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White Women Are Dying Prematurely

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As America’s white underclass copes with the problems that have long burdened black America, the conversation around poverty is changing.

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

Some of the consequences of white America’s opiate epidemic—a topic that has been widely explored by media outlets and social scientists—are still coming to light. Opioid use and addiction have exploded in predominantly white communities around the country, and 90 percent of new heroin users over the last decade are white.

The vast majority of those users—75 percent—first used prescription painkillers, which are prescribed to African-Americans and Hispanics with far less frequency, thanks to racial biases in medicine. Among the overwhelmingly white majority of new heroin users, the number of women doubled. That fact has specific implications for white women, particularly those of the rural working class, that come down to life and death.   [Read more…]

‘Bathroom Bills’ Don’t Help Women at All

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Instead of bullying transgender people, here are a few laws that could actually make women safer.

By Jill Richardson / OtherWords

The time has come for me to play my Woman Card.

A male Republican politician in my state of Wisconsin has introduced a “bathroom bill” like the one passed in North Carolina, which requires transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender they were assigned at birth.

He says it’s to “protect women and children.”

Oh, knight in shining armor, thank you for trying to protect me and my fellow women. But I fear you misunderstand the real issues women have in restrooms.   [Read more…]

The History of Abortion Is a History of Punishing Women

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There were just as many abortions pre-Roe as there are today. The difference was women died.

Larry Schwartz / Alternet

The issue of abortion is never very from the American consciousness. It once again bubbled to the surface recently when Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, gave voice to the obvious: if you make abortion illegal, as all the Republican candidates, including Trump, profess to want to do, then there must be punishment for having an abortion. Trump opined, “There has to be some form of punishment” for the woman. When everyone pounced, he backtracked, saying maybe only the doctors should be punished.   [Read more…]

A Mother’s Courage: The Struggle of an Asylum-Seeker in San Diego

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By Jaime Rodriguez-Sosa

The California State Refugee Service Bureau states that since 1975 California has provided refuge to 700,000 people with San Diego County being the most notable recipient of refugees in the whole state.

On average San Diego resettles 2,500 refugees per year, with areas such as City Heights being some of the most prominent areas for resettlement.

These numbers are expected to increase in the coming years with refugees from Syria being accepted to resettle in the United States. Yet numbers are often deceptive because they are abstract and difficult to grasp. As such it becomes necessary to understand individuals on a personal level, taking into account where they come from and the struggles they face in search of a new life.   [Read more…]

Feminism is Alive and Well in San Diego . . . but the Fight is Getting Harder

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On Mother’s Day, a group of about 30 women (and a couple men), some of the women mothers and some not, gathered at the Lyceum Theater to celebrate with champagne and listen to a panel of experts discuss “The (True) History of Feminism in San Diego”. The panel, assembled by the Women’s Museum of California, preceded a viewing of “Rapture, Blister, Burn”, a contemporary Pulitzer nominated play by Gina Gionfriddo – a funny and poignant feminist play running for another week that I highly recommend.

The panel, consisting of a politician, a research psychologist, both a professor and a masters student in women’s studies was moderated by Ashley Gardner, the Executive Director of the Women’s Museum.   [Read more…]

Men’s Awful Tweets To Women Sportscasters Sparks #MoreThanMean

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“One of the players should beat you to death with their hockey stick like the whore you are.”

By Abby Zimet / Common Dreams

In an often hateful and misogynistic culture, there’s likely not much worse than the mindless, profane, violent venom regularly spewed at women sportscasters by male online bullies with issues they clearly haven’t addressed and keyboards they clearly feel they can hide behind so they don’t have to.

Having had enough, two Chicago-based female sports journalists launched #MoreThanMean, a stunningly pointed and pained PSA wherein discomfited regular guys — not the Tweets’ authors and mostly friends of the video’s producers — read actual Tweets out loud to them.   [Read more…]

Teenage Girls Increasingly Requesting Labiaplasty to Get the Perfect Designer Vagina

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Very young women are going under the knife to sculpt parts that are still growing and changing.

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

Never underestimate the power of beauty myths to manufacture inadequacies where before there were none. A little over a decade ago, labiaplasty—the partial or wholesale removal of parts of the labia minora, aka the inner vaginal lips—was a relatively obscure plastic surgery, compared with nips, tucks and lifts to various other parts. In more recent years, the number of women opting for the surgery has grown exponentially. Now very young women—girls still in their teens—are requesting the procedure in numbers growing so quickly that even some practitioners are concerned.   [Read more…]

A Look at Rebecca Traister’s New Book, ‘All the Single Ladies’

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By Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos

Rebecca Traister’s new book, All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation, opens with an examination of the treatment of Anita Hill by the Senate Judiciary Committee during the hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

Rather than refute any of her charges of what came to be known as sexual harassment, the conservatives on the committee and in the media attacked Ms. Hill. It was suggested that she suffered from erotomania or had certain “proclivities” (according to William Safire, this word, used by Senator Alan Simpson, was “a code word for homosexuality”).   [Read more…]

Denim Day: Calling Attention to Rape Kits and Domestic Violence in San Diego

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Talk about timing: Ninety-eight criminal cases, most of them involving domestic violence were mishandled by the city attorney’s office, according to an investigation by the Union-Tribune…At a recent press conference, Suzanne E. Morse of Heartfelt Voices United called attention to the backlog of several thousand unprocessed rape test kits in San Diego.

Hey folks, maybe America’s Finest City has a problem in dealing with violence aginst women, the ultimate assertion of misogyny.

Independent mayoral candidate Lori Saldaña and other community leaders are urging San Diego’s elected officials to join in the observance of Denim Day on Wednesday, April 27th as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April. Maybe we should all wear denim that day.   [Read more…]

Senator Hueso’s ‘Equal Gender Pricing Bill’ Heads To State Senate Floor

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By Miriam Raftery / East County Magazine

California women and girls are spending $41 billion more than men and boys for similar products that everyone needs, according to the Senate Judiciary Committee analysis of Senate Bill 899, the “Equal Gender Pricing Bill” authored by Senator Ben Hueso (D-San Diego). Yet they earn $39 billion less than men each year.
  [Read more…]

Treasury Will Put a Woman On the $20, But the New Bill Won’t Appear Until 2030 … Or Later

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By Meteor Blades / Daily Kos

An unnamed senior federal official told CNN Saturday that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will announce this week sometime that Alexander Hamilton will remain on a newly designed $10 bill but a woman will replace Andrew Jackson on the $20. Just don’t expect to see bills with whomever that replacement is pouring out of the nation’s ATMs anytime soon.

Newly designed $5 and $10 bills will show up first. Because of the lengthy design and anti-counterfeiting measures, if Hillary Clinton becomes president and serves two terms, she’ll be long out of office by the time a woman appears on the $20—in 2030 at the earliest, according to Treasury officials …   [Read more…]

A Chat with Singer Janis Ian

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Appearing May 22nd at the Balboa Theater at a Benefit for the San Diego Human Dignity Foundation Lesbian Health Initiative

By Anne M. Haule

I had the most delightful chat with Janis Ian this morning.  Her warmth immediately calmed my nerves (in this my first celebrity interview). I felt as if I were chatting with a friend. She is upbeat, articulate, humorous and amazingly candid. She was generous with her time and forthright with her comments. She is a self-proclaimed optimist with a sparkle in her voice.

We began by talking about her 50+ year career – and what a versatile career it has been and continues to be. Janis has received 38 awards and honors for her music, her writing, her audiobooks, and her social activism.   [Read more…]

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