Under North Carolina law, women cannot legally revoke their consent to engage in sexual intercourse once that act has consensually begun, thanks to a 'loophole' afforded by the state's Supreme Court. For women in the state, this has meant that being physically forced to 'finish' a sexual encounter involves little to no legal recourse, especially compared to other forms of assault.

Thanks to the work and patience of many communities of color, platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have helped to promote Black voices, positivity, and strength and distribute the real data on discrimination across the web in recent years, driving (inching) white awareness, too. All the while, these tools have also been empowering legions of dedicated and 'everyday' racists to wage war against visible Black women with all the fresh hell and tired tropes they can muster--effecting a digital siege on Black women and girls, and, ultimately, on everything our big, unwieldy country as a whole holds dear.

As part of an ongoing lawsuit alleging gender imbalances at Microsoft, attorneys have submitted two studies suggesting the company's promotion-ladder and pay scale need work. As Slate reported Saturday, two reports analyzing the gender dynamics and equity at Microsoft have been filed in U.S. District Court in Washington State in the case of Moussouris v. Microsoft, both offering criticism of the tech giant.