More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Tuesday, Nov. 7, is the last day for voters in several states to head to the polls to vote in a number of off-year elections. While they may be lower-profile, some of these races are still deeply consequential.
We’ll be watching: Ohio’s pro-abortion ballot measure; Virginia’s state legislature; the Pennsylvania supreme court race; and the Kentucky and Mississippi governors’ races.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in United States v. Rahimi, a case in which the Court will decide whether the Second Amendment prevents the government from protecting survivors of domestic violence by temporarily disarming their abusers. Invalidating this law would exacerbate an already colossal maternal and reproductive health and rights crisis in the United States and have devastating consequences.
Violence against women is a pervasive problem globally, but in the U.S., the lethal combination of intimate partner violence against women and guns is staggering. The right to life and reproductive autonomy includes the right to live free from violence at the hands of intimate partners.
The first mass shooting of the modern era occurred in Austin, Texas, on Aug. 1, 1966. Before police killed him, Charles Whitman would be responsible for the murder of 17 and the wounding of 31. But the tower murders weren’t the beginning of the carnage.
The night before, while his mother and wife were sleeping, he had already stabbed them to death. Coverage of the campus massacre virtually eclipsed the women’s stories. But Unheard Witness: The Life and Death of Kathy Leissner Whitman, by Jo Scott-Coe, aims to change that.
Ahead of Election Day on Nov. 7, I’m reflecting on the women on the ballot in our local elections, as well as my mom’s own run for political office in 2010 when I was 8.
Regardless of the election outcome, your decision to run will have a huge impact on the women around you—especially young women and girls.
Schitt’s Creek star Emily Hampshire dressed up as Johnny Depp, holding with a wine bottle, while her friend impersonated a very distressed Amber Heard—a reference to the pair’s heavily sensationalized defamation trial. You may recall when Heard broke down talking about the alleged sexual assault she endured at the hands of Depp using a wine bottle.
This is merely the most recent in a long tradition of people dressing up as famous women during their lowest moments. I’ve seen several people celebrating Halloween as a bald, disheveled Britney Spears; an inebriated Amy Winehouse; a dejected but alluring Marilyn Monroe; a bloodied Sharon Tate, paired up with her murderer Charles Manson. Why do the Bill Cosbys and Chris Browns of the world get away with it, while the victims get pelted with sticks and stones?
The threats women candidates face on the campaign trail are intentional, especially towards women of color and those serving at the state and local level who rarely receive media attention.
Attacks on women candidates and elected officials are attacks on democracy. Full stop.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. In this week’s Weekend Reading, we’ll expose the “tricks” that have haunted our democracy and celebrate the “treats” that can remove these obstacles once and for all.
Here’s a preview: Women-majority city councils (like New York City’s!) make a difference; Missouri’s supreme court is one of just 11 in the country to have a female majority; will Texas’ 12th District will elect another woman to office?; and more.
In the face of a referendum that could add a right to reproductive freedom to the Ohio constitution, state Republicans have organized a campaign to confuse voters and undermine the democratic process.
As Ohioans United started collecting signatures to make sure the Reproductive Freedom Amendment would be on the ballot in November, state Republicans started plotting. They first tried to make it more difficult to pass referenda. Thankfully, Ohio voters showed up during an August special election to defeat the amendment—by a 14-point margin. Unfazed by the loss, state Republicans embarked on a crusade to push voters away from the Reproductive Freedom Amendment.
U.S. patriarchal authoritarianism is on the rise, and democracy is on the decline. But day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. The fight is far from over. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.
Since our last report: The U.S. Coast Guard covered up an investigation of systemic sexual misconduct; a man fired two rounds from a shotgun into the front entrance of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Montana; the deadliest mass shooting in Maine’s history; some of Rep. Mike Johnson’s most eyebrow-raising beliefs; President Biden called for $16 billion in emergency childcare funding; and more.
Protect Women Ohio would like you to think it’s a “grassroots” coalition of anti-abortion momentum in Ohio. In reality, it’s fueled by millions of dollars tied to Leonard Leo—the man responsible for packing the U.S. Supreme Court with the very justices responsible for overturning Roe.