Michelle Obama’s Sleevegate: Why America Can’t Handle Her Bare Arms

 Saw this over at The Huffington Post. It’s written by Bonnie Fuller, Founder Bonnie Fuller Media. The  key question is this: Why do people care if Michelle Obama goes sleeveless?

Click through the link at the end of the article and check out the pix of Jackie O in her sleeveless outfits.

“Is Michelle Obama supposed to wear a burka? Since when are a woman’s arms considered an erogenous zone here in America? Why would it be inappropriate for the First Lady to attend her husband’s address to Congress in a beautiful, purple Narcisco Rodriguez SLEEVELESS dress?

Whoever those twitterers — or should I call them “twits” — are out there who have raised the question of propriety, they should not only get a life, but also a history book. Not only have many First Ladies been photographed at official state and White House events, America’s most fashionable previous First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy practically made sleeveless looks her uniform, whether they were dresses or two piece shirt and skirt ensembles. ” More . . .

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Terminated: Why the Women of Wall Street Are Disappearing

This is the Cover Story on this week’s Forbes magazine.

After the scandals of the 1990s, didn’t investment banks put sexist employment practices behind them? Evidently not.

“Nadine Mentor, 29, had just landed in New York – and found out, she says, that she’d bagged one of the biggest gets of her career at Citigroup:  a role for the bank leading a bond offering, valued at as much as $400 million, for the U.S. Virgin Islands.  The deal was worth potentially more than $500,000 in fees. A day later, on Nov. 21 2008, as she headed to a business meeting, she got an anxious call from her boss. Sensing something was up, Mentor said, “Just tell me, just tell me.”  Her boss gave her the bad news.  Mentor who had been lured to Citi from UBS in 2005, was included in a round of downsizing.

When her boss was laid off last summer, Amy Bartloletti, 38, says she was asked to run a Citi group that securitizes home loans through state authorities. But one of her peers in New York complained, she says, and the bank wound up making him a cohead of the group, asking both to take the Series 53 licensing test, required of mangers in the municipal securities business. Bartoletti took the exam and passed in October. On Nov. 21 she was axed, told later by the bank that she was too expensive. Bartoletti contends that she and her male counterpart made the same base salary, $175,000 and that she is more qualified than he. As of late February her cohead, who now runs the group, still doesn’t have his Series 53 certification. “It’s the old boys’ network,” says Bartoletti. “It’ s very hard to imagine that that what is happening in this day and age.”

Mentor and Bartoletti are among five former managers and rising young stars who were cast out that day. They say that in all, 24 professionals in the public finance department lost their jobs , in roughly equal numbers of men and women.  Yet the women claim they were victimized by more than economic necessity.” More . . .

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International Women’s Day

Today is International Women’s Day!

“IWD is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. In some countries like China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, IWD is a national holiday. The first IWD was run in 1911. The IWD Global Centenary is in 2011.” More . . .

Click on the two links below to find out more:

The International Women’s DayWebsite

The Yahoo! Events International Women’s Day Website

Oh and by the way, we’re back!

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