“This is a form of gender terrorism,” says Sital Kalantry, director of Cornell Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic. “If we [women] deviate from what’s expected of us, this is the punishment that we receive.” Kalantry, an associate clinical professor, is speaking of acid violence–when corrosive acid is thrown on women’s faces and bodies, sometimes […]
Author: Shakthi Jothianandan
Shakthi Jothianandan is a freelance journalist based in New York City. She has covered everything from technology to eco-sculptural art, political activism to Jewish hip-hop, and the nexus of law and fashion to avant-garde aerial trapeze theater. She has written for The Nation, NYmag.com, Time Out New York, CityArts (a New York Press sister publication) and Out.com.
Will New York Make Crisis Pregnancy Centers Stop Deceiving?
The debate during last week’s New York City Council hearing on a recently introduced bill aimed at regulating the city’s crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) was heated, to say the least. The proposed legislation would require some two-dozen CPCs—or, as council member Jessica Lappin put it, “anti-choice centers masquerading as health clinics”—to post signs disclosing if […]
Should Teen Girls Be Wary of Social Media?
If you were to form your opinion of Facebook based on media coverage over the past few years, you would believe that, for teenage girls, Facebook is a dangerous social minefield and nothing else. The advent of social networking—with cyber-bullying and the rapid dissemination of sexy photos to entire adolescent ecosystems with a click of […]
‘Whose Streets?’ Asks New York City Council
By Shakthi Jothianandan It’s been a long time coming, but yesterday the New York City Council held its first-ever hearing on street harassment of women and young girls. In 2009, city politicians investigated groping and assault on the subways, but they had yet to extend their inquiries above-ground. Council Member Julissa Ferreras, Chair of the Women’s […]