Canadian high school student Emily Dawson has a lot to celebrate this month. She and her mother, Kathy Dawson, filed a human-rights complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission last year after Emily completed a mandatory abstinence-only workshop that slut-shamed students and used scare tactics to enforce abstinence. Two weeks ago, the Edmonton Public School Board announced […]
Author: Simone Lieban Levine
Simone Lieban Levine is a rising junior at St. Mary's College of Maryland and an intern for Ms.
Calling for an End LGBT Job Discrimination
After announcing his intention to do so earlier this summer, President Obama signed an executive order today that prohibits federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The order amended Executive Order 11478—signed by President Nixon in 1969 to prohibit employment discrimination in the federal government because of race, color, religion, […]
C’mon, Congress—Isn’t 34 Years Enough Time to Ratify CEDAW?
Known as the “women’s treaty,” the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women—CEDAW—was signed by the United States 34 years ago today. The United Nations had adopted the treaty, pledging to give women equal rights in all aspects of their lives, on December 18, 1979, and at a special ceremony during […]
We Heart: Church of England to Welcome Women Bishops
On Monday, the Church of England’s General Synod (the Church’s governing body that meets two or three times a year) voted in favor of allowing women to become bishops. The landmark decision still has to be approved by Britain’s Parliament, but that is seen as a formality. The decision comes 12 years after the 1992 […]
Illinois Governor Backs Birth-Control Insurance
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) has approved a November referendum that will ask voters if they think birth control should be included in insurance plans. His hope is that his constituents disagree with the Hobby Lobby decision. The governor said, A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision has again brought the issue of women’s rights to […]
California Seeks to End Gay-Panic Defense
In 2005, a transgender woman in Fresno was stabbed to death, but the defendant pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to only four years. In the trial of cross-dressing gay teenager Larry King‘s killer in Oxnard in 2011, the defendant wound up pleading guilty to second-degree murder (instead of the more-deserved first-degree murder). […]
We Heart: This Happy Coincidence of Men’s Soccer and Women’s Power
For those of us following the World Cup, the past month has been a whirlwind of emotions. For Americans, the World Cup has incited pride in our country, pride in our team, pride in Tim Howard, etc. But we also must acknowledge another kind of pride: pride in global women of power. Argentina and Germany, […]
Will Pope Francis Walk the Talk on Sex Abuse?
Actions speak louder than words seems to be the phrase on many lips in light of Pope Francis’s recent apology to those who have survived sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic Church leaders. Just as his predecessors Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II did, Pope Francis met with a few survivors of sexual abuse, […]
We Heart: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Dissent and Everything That Accompanies It
In the midst of the devastating Hobby Lobby decision, at least we have the words of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, AKA Notorious R.B.G. She wrote an extraordinary 35-page dissent to the ruling that expressed her disapproval based on legal precedent, current laws and a dash of personal opinion. Parts of the dissent have even been […]
We Heart (and Question): New Commercial from Always
Last week, Always released a new commercial that challenges the notion that doing something “like a girl” means anything less than doing it well. The ad first features people who are supposedly auditioning for a commercial. When the director (who is a woman) tells them to “run like a girl” or “fight like a girl,” […]