Man United and England striker Marcus Rashford who, as one of the most high-profile public figures driving legislation for progressive social change, surely counts as a political figure – and the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who was featured among 15 Forces for Change on the August 2019 cover.British politicians, however, have been notable by their absence. And should a flattering invitation find its way to a Westminster in-tray, it should be approached with caution. A Vogue cover is always a moment, but not always a flattering one. More
