UPDATE, JULY 11: U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan has ordered an extension of the temporary order, allowing the Jackson Women’s Health Organization to stay open. He will now review rules from the Mississippi Department of Health on how they will administer the state’s new abortion law, and then determine whether the abortion clinic can remain […]
Health
Sexual Objectification 3: Daily Rituals to Stop
This is the third installment of a four-part series about how girls and women can navigate a culture that treats them like sex objects. (See Part 1, Part 2.) There are four damaging daily rituals of objectification culture we can immediately stop engaging in to improve our health. 1) Stop seeking random male attention. Most […]
Sexual Objectification, Part 2: The Harm
This is the second part in a series about how girls and women can navigate a culture that treats them like sex objects. (Part 1 can be found here.) Sexual objectification is nothing new, but this latest era is characterized by greater exposure to advertising and increased sexual explicitness in advertising [PDF], magazines, television shows, movies [PDF], video games, music videos, […]
North Carolina to Defund Planned Parenthood
First it was New Jersey, now it’s North Carolina’s turn to take away family planning funds. In a “midnight vote” late on Monday, the Republican-controlled General Assembly overrode Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto on the annual budget, thus stripping an estimated $200,000 from the state’s two remaining Planned Parenthood affiliates, which oversee nine clinics. This vote […]
Sexual Objectification, Part 1: What is it?
This is Part 1 of a four-part series on sexual objectification–what it is and how to respond to it. The phrase “sexual objectification” has been around since the 1970s, but the phenomenon is more rampant than ever in popular culture–and we now know that it causes real harm. What exactly is it, though? If objectification […]
N.J. Gov. Christie Eliminates Family Planning—Again
Just days after the New Jersey state legislature approved a bill that would restore the state’s family planning fund from oblivion, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took out his red pen and vetoed it last Friday. This is the third time in three years Christie has vetoed the family planning budget since he took office […]
Supreme Court Health-Care Decision is Historical Advance for Women
The Feminist Majority Foundation and Ms. magazine are elated that the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act–the most important advance for women in nearly 40 years. Feminists are determined to protect the gains of the Affordable Care Act, which will protect the lives and health of millions of women and […]
Paper Dolls, Female Condoms and HIV
Zawadi, Juan, Aurora and Sookjay are four of the dolls that will be participating in the Paper Doll Campaign at the 19th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012), and they are currently traveling around the world to let people know about the importance of the female condom in preventing HIV. By collecting 30,000 paper dolls with messages […]
New Jersey Senate Reverses Family Planning Cuts
[Update: Gov. Chris Christie has threatened the New Jersey state legislature with using his line-item veto. The governor has until the end of the week to either approve or reject the funding proposals.] It’s time for New Jerseyans to break out the fist pumps for something other than free vodka shots at the Shore. The […]
Rape on the Rez and the Need for Plan B
Rape on American Indian reservations is epidemic. One in three American Indian women will be raped or sexually assaulted in her lifetime–more than twice the national average. To further complicate the physical and psychological devastation of this sexual violence, the most basic access to relevant health care (think emergency contraception and rape kits) is increasingly unavailable to women […]