Organizations like UltraViolet, a community fighting sexism and working to expand women's rights, petitioned Amazon to take the shooting target off of its website.
"'The ex' shooting target turns violence against women into a joke and promotes the idea that men should want to kill their ex-wives or ex-girlfriends," UltraViolet's petition reads.

Reebok supports date rape by supporting Rick Ross ... that's the way a leading women's group and scores of rape survivors see it.
UltraViolet -- a women's rights group 400,000 strong -- is incensed the company is not dumping Ross in the wake of his new song, which fantasizes about date rape...
The group -- along with 150 rape survivors -- grouses, "Every single day that Reebok continues rewarding Rick Ross with a lucrative endorsement deal, Reebok is condoning rape."

Women and those who love them have reacted angrily. UltraViolet, a women’s advocacy group, is pushing Reebok to drop its endorsement contract with Ross. A group called the Parents Television Council is calling on the Federal Communications Commission to “investigate” any radio station playing the song. At least one station, WUVS in Muskegon, Mich., isn’t waiting. Program director Paul Allen told Billboard magazine he has pulled all Rick Ross songs off his air.

People are set to picket outside Reebok today demanding that they fire rapper Rick Ross as a spokesperson because of song where they claim he is bragging about putting a drug in a woman's drink and having sex with her while she's passed out.

“These are 72,000 petitions signed by our members all over the country,” Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of Ultra Violet, told Radio.com. “They are also comments from people about why they feel Reebok needs to drop Rick Ross over his recent lyrics about drugging and raping a girl.”

Rick Ross is trying to set the record straight after coming under fire over lyrics in the song "U.O.E.N.O" that appear to condone date rape...

"We are appalled that Reebok would pay a spokesperson who brags about enjoying drugging and raping a woman," said Nita Chaudhary, cofounder of the women's rights group UltraViolet, in a statement. "Reebok devotes a lot of time, energy and money to marketing to women—and now they are paying a man who is literally bragging about raping us while absurdly insisting it can't possibly be rape if he doesn't use the word 'rape.'"

*Women’s rights activists are calling on Reebok to drop Rick Ross as a spokesman after he appeared to boast about using a date rape drug with a woman in “U.O.E.N.O. (You Ain’t Even Know It).”...

However, Ross failed to apologize, and members of anti-sexism group UltraViolet are now urging Reebok to take a stand and cancel his contract as a celebrity representative.

Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of UltraViolet, says, “We are appalled that Reebok would pay a spokesperson who brags about enjoying drugging and raping a woman.

Although Rozay claims the line to be a misinterpretation, Activists are calling for Reebok to drop Rick Ross The Boss as its spokesman.

“When a company rewards a man who raps about raping women, that’s promoting rape culture. Reebok needs to know that we won’t stand for this,” says UltraViolet, a women’s rights organization who started an online petition.

A petition demanding that Reebok drop Rick Ross as a spokesperson for the brand because of lyrics he spit on Rocko's track "U.O.E.N.O." has picked up more than 50,000 signatures. Members of the online community Ultraviolet -- a group mostly comprised of moms, dads and student athletes -- signed the online document, threatening to both boycott Reebok and protest at the company's Boston headquarters.

Today's PopTarts column brings you news of outraged groups calling on Reebok to drop Rick Ross as a spokesperson over lyrics in his new single which appear to glorify date rape. The co-founder of a women's rights website says it's quote, "Totally appalling that Reebok would be featuring and paying a spokesman like Rick Ross who is proudly rapping about raping women."

The Herald-Star

STEUBENVILLE - A national organization is sponsoring a mobile billboard that is traveling throughout the city this week, calling for justice in the alleged rape of a 16-year-old Weirton female.

"Justice needs to be served. A rape was (allegedly) committed and people need to be held accountable. Women across the country see themselves in this story and we are tired of this. We want justice," Karin Roland, UltraViolet campaign director, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio — A mobile billboard posted on a truck is traveling around the Steubenville area with a message to Ohio's attorney general about a teen rape investigation.

The billboard is directed toward Attorney General Mike DeWine and reads: "Prosecute everyone who's involved in the rape of a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, including those who posted photos and videos on the Internet instead of trying to stop or report the crime. The world is watching Steubenville."

“The proposed deep Social Security benefit cuts under consideration by the President and Congress, through the chained CPI, will inflict real pain on some of our most vulnerable communities--especially women.”

