More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: U.S. women’s soccer team officially secures equal pay; Black women win big at the Emmys; how ranked-choice voting would help women candidates compete in New York City; and more.
Nations of the world have taken giant steps in recent decades to build international structures and strengthen institutions to deal with mass human rights abusers. At almost every stage, Navi Pillay, a South African lawyer, was there, advancing the rights of political detainees and the protection and status of women.
Just weeks before the midterm elections, Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S. C.) and Chris Smith (N.J.) introduced a nationwide ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy. The move was a reversal for Graham, who recently said abortion regulation should be left to the individual states. Democratic members of Congress and abortion advocates condemned the proposed legislation.
Immediately after the draft opinion in Dobbs leaked in May, Republican lawmakers and anti-abortion activists announced they were working on legislation to ban abortion nationwide. But Catholics For Life (CFL), impatient to achieve that goal sooner, have asked the Supreme Court to do just that in a petition filed on September 1. CFL is asking the Court to ban abortion nationwide by ruling that “unborn human beings” have full constitutional rights.
If the Court rules in their favor, they will undoubtedly also rule that these “persons” have rights greater than any born person has: namely the right to inhabit and use a woman’s body against her will.
In 1976, in the pages of Ms. magazine, Sheila Tobias explored the topic of “math anxiety:” the tendency of women to avoid mathematics as it became more difficult, which stemmed, in part, from gender roles in academia.
“A culture that makes math ability a masculine attribute, that punishes women for doing well in math, and that soothes the slower math learner by telling her she does not have a ‘mathematical mind.'”
We must remind the country what a nation without any safe, legal abortion access looks like. We must remind our lawmakers what women’s lives without abortion access look like—and the devastating ways in which an end to abortion access is an end to our freedom. We are fighting for Roe with our own stories. We are daring to remember.
Submit your story by emailing myabortionstory@msmagazine.com
Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms.. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.
This week: Scotland paves way for period poverty movement; volunteers provide menstrual products in Pakistan, amid floods; Pride marches in Poland; Spain passes “yes means yes” consent law; and more.
Last week the California legislature passed a bill providing groundbreaking digital privacy protections for abortion-related communications sent through California tech companies. Assembly Bill 1242, introduced by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), bars telecommunications companies in California from providing records of digital communications related to abortion to law enforcement officials.
“California continues to provide a blueprint for what is possible when policy centers people, equity, science and medicine; and trusts each person to make the best decisions for themselves and their family about their healthcare options.”
Michigan Court of Claims Judge Elizabeth Gleicher ruled last week that the state’s 1931 abortion ban violates the Michigan Constitution.
In a forceful, 39-page order permanently blocking the law, Gleicher ruled that the abortion ban violated both the due process and equal protection clauses of the state Constitution. She rejected Republicans’ argument that pregnancy is not an intrusion on women’s bodies: “Bodily autonomy is inherent to human dignity” and “eliminating abortion access will force pregnant women to forgo control of the integrity of their own bodies.”
The American immigration system is plagued by systemic gender inequality. Like many of the other failings in U.S. legislation and policy, the text of the law appears to be gender-neutral on the surface. The outcome is anything but equal.