Mic: What Dems still fail to understand about white women voters

CNN exit polling data shows Democratic candidates in key races in Texas, Florida, Georgia and elsewhere won overwhelming support from black, Hispanic and Asian-American women as well as men. But a majority of white women voted for Republican candidates in those same races. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) received 60% support from white women, compared to just 39% for his Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke. Fifty-one percent of white women chose Ron DeSantis over Andrew Gillum in Florida’s gubernatorial race. This political reality has persisted through election cycle after cycle after cycle after cycle over the years, vexing both liberal feminists and Democrats along with their grassroots allies in the process.[...]

However both male and female voters tend to place defending abortion rights low on their list of priorities. Another 2016 Pew study showed abortion placed 13th of 14 top issues for American voters regardless of sex. The economy, terrorism and foreign policy ranked first, second and third respectively among voters’ priorities, the study found. [...]

“Using gender politics for many Republican women can actually backfire,” study author Melissa Deckman said via email on Wednesday. “There are lots of white women who are pro-life and find the GOP more appealing for that reason; or they are more generally socially conservative and oppose LGBT rights, or are concerned about religious liberty. Moreover, they are very much opposed to feminism more broadly, which they view as a philosophy opposed to men, so attempts to frame a campaign about gender equality aren’t going to work.”

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Mic: 35 mosques have been attacked so far in 2017 — and Trump hasn't uttered a word

On Sunday, the Islamic Center of Fort Collins became the site of the latest act of vandalism against mosques in the country. The Council on American Islamic Relations has compiled a list of 35 anti-mosque incidents in the United States since the start of the new year, as of Monday. In other words, that's about one attack on a U.S. mosque for every 2.5 days. 

Anti-mosque incidents are on track to surpass the record set in 2016, when 139 incidents were reported, according to Corey Saylor, who directs the Council on American-Islamic Relations' department to monitor and combat Islamophobia. [...]

On March 19, an Islamic center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received a letter addressed to "the Children of Satan," stating Muslims should pack up their bags and leave because "there’s a new sheriff in town — President Donald Trump." The letter ended with a warning that Trump will cleanse America just like "what Hitler did to the Jews."

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Mic: #MLK Jr day

As the nation celebrates #MLK Jr day — it's important to remember that people today are more critical of the movement for black lives than they were of the civil rights movement in the 60's.

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Mic: A toddler has shot and killed someone every week for the last two years

"Guns don't kill people. Toddlers kill people."

That's the bold — if satirical — message of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which published a video in October warning Americans of the dangers of toddlers.

Toddlers have shot about one person a week for the past two years and by May, toddlers were behind more U.S. shootings in 2016 than Muslim terrorists were.

The problem speaks to the ubiquity and normalcy of guns in the U.S. and childrens' access to loaded guns, shooting — sometimes fatally — either themselves or others.

Guns can be found in one in three homes with children — around 1.7 million of those children have easy access to loaded guns, which owners failed to lock away. 

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Mic: She didn't consent. Now he says he didn’t, either.

The night of March 22, 2016, is hazy for Irene Fagan Merrow, a 24-year-old comedian who lives in New York City. After performing at the Experiment Comedy Gallery in Brooklyn — an eclectic venue known for welcoming performers from underrepresented groups — she began imbibing with a few friends and fellow comics. Having recently gone through a difficult breakup, she drank heavily. By about 11 p.m., Merrow had blacked out.

When Merrow came to a few hours later, she found herself downstairs at the Experiment with the owner of the venue, Mo Fathelbab. Fathelbab was, as Merrow later put it, "on top of and inside of" her, engaging in penetrative sex. [...]

But when news broke in October that prominent New York City comedian Aaron Glaser had been banned from Upright Citizen's Brigade for sexually assaulting multiple women, Merrow decided she could no longer perform at Fathelbab's venue and wanted him to know why. She sent him an email, explaining she had blacked out when they had sex and felt she "was taken advantage of in a time of emotional and physical vulnerability." [...]

Fathelbab has been vocal about the need to combat sexism in the comedy scene; he has become known for promoting and supporting female and nonwhite comics. His reputation, combined with his insistence he did not consent to sex with Merrow, raise questions about gender dynamics and consent when both parties are intoxicated. Under New York state law, if both were incapacitated, neither was able to legally consent to sex. However, that hasn't stopped the community from believing Merrow's side of the story, which she attributes to a switch to a "believe women" mindset. [...]

The quick response could signal a shift within the community toward believing accusers instead of deriding them — a notable departure from the response to the Glaser allegations, which were followed by victim-blaming defenses of the accused that shook the comedy world.

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Mic: Poll: Most Republican voters believe Donald Trump won the popular vote

More than half of all Republicans wrongly believe that Donald Trump won the popular vote for president, according to a recent poll released by Qualtrics polling and the Washington Post.

