Good afternoon. Yesterday was International Women’s Day. In honor of this seemingly made up holiday, today’s Shit You Should Know is dedicated to strong women—there are a few of them mentioned below, but first, the important stuff…
A new study suggests people who earn more money drink more alcohol. (Don’t actually read that link. It’s a real buzzkill on the effects of drinking, and who needs that kind of negativity on a Wednesday?) While the reason for the correlation between earnings and drinking is still unclear, let’s consider this good news. If heavy drinking leads to higher pay I’ll see y’all at the top.
Erin Andrews was awarded $55 million dollars in her lawsuit against Marriott Hotels and the stalker who posted her nude video online in 2009. Marriott is on the hook for $27 million, a number that will likely be appealed, while her stalker owes $28 million, of which Andrews is unlikely to see a penny.
If you want to lose faith in humanity, read the comments on any Facebook news post about the trial outcome. Predictably, one of the most repeated comments is that the award is “too high.” Naturally we should all feel sympathy for the MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY who has to pay for their own negligence and not the woman who was secretly filmed in a place where she should have been safe, and whose nude video has been viewed against her will by 16 million people and growing. Glad we’re able to keep our priorities straight, America.
A Zika vaccine could be ready for testing as early as September, perfectly timed to be too late to make a difference in the spring and summer months when mosquitoes are most active in the United States. The CDC is advising pregnant women to avoid travel to countries with mosquito-borne instances of Zika infection, which doesn’t include the mainland US…YET.
Here’s my advice for pregnant women: find a Canadian retreat and schedule your months-long hibernation pronto. (Disclaimer: I have no healthcare training, but I excel at using the WebMD symptom checker to discover various forms of cancer that are probably killing me as we speak.)
The three female Supreme Court justices are exposing Texas’s 2013 abortion bill for what it is: an attempt to block access to abortion clinics disguised as a women’s health and safety measure. Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, the fact is that abortion access is still a federally mandated right, and Justices Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor are tolerating none of this spectacle. The entire linked article above is worth reading, if only to witness three brilliant women in action. This is who we should be modeling Barbie dolls after.
What I love this week: The Season 6 trailer for Game of Thrones was released yesterday. It features battle scenes, a potentially resurrected Jon Snow, and, in a touching nod to International Women’s Day, a topless lesbian make-out session. Awwwwww. Here’s the trailer if you haven’t seen it. And here’s a bunch of nerds detailing each scene’s probable meaning (spoilers).
Thanks, ladies, for being the smart, moody, funny, ambitious, exhausted, kind, and sarcastic women you are. Remember that nobody’s perfect. Except Chrissy Teigen.
And Connie Britton. But that’s definitely it.
See you next week.
Lori
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