More Than A Magazine, A Movement
For decades, Howard Stern has used his celebrity status to normalize porn and misogyny. Last month, Billie Eilish, only 20, made a shocking revelation on Stern’s show: “I used to watch a lot of porn. I think it really destroyed my brain.”
Eilish is right—research shows conclusively that pornography is harmful for young people and, indeed, all brains. But kids take to porn because they find the sexual education offered by their schools and parents to be unhelpful and unreal.
Despite a December ruling allowing legal challenges to proceed, the six-week abortion law out of Texas remains in effect. Where do things currently stand? And where will they go next?
Politicians cannot promise to grow the economy and simultaneously limit access to abortion, birth control and sexual education. America’s economic health and women’s reproductive health are linked.
Last month, the Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments in a case that could set off a new era of abortion bans across much of the country. December also marked the start of President Biden’s Democracy Summit.
Yes, the U.S. faces an unprecedented crisis for the right to abortion. Before its next Democracy Summit, the Biden administration should make a real commitment to ending all anti-abortion policies that cause the U.S. to fall short of its democratic aspirations.
By failing to educate medical students on abortion, the medical institution effectively contributes to the continued politicization, restriction and stigmatization of abortion care in the U.S.
On Jan. 22, 2022, we mark the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States. The case was argued by a 26-year-old female lawyer from Texas: Sarah Weddington, in her first appearance before the Court. Female lawyers were so rare in those days that the Supreme Court lawyers lounge didn’t even have a ladies’ room. There were no female judges; Weddington faced a wall of older white men.
Almost five decades after the decision, Sarah Weddington died at her home in Austin on Dec. 26, 2021, at age 76, after a period of declining health. Rest in power, Sarah Weddington.
For years, Gloria Feldt has focused on women’s leadership—and as we flip the calendar to 2022, her resolve is stronger than ever. I decided to find out more about her insights into women and power.
“One of the hardest things is to shift our focus from battling negative power reactively to embracing our positive power to implement change proactively and set our own agenda in a disciplined way.”
At the end of 2021, 80 percent of President Biden’s confirmed judges have been women—compared to 42 percent of President Obama’s federal judges and a mere 24 percent of President Trump’s.
It will take a sustained commitment to diversity to actually achieve a federal judiciary that reflects the American people. Even with President Biden’s diverse judges confirmed this year, the federal judiciary is still approximately 72 percent white and 65 percent men. The numbers are moving in the right direction, but we have a long way to go.
In a confounding move, Sen. Joe Manchin decided to derail the Build Back Better bill in a Fox News appearance Sunday night. It’s not difficult to prove how wrong Manchin and the 50 GOP senators opposed to Build Back Better are. But how do we enact progress when 51 people can stand in the way of what the majority of us want?
Women and girl survivors of gender-based violence have essentially been abandoned in Afghanistan. Their network of support has been dismantled, and their places of refuge have all but disappeared.
