More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom’s announcement to run for Alaska’s one seat in the House of Representatives; Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) has launched a campaign to run for governor, hoping to succeed Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin; the Voter Choice Act would help local and state elections implement ranked-choice voting; and more.
As Joan Baez, one of my favorite songwriters/performers/activists from my political ‘coming of age’ era, once said, “Action is the antidote to despair.”
Tuesday, Nov. 7, is Election Day in the United States, and voting is one action we can all take as U.S. citizens—and a privilege for every person living in a democratic country—to fend off the despair so easily experienced given the wars, the violence, and the rollback on rights in so many places today.
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.
While the U.S. is making slow progress toward political parity, other countries are making more significant gains over time.
This month, RepresentWomen released the Golden Year Analysis, which identified the factors influencing global progress toward gender parity in politics in 2021 and 2022. Of 85 countries that held elections in these years, 43 achieved a “golden year” by electing a record-high number of women to their national legislatures.
While this is certainly cause for celebration, gender-balanced governance remains far from reach for many countries, including the United States.
As a young girl in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iran, I never expected to be fighting for democracy in the United States.
We are linguistic and ethnic strangers, yet we are family and are at home in the United States. And we are one among many here. That spirit of welcome is the spirit that should propel us toward the new democracy we want—and need. It’s what should animate us as we build a new democracy that we can all call home.
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) are the fastest growing racial group in the U.S. and a powerful voting bloc. Yet, they remain underrepresented in almost every industry, including politics.
AAPI voters feel ignored and overlooked by both political parties. And there are only two AAPI senators—Mazie Hirono and Tammy Duckworth—and 19 representatives currently serving at the federal level. There have only been six AAPI governors in the history of the U.S., none of whom are currently in office.
Electing Asian American and Pacific Islanders isn’t just about visibility; it leads to better policies, better lives and improved livelihoods. Investing in AAPI organizing and representation can’t wait.
Civil rights groups and voting organizations are in federal court challenging a Texas law that makes it harder to vote, especially for people of color and those with disabilities. Over the course of the trial, which goes until late October, counsel will show how Senate Bill 1 violates the Constitution, the Voting Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
While SB 1 is one of many anti-democracy laws enacted by 19 states in the year after the 2020 election, it stands out for its sheer number of restrictive and discriminatory provisions, which largely target Latino and Black voters. This is likely the only challenge to such an extensive restrictive voting law that will go to trial between now and the 2024 election.
For the first time, a former president is facing criminal charges for a wide-ranging conspiracy to thwart American democracy. In painstaking detail, the indictment recounts Trump’s scheme “to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud.” Regardless of how the case proceeds, one thing is already clear: the attacks on our democracy did not end on January 6, 2021.
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.
This week: At least 20 states have enacted some kind of ban on transgender care for minors; appeals judge tries to overturn FDA approval of mifepristone; Democrats urge Biden to further pursue student loan forgiveness; three Black residents killed in Jacksonville by white supremacist; educators sue Idaho for banning discussion of abortion in class; FDA approves RSV vaccine for pregnant patients; Montana judge ruled in favor of young environmentalists; South Carolina Supreme Court reinstitutes abortion ban; “when we allow efforts to fight racism to be framed as racism itself, loss of life is not far behind”; and more.
Black voters in Alabama won a major victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in June, after the Court ruled that Republican lawmakers violated the Voting Rights Act when they redrew the state’s congressional map after the 2020 census and failed to create a second Black district. If you stopped watching there, you might be forgiven for thinking that Alabama, thoroughly chastened, would have quickly gone about redrawing its congressional map to add a second district “in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it.” But no.
With control of the U.S. House on the line in 2024, Republicans are fighting for every last gerrymandered seat.
