Despite months of fierce lobbying by the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Obama administration announced today that it would not exempt Catholic hospitals from the Affordable Care Act requirement for insurance plans to cover employees’ birth control.
Month: January 2012
It’s Trust Women Week!
2011 brought an unprecedented assault by anti-abortion and anti-contraception state legislatures on women’s reproductive health—135 reproductive rights laws were enacted in 36 states, 68 percent of which restrict access to abortion. Reproductive-rights groups are fighting back with a simple but powerful pro-choice message: Trust women.
Ai-jen Poo: Organizing for Workers with Love
A 37-year-old organizer based in New York City, Poo is founder of Domestic Workers United (DWU), a group that waged a successful campaign for landmark legislation in New York state recognizing the labor rights of nannies and housekeepers. Now, as director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), she is spearheading an even more ambitious effort, a Caring Across Generations campaign designed to address the crisis in how we care for our children, our elders, and the disabled in this country.
What We Left Behind: Girdles, Silence and Illegal Abortion
When I went to work at Ms. in 1972, I wore a matching pink skirt and blouse—and a girdle. I had just gotten married and was, therefore, not able to get a bank loan without my husband’s approval. And I had had an illegal abortion.
Sierra Leone: Only a New Government Can Bring Equality for Women
Dr. Kadi Sesay, Vice Presidential Candidate of the Sierra Leone People’s Party: “Only by opening up civic institutions, government and business to all, and challenging the unwritten rules that exclude so many from political participation, can we ensure lasting change in Sierra Leone.”
If the Clothes Fit: A Feminist Takes on Fashion
Fashion, like so many other things associated primarily with women, may be dismissed as trivial, but it shapes how we’re read by others, especially on the levels of gender, class and race. In turn, how we’re read determines how we are treated, especially in the workforce—whether we are hired, promoted and respected, and how well we are paid. That most ordinary and intimate of acts, getting dressed, has very real political and economic consequences.
Roe at 39: Where Women Stand
Sarah Weddington was a 27-year-old, inexperienced lawyer when she argued one of the most important cases of the 20th century before the Supreme Court. 39 years later, a conversation with her about the decision’s consequences, and the future of abortion rights.
Birth Control For Men? For Real This Time?
When the birth control pill hit the U.S. market 51 years ago, the hope had been for a male method to follow close at its heels. Yet, despite decades of research and periodic hopeful headlines, progress has been largely indiscernible. But now, researchers are touting new developments.
Senegal’s Feminist Hip-Hop Star
Senegalese rapper Fatou Mandiang Diatta defied her country’s traditional expectations for women in order to succeed in Senegal’s male-dominated hip-hop scene. A new documentary shows how, using her music as a medium, “Sister Fa” campaigns against female genital mutilation, which she herself endured as a child.
Women vs. People
It’s time for a round-up of all the reader submissions illustrating the annoying habit of having products and products-for-women. The phenomenon illustrates the way we continue to think of men as people and women as women, thereby centering men and men’s lives as “normal” and women’s as “special” (and not in a good way).