Monday was a day bookended by reminders that Donald Trump expects and rewards obedience—from Cannon’s Florida ruling, to Trump’s VP pick of JD Vance.
The GOP Has a Problem With Women Voters—and Two White Men on the Presidential Ticket
Former President Donald Trump on Monday announced he had selected Sen. JD Vance of Ohio to be his running mate, rounding out the Republican presidential ticket with a second white man as the party stares down a significant disadvantage with women voters and voters of color, and in an election with reproductive rights front and center.
‘I Begged Them Not to Harass Me’: Women Accuse Taliban of Sexual Assault After Arrest for ‘Bad Hijab’
In late December 2023, 16-year-old Zahra* said a goodbye to her mother as she left home wearing a long, ankle-length dress. She went to her cousin’s shop in west Kabul, home to more than one million Hazara-Shias. Her mother didn’t see her again for two weeks.
They were among the untold numbers of young women arrested for what the Taliban deemed to be violations of their dress code or “bad hijab.” In January, some of those women told Zan Times about their horrific experiences of detention, abuse and torture in Taliban custody.
JD Vance, Trump’s VP Pick, Has Opposed Abortion and LGBTQ+ Rights
Former President Donald Trump has selected as his running mate Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, who has opposed abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights in his time in political office.
Vance, who ran as staunchly anti-abortion in his Senate campaign and in 2021 compared abortion to slavery, has somewhat shifted his public stance on the issue. Trump has reportedly viewed a hardline stance on abortion as a negative for a running mate.
On the campaign trail in 2021, Vance defended the lack of exceptions for rape and incest in a Texas abortion ban known as S.B. 8, saying in an interview that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” In a July 2021 interview with Fox News, he criticized “the childless left,” saying, “Why have we let the Democrat Party become controlled by people who don’t have children?” In June, Vance voted against a Democratic-led bill to enshrine access to in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Will Divorce Be the Next GOP Target Against Women?
For many women, divorce means escape. Right-wing Republicans like JD Vance and Mike Johnson are targeting it.
Vance said leaving “unhappy or even violent” marriages “didn’t work out for the kids,” suggesting that people trapped in violent marriages should stay in them to preserve family stability. You know what’s worse for children than divorce? Domestic violence.
In the 2024 Olympics, Afghan Women Defy the Taliban Ban on Women in Sports
In September 2021—less than a month after the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan—the Taliban banned women and girls from participating in sports.
Three women and three men will represent Afghanistan in the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics, yet the Taliban has refused to acknowledge the female Afghan athletes playing for their home country.
Kimia Yousofi, one the three Afghan women Olympians, said she will be representing the “stolen dreams and aspirations” of women still under the Taliban’s gender apartheid.
Republicans Want to Reverse Over a Half-Century of Hard-Fought Progress for Women and Girls
The women and girls of Afghanistan are in my thoughts lately, as the recently released U.N. special rapporteur’s report sheds light on the devastating impact of the Taliban’s gender apartheid regime in the time since they came back to power. Women and girls in the country are living under a brutal system of gender apartheid, experiencing the “deliberate systematized step-by-step eradication of their rights and freedoms.”
And to be honest, it seems like the right wing in America is trying to push women in this country in the same direction. Just look at their policy objectives outlined in Project 2025—a roadmap for a Republican presidency that would reverse over a half-century of hard-fought progress for women and girls.
The GOP Isn’t Getting Less Radical on Abortion—They’re Getting Better at Lying
It’s not that Donald Trump is secretly pro-choice; it’s that he truly does not care at all about abortion rights either way, and anti-abortion groups were useful in getting him elected.
Now, though, those same groups are putting his candidacy at risk. 2024 is not 2016. Trump is adjusting accordingly. And one big adjustment is on abortion, which he wants Republicans to just quit talking about—for now. Once he’s in office, though, the calculus is different.
Why Heat Is ‘the Silent Assassin of Climate Change’
Heat kills more people in the U.S. than hurricanes, floods and tornadoes combined.
Texas Sends Millions to Crisis Pregnancy Centers. It’s Meant to Help Needy Families, But No One Knows if It Works.
Two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Texas leads the nation in funding for crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). The system is meant to help growing families, but it’s riddled with waste and lacks oversight, a ProPublica and CBS News investigation found.
What’s worse: Lawmakers around the country are considering programs modeled on Texas’ CPC system, called Alternatives to Abortion.