These are just some of suggestions that are personal favorites, items which have changed who I am as a person and helped me develop my beliefs. Still don’t see the perfect gift? There are many other great feminist gift guides, including Ultraviolet’s Holiday Gift Guide: A Non-sexist Guide to 21st Century Holiday Shopping, Jezebel’s Gifts for Budding Feminists, and Bitch Magazine’s Bitch in a Box: Holiday Gift Guide.

UltraViolet, an organization that combats sexism at all levels of politics and media, has released a shopping guide just in time for the holidays. The UltraViolet Holiday Gift Guide: a 21st Century Guide to Non-Sexist Holiday Shopping provides 21 gift ideas for the wee little feminists in your life. It features presents like the “Girls are Not Chicks” coloring book, Nancy Drew Computer Games, and other gifts that encourage kids to critically think about gender.

BeliefNet/Nell Minnow

McKenna Pope, a 13-year-old from Garfield, New Jersey, wondered why she saw men cooking all the time on television but the Easy-Bake Oven was being marketed as though it was just for girls. She started a petition on Change.org and has gained widespread support, including the endorsement of male chefs. So it was great to find this list of toys and other gifts that are marketed free from gender stereotypes from UltraViolet, including great movies like Whale Rider. Bravo!

MOVEON.ORG AND ULTRAVIOLET RELEASE NEW TV AD. On Tuesday, women’s rights group Ultraviolet and MoveOn.org Political Action will release a new hard-hitting 30-second TV ad, showing a battered woman, targeting Speaker Boehner and House Republicans for blocking a vote on the expanded Violence Against Women Act.The ad, which features the face of woman who has been battered slowly healing and then un-healing, will air for a week on cable networks- specifically on CNN, MSNBC, Bravo, Lifetime, and HGTV. http://bit.ly/UQQsFx

Two progressive outside spending groups are pushing the House GOP to pass an extended version of the Violence Against Women Act that's currently stalled in Congress with a new, graphic television ad calling for viewers to demand action.

The ad, funded by MoveOn.org Political Action and Ultraviolet, a pro-women's-rights online community, shows a woman's face, seemingly after she has been beaten, slowly healing and then reverting back to her wounded state. A narration asserts that "three women die every day as a result of domestic violence."

AP

With time running short, progressive groups are also ramping up pressure on House Republican leaders to get moving on the Senate bill. MoveOn.org and UltraViolet, a pro-women's rights group, released a new TV ad on Tuesday that highlights the need for an inclusive VAWA.

"Three women die every day from domestic violence. That's why the Violence Against Women Act was passed, decreasing domestic violence by 67 percent," a narrator says, as images flash of a woman with bruises on her face. The bruises start disappearing as the narrator talks, but then start reappearing as the narrator continues.

Associated Press

UltraViolet, a women's rights group that has been asking Facebook to add women to its board, said its campaign "should have never been necessary."

"We hope this is a first step for Facebook and in the coming months more women will be added to their board," UltraViolet co-founder Nita Chaudhary said in a statement. "In addition, we hope that other companies with all-male boards, particularly those in the tech sector, will follow Facebook's lead."

The appointment, announced on Monday, only somewhat appeased UltraViolet, a women’s rights advocacy group which delivered a petition signed by 53,000 people to Facebook in April, urging the company to diversify its board.

“It is a good first step,” said Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of UltraViolet. “Until today, the board was all male, but it continues to be all white.”

“Our goal has always been and Facebook’s goal ought to be gender parity,” in part because the company’s success relies on the participation of women, said Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of UltraViolet. “They have a great opportunity to demonstrate that women should have a seat at these tables.”

Ultraviolet, a group that has been asking Facebook to add women to its board, said its campaign "should have never been necessary."

UltraViolet, a women’s rights organization, said that while Sandberg’s appointment represents progress, the company shouldn’t end with a single female director.

UltraViolet, a gender quality nonprofit that for months called for Facebook to appoint a woman member to its corporate board of directors, has given muted applause to the appointment of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to the company’s board on Monday.

Women represent 58% of Facebook’s user base, yet no women sit on its board of directors — and 58,000 people have a problem with that.

That’s the number of petitions being delivered to Facebook’s New York City office Wednesday afternoon. A protest is also scheduled outside of Facebook’s HQ on Madison Ave to demand the company put women on its board before the company goes public within the next few months.

NEW YORK -- Protesters swarmed the entrance to Facebook’s Madison Avenue offices in New York City on Wednesday to deliver a petition with 53,000 signatures asking the world’s largest social network to add women to its all-male board ahead of its public offering.

