Military

Still Fighting for Women in Combat

by Kristen Schuetz · February 10, 2012 · no comments

The Department of Defense released a long-awaited report yesterday updating its controversial 1994 ban on women in combat. The DoD recommends that women be allowed to serve closer to the front lines in units that “co-locate” with ground combat forces. However, it still advises that women be barred from ground combat. Unless Congress raises objections, the report’s recommendations will become policy after 30 Congressional working days. For the women who make up about 14 percent of the U.S. armed forces, the ...Read More

Internet + Tech

Steered Wrong By Googling “Abortion Services”? It’s No Accident

by Sofia Resnick · February 9, 2012 · 4 comments

In the seemingly endless war over abortion rights in America, battles are waged in legislatures, in courts and, most recently, on the Internet. The strategy of using abortion-related keywords to send a woman searching the web for abortion information to a nearby crisis pregnancy center is already a few years old. But the scheme only received real national attention a couple of months ago, when Siri, Apple’s new voice-activated search assistant, was caught sending women looking for abortion clinics to centers that ...Read More

Health

Just How Safe is Yaz? Women Need to Know!

by Holly Grigg-Spall · February 9, 2012 · no comments

The oral contraceptive Yasmin was released in 2001 by the pharmaceutical company Bayer, followed by Yaz in 2006. They differ from other birth control pills in the synthetic progesterone they utilize, drospirenone, which is marketed as less likely to cause weight gain and bloating than other birth control pills. Yaz soon became the most popular birth control pill in the U.S., due in part to a widespread advertising campaign promoting the drug as what the New York Times dubbed “a quality of life treatment,” claiming ...Read More

Performance

Helen Hunt Runs the Show in “Our Town”

by Holly L. Derr · February 8, 2012 · 1 comment

The moment she enters, walking quickly, in her masculine work boots and jeans, you know that she is a woman in charge. That’s what a real stage manager is, after all, but in most productions of Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer-Prize winning classic, Our Town, the Stage Manager is an old white man, replete with gray hair, a pipe and an archetypal New England accent that implies age, wisdom and tradition. Actor Helen Hunt, as the Stage Manager in David Cromer’s production currently running at the Broad Stage in Santa ...Read More

Law

Score One For Marriage Rights–Federal Court Strikes Down Prop 8!

by Audrey Bilger · February 7, 2012 · 1 comment

Back in the good old days of 2008, same-sex marriage was legal in the Golden State of California for 143 days, and during that time 18,000 same-sex couples legally tied the knot. The existence of those 18,000 is why Proposition 8–which made same-sex marriage illegal later that year–is unconstitutional, according to today’s ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court. By a 2-1 vote, a court panel upheld the historic 2010 decision by Judge Vaughn Walker to strike down Prop 8 as unconstitutional. Since Prop 8 ...Read More

Education

10 Things You Need to Know About Native American Women

by Laura Paskus · February 5, 2012 · 9 comments

It’s no exaggeration to say that American Indian women are missing from most media coverage, history books and classroom discussions. But at least journalism students, instructors and state educators in Nebraska are doing something to help end America’s ignorance of Native women and the contributions they make to their communities, their tribes and to the nation as a whole. Last year, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications published the magazine, Native Daughters. With a ...Read More

Ms.cellany

HERvotes: Boehner Ups the Threat Against Contraception Coverage

by Leah Berkenwald · February 8, 2012 · 2 comments

This morning, House Speaker John Boehner vowed in a House floor speech to overturn the provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that would require faith-affiliated hospitals and universities to include birth-control coverage in their employee health ...Read More

Black Herstory: Jamaica’s Other National Hero

by Janell Hobson · February 6, 2012 · 4 comments

On this day, the late Bob Marley would have turned 67 years old. In honor of the “soul rebel” who encouraged Jamaicans and the rest of the world to embrace a black consciousness and support liberation struggles, I invoke the memory of another Jamaican hero for ...Read More

HERvotes: 11 Doctors Explain Why All Employers Should Cover Birth Control

by Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health · February 6, 2012 · 1 comment

Some religious institutions are objecting to new federal rules requiring that they cover contraception for their employees in their health insurance policies. Below, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health (PRCH) physicians remember patients whose stories show the ...Read More

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