Amid a well-documented deluge of online abuse, new data shows that physical violence targeting women in politics is also increasing in most regions of the world, creating additional—and at times deadly—obstacles to women’s participation in political processes.
Online Abortion Providers Cindy Adam and Lauren Dubey of Choix: “We’re Really Excited About the Future of Abortion Care”
A range of telemedicine abortion providers are springing up in the U.S. in response to the removal of FDA restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone—like Cindy Adam and Lauren Dubey, nurse practitioners and owners of Choix, a virtual clinic offering asynchronous telemedicine abortion services to people in California, Colorado and Illinois.
“It feels really cool that I can do this on a day-to-day basis,” Dubey said. “Cindy and I are at the forefront of telemedicine abortion, teaching other people how to do it, helping more people to do it and exposing the world to this new type of care. It is incredibly fulfilling, not just being an abortion provider and not just doing it via telehealth, but being at the forefront of abortion care in a new way.”
Why Is the Senate Failing To Build Back Better? Blame Sexism
Build Back Better is not just about what’s right. It’s about what’s necessary to keep our country from falling apart at the seams. If we don’t mitigate climate change now, climate disasters will become more frequent, and more deadly and destructive. If we don’t build a strong childcare system, parents won’t be able to go to work, and we will lose skills and experience, as well as huge chunks of the labor force.
Without BBB, we’re losing not just a move toward equity, health and well-being—but also the chance at lasting prosperity.
Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation; Rest in Power, Lani Guinier; NY Gov Kathy Hochul Is Shaking Things Up for Women; Black Women Are Just 6% of U.S. House
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s term limit legislation could provide more women the chance to run and win; Minneapolis’s Andrea Jenkins is the first openly trans city council president in the U.S., and Seattle’s Debora Juarez marks same milestone for Indigenous people; Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick’s election brings the percentage of Black women in the U.S. House to 6 percent; Xiomara Castro, the incoming woman president of Honduras; the legacy of voting rights champion Lani Guinier, who died on Jan. 7; and more.
It’s Time We Talk About Blackfishing
Blackfishing, as generally defined online, is a term that refers to a non-Black person’s manipulation of Black aesthetics for the purpose of attaining social capital or monetary benefit. What kind of representations are these artists attempting to convey through the manipulation of such aesthetics?
From the Vault: Coretta Scott King, a Revolutionary Woman
While Coretta Scott King has been celebrated as a civil rights icon, her vision of “the beloved community” was bolder and more revolutionary than her husband Martin’s. When we retell the story of radical African American activism in the 20th century, we can finally embrace Coretta Scott King as the truly revolutionary figure she was.
*This article was originally published in the Spring 2006 issue of Ms.—a few months after Coretta Scott King’s death on January 30, 2006.*
It’s 100 Seconds To Midnight! Can We Reverse The Doomsday Clock?
“We are perilously close, closer than we’ve ever been, to a man-made point of no return,” said Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin. “But setting the Doomsday Clock each year is meant to carry a message of hope and remind us we have the ability to reduce these seemingly insurmountable threats and of our responsibility to future generations. It tells us we can beat the odds.”
Telemedicine Abortion Provider Dr. Deborah Oyer Supports Patient Autonomy and Control: “No Different Than When They’re in Clinic”
A range of telemedicine abortion providers are springing up in the U.S. in response to the removal of FDA restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone. Meet one provider: Dr. Deborah Oyer, the medical director of Cedar River Clinics, who has seen a 79 percent increase of medication abortion since adding telemedicine abortion, versus in-clinic only before COVID.
“I cannot begin to put into words the honor and privilege of being an abortion provider. People let me into their lives in the most intimate way. In some ways, there is a little more intimacy doing a telemedicine abortion right now versus an in-person one, because I actually get to see their unmasked faces.”
Don’t Fence Me In: Reproductive Freedom and Women Workers
For centuries under common law, a daughter or a wife was the property of the family father or husband or, upon his death, the closest relative with a penis. Whatever was theirs was his, but most importantly the family patriarch oversaw her most valuable asset: her womb. In earliest medical thought, a womb was fertile ground in need of guarding and fences to make property rights clearer, and she to be plowed and planted with seed, quite literally semen.
We thought such laws and cultural metaphors were behind us. But now the cowboys of Texas have put a bounty on women’s wombs. The stakes are women’s civil rights as citizens, surely, but also financial ones.
Keeping Score: NYC’s First Women-Majority Council Takes Office; Only 55% of Non-Parents Want Kids Someday; D.C. Students Get Free Period Products
This week: Nebraskans face one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the nation; New York City’s first women-majority city council takes office; Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers sentenced to life in prison; D.C. Council approved free menstrual products in all schools; the gender gap in higher education widens; and more.