A group of women's rights activists are descending on Facebook's New York offices, today, to deliver what it says is an online petition from 53,000 people that demands Facebook add a woman to its board of directors before the company goes public.

NEW YORK — Facebook’s normally inauspicious office in midtown Manhattan was the target of about 30 protesters on Wednesday, who gathered to demand that the world’s most successful social networking company appoint a woman to its currently all-male, all-white board of directors — and that the appointment occur soon, before the company begins trading publicly on the nearby NASDAQ exchange, anticipated in mid-May or June.

NEW YORK, NY – The handful of protesters that gathered in front of Facebook’s office on Madison Avenue at noon was disappointed when the company refused to accept a petition signed by 53,000 users asking the company to include women on its board of directors.

Here’s a status update Facebook probably won’t be happy about: Several dozen feminist activists are descending on the company’s Manhattan office to protest that not one woman sits on Facebook’s board of directors.

UltraViolet, a political group that fights sexism, has a bone to pick with Facebook. It wants Facebook to put a women on its board of directors and is urging its 300,000 members to petition Facebook about it.

They have a point. More than half of Facebook's users are women -- 58% -- Facebook says. And women are more active users of Facebook than men, doing two-thirds the sharing.

So while Facebook is making a bundle selling ads to women, it is downright shameful that Facebook couldn't find a single woman board member to help advise it.

The irony of Facebook's all male board is that the company's COO, Sheryl Sandberg recently spoke out against how women were being kept out of power positions. At last month's Women In The World conference in New York, Sandberg said, "Women have held 15 to 18 percent of top jobs for the past few years. Is this a stalled revolution?"

Mr. Limbaugh will lose some outlets next month regardless, when Cumulus, which carries him on nearly 40 of its stations, will launch its own syndicated program, The Mike Huckabee Show. Airing in the same noon-to-3-p.m. time period, it's being promoted as “more conversation, less confrontation,” and is cleared to air on more than 130 stations.

And Mr. Limbaugh's critics, unmoved by his grudging apologies, are ready to besiege advertisers who return to his show. “Companies that come back will have to explain to their customers and their shareholders why they're back,” said Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of UltraViolet.

The campaign to pressure advertisers to leave conservative Rush Limbaugh's radio show after his misogynistic comments about a college student looks familiar - it was presaged six years ago in a similar effort directed at a San Francisco talk-radio station by an anonymous blogger called Spocko.

Since then, contacting advertisers about the content their ads pay for has become routine, fueled by the Internet. This time, organizations such as Ultra Violet, an online activism site focused on women's issues, are leading the backlash.

At the same time Carusone was contacting advertisers, Nita Chaudhary began her own, parallel effort. Chaudhary, who co- founded women’s-rights group UltraViolet last year, said she was incensed after reading through a transcript of Limbaugh’s “slut” comments.

She spent that afternoon finding Limbaugh advertisers, via the Web and through Media Matters’ website, which had started to track who was still airing marketing on the show. Washington- based UltraViolet and Media Matters aren’t affiliated.

It has been nearly two weeks since Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a “slut” and in the age of the 24-hour news cycle, that is virtually an eternity.

Yet the outrage over the conservative talk radio host’s remarks is still making headlines, spawning activist attacks and causing headaches for advertisers.

Premiere Networks, the radio group that syndicates the Rush Limbaugh Radio Show, pulled all of its barter ads — which run at all hours, not just during Premiere Network programming– from the group’s affiliated stations.
The company would not say whether the suspension, which runs from March 12 through March 23, was in response to the Limbaugh backlash, but the only two companies whose ads are exempted from the hiatus are LifeLock and Lear Financial, both of which have publicly said they will not pull their ads from Limbaugh’s show.

Ultraviolet, one of the groups targeting the advertisers still running spots on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, is out with a TV ad attacking Mitt Romney over his failure to strongly repudiate Limbaugh's comments about Sandra Fluke. A spokesperson for the group tells TPM the ad will run on DC cable "for a few days this week."

Progressive campaigners and online activists Nita Chaudhary and Shaunna Thomas had an idea for a new kind of women's rights group: one that uses cutting-edge online advertising techniques to engage more people in the fight to end sexism in politics, media and pop culture.

They were not quite ready to launch their project, called UltraViolet, and their website was not yet running when the news broke that Susan G. Komen for the Cure had pulled cancer screening grants from Planned Parenthood over abortion politics. Feeling that this could be their moment to grab women's attention, Ultraviolet leapt into action, launching its first campaign with Moveon.org to call on Komen to reverse its decision and gathering 60,000 signatures in just a few hours.

