Hey y’all, if you support Planned Parenthood, access to birth control, the pursuit of a healthy and fulfilled life or Friday Night Lights, you will love this new video campaign (narrated by Connie Britton, who played Tami Taylor in the beloved football drama series) from Planned Parenthood Global: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXo276kD0yo “Health Has No Borders” is a […]
Author: Jessica Mack
Jessica is a global women's rights advocate and writer. She is a global contributor for RH Reality Check and you can also sometimes find her writing at AlterNet and Feministe. She currently lives in Seattle and enjoys bhangra dancing, Kanye West, and all types of cheese.
Women Losing Land Rights in China
In the Masterpiece series Downton Abbey, Lady Mary Crawley, the eldest daughter of an Earl, cannot inherit the family estate because she is a woman. She finds this demeaning and frustrating, but her future will be well taken care of regardless. Sadly, this isn’t the case for millions of women around the world who struggle […]
Should Women Cheer for Vázquez Mota as Mexico’s First Woman President?
Electing a woman as head of state–pretty much anywhere in the world–is a newsmaker. I wish it weren’t still in this day and age, but it is. It’s happened in India; it’s happened in Ireland; it’s happened in Liberia; and maybe someday it will happen in the US. Notably, in the past decade, it has […]
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.
As We Hit 7 Billion, Behold the Future of Contraception!
This Monday, as the world’s 7 billionth baby was being born somewhere on the planet, I was sitting in a conference room in Seattle catching a glimpse of the future of contraception. I was at, in fact, the Future of Contraception Initiative, where 200 of science’s brightest minds revealed their progress toward the next big […]
Tsk Tsk: Stigma, Shame and Sexuality
Over at Gender Across Borders today we are kicking off our three-day series on stigma, shame and sexuality. The series is cross-posted with RH Reality Check and in partnership with Ipas. I am proud, excited, nervous and touched to be introducing to you 18 poignant and provocative pieces about an issue that eludes definition: stigma. The […]
In a First, UN Holds Brazil Accountable for Maternal Death Under CEDAW
Nine years ago, 28-year-old Alyne da Silva Pimentel died needlessly from a difficult pregnancy after her care was both delayed and botched. A Brazilian of African descent, Pimentel lived in one of Rio de Janeiro’s poorest areas. When she delivered a stillborn pre-term fetus in her district’s local hospital, she languished without proper care until […]
How to Reduce Abortion Stigma? Take A Clue from the Global HIV/AIDS Movement
One aspect of the global HIV/AIDS movement that’s always impressed me is the success advocates have had in reducing stigma around infection. In the 30 years that this disease has taken root, stigma has shrunken dramatically. Famous people from all professions and walks of life have come forward to divulge their status (some voluntarily, others […]
Bend it Like Beckham–in Cambodia
It was Wednesday and the Mighty Girls had practice again. The late afternoon sun beat down on the field in Battambang, a charming river town of 250,000 that is Cambodia’s second-largest city. A group of guys had assembled along the sidelines, menacingly close to the goal. They looked on while the girls ran drills and […]
Ivory Coast Standoff Ends, But Nightmare for Women Continues
Former President Laurent Gbagbo was finally arrested this week, and many seem to think this will bring an end to the conflict that’s riddled Ivory Coast for the past months. But for the women among the more than 1 million people displaced by the fighting, this is not the case. As the situation deteriorated from […]