Politics

Lizzie Armitstead is one of the U.K.’s Olympic darlings. On Saturday, she won a silver in the 140 kilometer bicycle road race — the first medal for the host country. But while Armitstead was thrilled with her win, she also took advantage of the limelight to bring attention to something that was annoying her — Olympic sexism, and a lack of leadership on the issue from those who head up athletic associations. Asked about her meeting with Pat McQuaid, president of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), Armitstead brought up sexism, saying, “It was the kind of moment where you kind of want to say ‘Let’s sit down and have a conversation after this’”: “It’s something that can get overwhelming and very frustrating, the sexism that I experience in my career,” she continued. “But it’s something that as an elite athlete that you just get used. At the moment there’s not much I can do to change it but after my (athletic) career I hope to.” Asked to elaborate on the sexism, she said it was “ob...

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a sex-discrimination complaint on Wednesday against the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry (ABCCM). According to the complaint, which was filed with the U.S. Department of Labor, the ABCCM, which “is a cooperative ministry of churches in Asheville and Buncombe County, North Carolina that provides assistance and services to the homeless, veterans and families in poverty,” has been excluding female veterans from the job training services offered to men. The ABCCM receives federal funding specifically for its “Veterans Employment & Training Services,” which self-purportedly provides “skills assessment, training, job placement and coaching for those seeking new career level jobs to break the bonds of homelessness and poverty.” But, Emily Bagby, one of the female Army veterans represented by the Law Center, alleges that ABCCM had gender-segregated training programs that offered women only poor quality services. Apparently, women were o...