When Virginia O’Connell joined the police force in 1967, women made up only 1 percent of the NYPD. Six decades later, 19 percent of officers at the NYPD are women; the national average is 12 percent, a number that’s remained stagnant since the 1990s—despite research that shows that on average, female officers use less force and achieve equal if not better outcomes.
Tag: Women and Policing
Reimagining Child Welfare: The Ms. Q&A with Dorothy Roberts, Host of Podcast ‘Torn Apart’
Professor Dorothy Roberts worked for decades to try to fix the child welfare system—but she came to the understanding that the system could not be fixed: It had to be abolished. Ms. sat down with her to discuss how abolishing the child welfare system is an issue of reproductive justice for women and their families, and the importance of educating about the injustices of the child welfare system.
All episodes of Torn Apart are available here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Weaponizing the Law to Punish People for Miscarriage
A legal system that recognizes fetal personhood punishes people for their pregnancy outcomes and strips them of their rights in the name of protecting the fetus. One striking recent example comes from Texas, where the state Supreme Court recently ruled that Kate Cox could not have an emergency, life-saving abortion. And in October, an Ohio woman was charged with a felony after her miscarriage.
Miscarriage is normal. Subjecting people who have miscarriages to criminal punishment is needlessly cruel, counterproductive, and relies on a legal understanding that pregnant people are a lesser class of person.
‘Torn Apart’: Ms. Magazine Podcast Shows How the U.S. Welfare System Destroys Black Families
On Monday, Ms. Studios is dropping a brand-new podcast: Torn Apart: Abolishing Family Policing and Reimagining Child Welfare, hosted by Dorothy Roberts, which investigates how the U.S. child welfare system destroys Black families.
Over four episodes, Professor Roberts brings listeners front and center with the oppressive child protection system and what we need to do to reimagine child welfare.
Google Improves Flagging of Fake Abortion Clinic Ads—But ‘There’s Much More To Be Done,’ Say Advocates
As states pass ever-expanding abortion restrictions and people search online for how to find abortion services, reproductive rights advocates are fighting false abortion information online and encountering headwinds with promoting their own accurate, science-based information on social media.
25 U.S. Senators Urge Biden to Issue Executive Order Protecting Abortion Rights: ‘An All-Hands-on-Deck Moment’
With the Supreme Court likely to overturn Roe v. Wade any day now, Senators Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and 23 of their Senate colleagues are urging President Biden to “demonstrate to the country and women everywhere that you will do everything in your power to fight back.”
Woman Arrested for Abortion in Texas, Held on Half-Million-Dollar Bond: ‘This Arrest Is Inhumane’
On Thursday, April 7, Texas police arrested a woman and charged her with murder for allegedly self-inducing an abortion using pills. The woman, 26-year old Lizelle Herrera who lives near the Texas-Mexico border, is being held in Starr County jail on a $500,000 bond.
The murder charge is an extreme and unprecedented misuse of Texas law that is in direct conflict with the constitutional right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Texas does not have a law that makes self-inducing an abortion a crime (three states do—Oklahoma, South Carolina and Nevada). Two recent laws restricting abortion in the state—Senate Bill 8 and Senate Bill 4—explicitly exempt pregnant women.
The Power of Women in Iran, Standing Up to the Morality Police
I was 16, on a trip to visit my family in Iran, when I was stopped and arrested by two morality guards. They plucked me off the street, loaded me into their car, and took me to the local station. My crime? I had my hair uncovered, showing it to their male gaze.
I still remember the searing mix of emotions that is familiar to millions of Iranian women who are arrested every year for this “offense.” But now, through social media, mobile apps, weblogs and websites, a growing movement of Iranian women are actively participating in public discourse and exercising their civil rights on the internet, which the patriarchal and misogynistic government has not yet figured out how to completely censor and control.
Texas Set to Execute Melissa Lucio Despite Credible Claims of Innocence
Texas plans to put Melissa Lucio to death on April 27, which would make her the sixth woman executed in the U.S. in the last decade and the first Hispanic woman in Texas history. Lucio was convicted of murder in 2008 for the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Mariah, which she and her family claim was instead a tragic accident. Her attorneys are fighting to overturn her conviction and set aside her execution date based on her continued innocence claims and other procedural issues.
“Research shows prosecutors frequently trivialize women’s experiences as victims of gender-based violence when they are charged with crimes,” said Sandra Babcock, director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and one of Lucio’s attorneys. “Yet Melissa was a victim long before she was a defendant.”
As a Black American, I Am Tired. We Are Tired.
When I woke up on Tuesday, Feb. 1, I found myself scrolling through Instagram and seeing every other post celebrating Black History Month—from brands and organizations to politicians and friends in my feed. Three days later, in the early hours of the morning, Minneapolis police killed Amir Locke in his sleep while serving a no-knock warrant—the same type police used to kill Breonna Taylor in her sleep, and the same Minneapolis police that killed George Floyd in 2020 in front of all of our eyes. As I tried to understand why I was feeling incredibly cynical, I realized the reason: I am tired. We are tired.
Yet, despite being tired, we must keep going. We have to keep fighting. We have to keep organizing. Together we must continue to press forward, turning pain into purpose and purpose into power.