More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Our focus is on building the leadership capacity and political power of Black people and women. But we are struck by the complementary activism taking place in the arts to underscore this moment in history and to inspire progress.
Broadway’s Tony-nominated POTUS, Natalie Moore’s The Billboard and Molly Smith’s upcoming Arena Stage production, My Body No Choice, remind us to trust women as we collectively work to get our republic back on track.
The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law on Tuesday by President Biden, will benefit women for years to come.
The new law will limit the amount Medicare recipients have to pay out of pocket for drugs to $2,000 annually—a major benefit for older women, because they’re the majority of older Americans. The bill also empowers the Health and Human Services Secretary to negotiate prices for drugs covered under Medicare, and punish pharmaceutical companies that don’t play by the rules. Younger women below Medicare age will also benefit from other provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, like subsidies that cover medical insurance premiums.
On Friday, President Joseph Biden issued an executive order to protect reproductive rights after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the Dobbs decision.
Biden’s executive order first directs HHS to take actions to protect and expand access to abortion medications regulated by the FDA. It also aims to ensure the reproductive health of people accessing care in federally-funded facilities. The order directs HHS to ensure enforcement of the Affordable Care Act’s guarantee of free birth control and contraceptive counseling for individuals and covered dependents, including emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraception like IUDs.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: celebrating AAPI women leaders and exploring AAPI women’s representation; most countries provide part-time childcare access from the age of 3; Senate confirms Lisa Cook to the Federal Reserve Board; in the workplace, “the selection of incompetent men over competent women is the number one problem we need to fix”; and more.
When school went online during COVID lockdowns, Kimberly Vasquez’s unreliable WiFi started to hinder her schoolwork. Her grade point average dropped but her family could only afford the low-cost plan that wasn’t suitable for remote learning.
Vasquez, joined by Yashira Valenzuela and Aliyah Abid, organized to petition Comcast to make their plans faster and more economical for low-income families. After rallying at Comcast headquarters, the city’s largest provider made the most affordable option for internet run at twice the speed.
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia joined all Republicans to oppose a bill that would effectively codify the right to an abortion across the U.S.
Last fall, America was featured for the first time on a list of backsliding democracies. With inadequate progress in women’s participation in government, reproductive rights, and maternal mortality, this title may reflect recent attacks on gender equality. America’s longstanding and abysmal record on myriad gender equity markers has been the true harbinger for our downgraded democracy status.
Caregiving is an essential and difficult profession, yet it is written off as “women’s work” and severely undervalued.
This Women’s History Month, let’s break gender-based economic barriers with the same enthusiasm with which we cheer for women who’ve broken glass ceilings. Let’s demand a federal economic policy that centers women—and honors the work of the unknown women of history whose caregiving labor was ignored and nearly forgotten.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: About 70 of the world’s 193 countries have ever had a female head of state; the Center for American Women and Politics will being disaggregating data by race and ethnicity; men still outnumber women by two to one in positions of power; the need to meet the needs of caregivers; register for RepresentWomen’s Democracy Solutions Summit; feminist must-reads; and more.
Start your engines, organize your campaign and submit your filing paperwork, ladies—because now is the time to run. Women are critically underrepresented in government, regardless of the level or branch.
Female candidates should be motivated, too. The last two election cycles marked record-breaking numbers of women running for office and ultimately winning. Research in political science (like the work of Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox) shows that when women run, they win—but they do not run as often as men do. This disparity in declaring candidacies leads to the gender gap in politics. A government “of the people, by the people, for the people” must include the people who aren’t men.