Larry Summers is in the running to head the World Bank. But according to tens of thousands of people that recently signed a petition, he's not the man for the job

More than 37,000 people have signed a petition expressing their dismay at the idea that Summers -- who as then-president of Harvard, once famously suggested that women might lack an "intrinsic aptitude" for science and engineering -- could be put in charge of the World Bank, an institution that allocates funds to developing countries.

"[T]he World Bank has a lot of power over the education and training of women and girls in developing countries," reads the petition in part. "We need a nominee who believes girls have the same potential as boys."

Dealbreaker reports that those 37,000 signatures came within the first 24 hours of the petition's existence -- which, by our calculations, works out to about 25 signatures a minute, or a new name every two and a half seconds.

Summers, a former top economic advisor to President Obama, is said to be among the president's top choices to take over the World Bank later this year, when current president Robert Zoellick's term expires. Obama is also reportedly considering Secretary of State Hilary Clinton for the position, as well as other candidates, according to Bloomberg.

This isn't the first time Summers has attracted public displeasure. The former Secrtetary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton has been a bugbear of the left for several years -- going back as far as 1991, when Summers, then chief economist at the World Bank, signed another staffer's tongue-in-cheek policy memo that argued that toxic waste should be shipped to developing countries for dumping.

More recently, Summers has drawn ire for his record of pushing back against regulation for derivatives markets -- even though critics argue that a lack of oversight in that area played a direct role in the 2008 financial crisis. Summers has also been criticized for his ties to hedge funds and investment banks, including major Wall Street players like Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Citigroup.

Those grievances lay at the heart of another petition against Summers -- one that was circulated in 2008 to try and knock Summers out of the running for a second stint as Treasury Secretary, a position that instead went to Timothy Geithner.

Shortly after news of Handel's resignation became public, more than a dozen women delivered petitions with 832,000 online signatures to Komen's national headquarters in Farmers Branch, Texas, demanding that the charity continue funding breast health services for women. Most of the women represented organizations MoveOn.org, CREDO Action and UltraViolet, but at least two showed up on their own for what they thought might be a bigger demonstration.

UltraViolet, an online community of activists striving to fight sexism in the public sector, launched one of the campaigns which collected more than 37,000 signatures in less than a week, and CREDO Action, Planned Parenthood’s largest corporate donor, launched a very similar campaign which accumulated more than 50,000 signatures. CREDO, whose campaign included hundreds of calls to Komen’s Dallas headquarters, also pledged a $200,000 grant program to replenish the funds that had been threatened by Komen’s former decision.

The progressive activist group, CREDO, and UltraViolet, an online community opposed to sexism, claimed credit for a joint petition campaign that collected tens of thousands of signatures calling for Handel's resignation.

Late yesterday we got word that several groups -- including reps from MoveOn.org, CREDO Action and UltraViolet -- are congregating at Komen's LBJ HQ at noon today to drop off "petitions signed by nearly 850,000 people demanding that Komen not let anti-choice extremists get in the way of funding life-saving breast health care services for women."

The progressive activist group, CREDO, and UltraViolet, an online community opposed to sexism, claimed credit for a joint petition campaign that collected tens of thousands of signatures calling for Handel's resignation.

About a dozen women Tuesday delivered petitions with 832,000 signatures to officials at the Susan G. Komen for the Cure headquarters in Farmers Branch, demanding that the charity continue funding breast health services for women. The women represented organizations Move.On.org, CREDO Action and UltraViolet. Leaders of the groups met with Komen officials for about a half-hour.

"Komen's CEO, Nancy Brinker, has demonstrated a pattern of deliberately lying to the public about the facts about Komen's decision to defund PP," the Internet watchdog group Ultraviolet wrote in a statement to Yahoo! Shine.

Last week's abortion "glitch" was the latest in a series of embarrassments for Apple's bot. Apple apologized(-ish) for the issue, but the half-hearted statement and unchanged software has yet to quell the anger. The criticisms still continue via petitions , including one at SignOn.org that got over 30,000 signatures in 48 hours, petition author Nita Chaudhary told CBS News. Unfortunately, the abortion-query problem is just a micro representation of a macro problem: Siri just doesn't work that well. Gizmodo's Mat Honan puts it well:

In the past 24 hours, more than 27,000 people have signed a petition asking Apple to stop iPhone voice assistant Siri from directing women to anti-abortion "crisis pregnancy centers" when they ask where to get an abortion.