This March, for Women’s History Month, the Ms. Blog is profiling Wonder Women who have made history—and those who are making history right now. Join us each day as we bring you the stories of iconic and soon-to-be-famous feminist change-makers. This article, celebrating the heroes of the fast-food workers movement, originally appeared in the Fall 2013 issue […]
Author: Michelle Chen
Michelle Chen is a contributing editor at In These Times and associate editor at CultureStrike. She is also a coproducer of the Asia Pacific Forum radio show and studies history at the City University of New York Graduate Center.
Masses of Yemeni Women Defy Oppression–And Stereotypes
When a wave of protesters took to the streets in the Yemeni city of Taiz this week, a mass of black-clad women once again stood out in the crowd. To Westerners, their conservative dress might seem incongruous in a pro-democracy uprising, but these women represent the backbone of Yemen’s revolution: ordinary people galvanized by unbearable […]
Women Rise to the Challenge in the Arab Spring
The scene would have had most Americans readjusting their television sets—or their preconceived notions about Arab society. In the April sun, throngs of protesters washed over the streets of the southern Yemeni city Taiz, most clad head-to-toe in black, their eyes steely with determination. The crowd was festooned with bright baseball caps and signs bearing […]
India’s Poorest of the Poor Bring Gender Politics to the Dinner Table
In countries rich and poor alike, the burden of struggling to make ends meet often falls on the woman of the household, who in turn has to stretch resources in the face of income inequality and gender discrimination. As hunger intensifies in the most disadvantaged communities, however, women who’ve long been ignored as providers are […]
How Come Funding For Global Health Care Leads to Poorer Health?
Wherever they fall on the scale of economic development, most countries generally provide some form of health care to the poor and sick. So what happens when that public responsibility winds up on the balance sheet of a foreign loan? A new economic analysis reveals that the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the subprime lender to […]
Why Have Abortion Rates Stopped Dropping?
Abortion rates have generally fallen since the 1980s for a variety of reasons including greater access to contraception and the availability of over-the-counter emergency contraception. But in recent years, according to a new study by the Guttmacher Institute, abortion rates have stalled, raising questions about whether pregnant women have access to a full range of […]
U.S. Flunks Women’s Health
Kids might dread that report card that comes every winter, but a nationwide report card on women’s health doesn’t make officials nearly as anxious as it should. According to the National Women’s Law Center’s latest report card on state and national health policy, no state got a “satisfactory” (S) grade on the group’s selected health […]
Homelessness Creeps Up on Working Americans
Many cities will begin the New Year with a sad resolution: to make sure the number of homeless families doesn’t grow as much as it did the year before. A new survey of homelessness covering 27 cities, published by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, sheds light on the epidemic. A rise in family homelessness in many […]
A Bitter Pill: Birth Rates Fall, But It’s No Reproductive-Rights Victory
It seems that the Great Recession may have done for America’s teens what countless hours of puritanical preaching have failed to: dissuaded them from having babies. Federal health authorities reported last week that the birth rate among U.S. girls between 15 and 19 fell six percent from 2008 to 2009 to a record low of […]
Hearing Women’s Voices at the Cancun Climate Conference
In hopes of picking up where the failed 2009 Copenhagen climate conference left off, international delegates have convened in Cancun, Mexico to work on a global plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions. On the agenda are target emissions caps and a climate assistance fund for poor nations. At the same time, women’s rights advocates are […]