At Montclair (New Jersey) High School today, Emma Fishman will be busy passing out pamphlets to her classmates with facts about girls. The 17-year-old is one of many young people around the U.S. whose voices will carry through school halls announcing the first International Day of the Girl Child. When we talk about women’s rights, [...]
Imagine a world in which women trying to avoid unplanned pregnancies don’t have to worry about popping a daily pill that shoots their moods to hell, getting shots, buying condoms that sometimes break or changing a patch. Imagine a contraceptive method with which 99 percent of its users report satisfaction. Sound like a dream? In [...]
American women cleaned up pretty well at the 2012 London Olympics. Thirty percent of American woman athletes took home medals, while only 15 percent of their male counterparts could boast the same. Even more impressive, U.S. women Olympians took home more medals than all but four countries. That’s what sports equity will do for you [...]
When newly-elected French President François Hollande appointed Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, 34, to the high-profile positions of minister for women’s rights and spokesperson for the government, Muslims in the nation were optimistic. So optimistic that some polls estimate an astounding 93 percent of French Muslims helped boost Hollande into office. In a new era of socialist administration dedicated to [...]
FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, has agreed to overturn its controversial ban on the wearing of hijabs during games. The organization instituted the regulation in 2007, as the formal rules of the sport prohibit equipment that make a religious statement or pose a danger to players. Referring to the garb as “headscarves” rather than “hijabs” in [...]
Tennis is not a silent sport. Anyone who tells you otherwise has never witnessed tense moments in a game between, say, top-ranked player Maria Sharapova and champion Serena Williams. Or listened to Victoria Azarenka or Michelle Larcher de Brito play. Sharapova’s hallmark screams have been clocked at 102.7 decibels. The loudest women’s tennis grunt on [...]
Feminists across the country heralded the defeat of Virginia’s transvaginal ultrasound bill last February as one of the major victories in the War on Women. But while its amended law, which went into effect July 1, mandates only external ultrasounds, the statute still requires women to seek an ultrasound 24 hours before their scheduled abortions–a medically unnecessary [...]
The director of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in the Laghman province of eastern Afghanistan, Hanifa Safi, was assassinated on Friday. A magnetic bomb, attached to her car, exploded as she left her home with her husband and daughter, both of whom were critically injured. Safi, a leading Afghan politician, was a longtime advocate of [...]
Much of the uproar over notorious misogynist Rush Limbaugh has died down since his personal attack on Sandra Fluke during several of his radio shows last February and early March. But high-profile advertisers continue to ditch the disc jockey. UPS is the latest company to pull its advertisements from the program. On July 3, the [...]
A measure to declare fertilized eggs “persons” with full constitutional rights met its makers in Ohio today after failing to receive enough signatures from Ohio voters. The measure, which advocated for amending the state’s constitution, garnered a mere 30,000 of the estimated 385,000 signatures necessary to be placed on the statewide ballot this November. The anti-abortion [...]
