BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

PETTY TYRANTS AND HOW THEY WORK We all know them. We see them everyday. We read about them. We work with them. We might be dating or married to them. Petty tyrants. People who use our good natures and religious or ethical belief systems to coerce us. There are tyrants who get people to strap bombs to themselves and their children in the name of Allah. There are tyrants who get people to shove the word of God down the throat of anyone who stands still long enough. There are tyrant who take your lunch money. There are tyrants who say "if you loved me, you would...." (fill in your kinky sex act or uncomfortable act here). There are tyrants who will tell you "if you do [XYZ] then I will [ABC]." I see them in my advocacy work. The guys who won't take no for an answer, blame their partner for everything, say "she did it too" or "she made me do it." Women who browbeat their husbands so much the guy is a shell of who he was or should be. In my own l...

Paradise Lost Greed, Sex Slavery, Forced Abortions and Right-Wing Moralists by Rebecca Clarren The whir of hundreds of sewing machines reverberates in the thick, dusty air at the RIFU garment factory. Inside this large warehouse, behind a guarded metal fence, 300 employees—most of them Chinese women—cut, sew, iron and fold blouses with such efficiency and focus that they seem like machinery themselves. From piles of orange and pink fabric, the workers will produce over 15,000 garments today for J. Jill, Elie Tahari and Ann Taylor. These name brand companies don’t own the factory; like Liz Claiborne, The Gap, Ralph Lauren and others, they subcontract production to factories like this, scattered around the tiny Micronesian island of Saipan. Counters above the sewing machines indicate how many pieces the women have completed. According to workers, if they can’t finish a set quota of garments in a day, they may have to stay later and work for free, or they won’t be eligible for future over...