Fifty-two percent of Republicans polled said they believe Trump won the popular vote, while 24% of independents say he won and just 7% of Democrats believe he did. Overall, 29% of Americans believe Trump was the overall preference of all American voters. [...]

Former congressman and conservative commentator Joe Walsh (who once suggested he would reach for a musket if Trump lost the election) was more realistic, recognizing that Clinton indeed won the popular vote. But Walsh added that she only won the popular vote if you included California — which, of course California counts because it's a state in the U.S. [...]

Another method to ending the Electoral College (not requiring a Constitutional amendment) exists in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Essentially, a number of states would need to agree to abide by the popular vote results, regardless of how their state voted, and assign all of their Electoral College electors to support the winning candidate. 

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Mic: Here's why people keep going to psychics and fortunetellers

And with that, I am now among the 15% of Americans who have admitted to visiting a fortuneteller or psychic. In spite of the fact that claiming to commune with the supernatural realm is widely dismissed as a sham — and is also a class B misdemeanor in New York City that could cost a fortune teller up to $500 in fines — palmists and Tarot card readers occupy storefronts throughout the city and advertise online. And people continue to seek them out: according to a 2016 survey of paranormal beliefs conducted by Chapman University, 14.1% of those surveyed believe astrologers, fortune tellers and psychics can foresee the future and nearly half (46.6%) believe that places can be haunted by spirits. [...]

While McBride sees clients of all ages, she's noticed that young people come mainly for a particular drama, such as relationships or family issues. "It can get pretty specific as far as astrology goes," McBride said. "I can get right to something immediately. A therapist has to get to know you, hear your story."

Norton believes Tarot card reading and the like have helped her to analyze her relationships with different people. Often, she was surprised at how accurately the reader would talk about their personality traits and motives. "It can kind of give hope to some people that things are gonna work out," she said. "Even if it is a scam, it's just an interesting way to look at your life in a different way and [be] introspective."

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Mic: Malta is the first European country to ban gay "conversion therapy"

The parliament of Malta passed a bill on Monday banning "conversion therapy," the name given to programs that aim to change sexual orientation or gender identity, the Times of Malta reports. In passing the Affirmation of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression Bill, the Mediterranean island nation is reportedly the first European country to effectively criminalize the practice nationwide.

"Conversion therapy," also called "reparative therapy," has been widely criticized for being both ineffective and actively harmful. The World Psychiatric Association condemns the practice as "wholly unethical" and maintains that "there is no sound scientific evidence that innate sexual orientation can be changed." 

So-called "therapy" to change sexuality can include electroshock treatment or verbal abuse. In the U.S., "conversion therapy" is banned in some form in five states and Washington, D.C.

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Mic: What the fight against AIDS looks like around the world

In June, President Barack Obama made a speech on the anniversary of the first AIDS diagnosis in the United States, which made news 35 years ago. While at the time, the HIV/AIDS crisis was exactly that — a crisis — over the past three decades, the country has made strides in prevention and education (though African-Americans, and especially gay black men, are still being diagnosed with the virus at alarming rates), in addition to having improved the quality of life for many of the 1.2 million Americans who live with what remains an incurable disease.

"We've seen that testing, treatment, education and acceptance can not only save and extend lives, but fight the discrimination that halted progress for too long," Obama said at the time. He pledged his commitment to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030.

The fight against the spread of HIV in the United States, though, is just the tip of the iceberg. As of the end of 2015, a staggering 36.7 million people worldwide live with the virus, many in places with fewer resources and where people have less access to health care. In those countries, the fight against HIV/AIDS can look a little different. 

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Mic: Italian #FertilityDay campaign asks women to hurry up and get pregnant, sparks outrage

A gentle reminder from Italy to its female citizens: You're not getting any younger, so maybe get on that baby-making, okay?

That's among the messages the Italian government is currently using to up its flagging birth rate. Its recently-launched #FertilityDay campaign features 12 ads that have attracted much criticism, such as the below picture of a smug-looking woman holding an hourglass.

"Beauty has no age. Fertility does," it reads. [...]

With slogans like "fertility is a common good," Blasi explained, the government is casting the uterus as "public property." But there's enough baby shaming for everyone: Fertility Day's official Twitter account also tweeted out "The five golden rules to protect male fertility," accompanied by a picture of an old banana peel and an image of a flaccid cigarette with the subtle message, "Don't send sperm up in smoke."

Even Italy's prime minister has come out against the ad campaign. "If you want to create a society that invests in its future and has children, you have to make sure the underlying conditions are there," Matteo Renzi said in an interview, according to Reuters, adding that he couldn't think of anyone who's been motivated to make babies because an advertisement asked them to. And while Lorenzin has apologized and proposed changing the #FertilityDay message, the event itself will go ahead as scheduled. 

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