By Suzanne E. Morse/ Heartfelt Voices United
There is a hidden number in San Diego, one that barely anyone ever speaks about. That Number: 2,873. What is that number?
As of June, 2015, that is the amount of rape kits that lie unprocessed in storage facilities in San Diego, backlogged. That means there are 2,873 rape victims that have never received justice. And that upsets me. Does it upset you? [Read more…]
By Leah Schroeder
March was a month for deep reflection for a lot of us women on the question, “how far have we come?” A plethora of articles and books are available that discuss this question, and dissect the variety ways in which women are still subjugated in all societies. There are so many controversial, frustrating, and generally negative circumstances I could write or rant about.
It’s easy to become angry at how “The System” (patriarchy, misogyny, menstrual cycles, racism, you catch my drift) has been set up against marginalized groups for millennia. Sometimes, this anger is consuming. For example, when reading about how an African American woman was (allegedly) gang-raped by men on the lacrosse team at a prestigious, majority white university (cite). Among other things, gender-based violence occurs all over the world, a lot more often than many people think.
The historical and deeply systematic subjugation and de-humanization of women that still prevails in many ways today can really get you down. However, there’s also a growing sensation of power that comes with education and the knowledge gained from women in the past and present. [Read more…]
By Chiara Capraro, Francesca Rhodes / OpenDemocracy.Net
The world is talking about tax this week, so here’s another tax story for you. Asana Abugre has a small shop in Accra, Ghana where she makes and sells batiks and tie-dyed textiles. Asana pays her taxes regularly. Women like her, working in markets across the city, sometimes pay up to 37% of their income in tax. Tax collectors come to their shops to collect taxes, and there is no chance of them not paying, regardless of how little money they might have made that day.
Of course, this isn’t the tax story that everyone’s been talking about. The release of the Panama Papers by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is the biggest data leak in history, and this time it’s some of the world’s most powerful people who have cause to worry, with the spotlight finally falling on their own secretive tax arrangements.
But the two stories are linked. When those at the top of the economic pyramid find ways to pay little or no tax, the impact is felt hardest by those at the bottom – people like Asana. [Read more…]
The culture wars aimed at dividing the nation are once again prominent in the media. Having lost battles in the courts and in the arena of public opinion, extremists have turned to state legislatures mired in the stone ages, thanks in large part to partisan gerrymandering.
Mississippi is the latest state to enact legislation allowing religious groups and private businesses to deny services to gay and transgender people in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court ruling effectively legalizing same-sex marriage.
Schools and companies would be allowed to set “sex-specific standards or policies concerning employee or student dress or grooming.” In other words, women could be told not to wear pants in Mississippi. [Read more…]
By Anne Haule / Musings of a Boomer Feminist
Lately there has been a lot of negative press about Planned Parenthood. Recently I wore pink and “stood with Planned Parenthood”. This got me musing about the past and a very special second-hand experience I had with Planned Parenthood in Chicago about 20 years ago.
My memory of that day is vivid. It was a beautiful crisp fall day as only Chicago can have with its bright blue sky, puffy white clouds, and tree-lined street of orange, red and yellow leaves.
I had just arrived home from an otherwise unremarkable day at my law office.
As I opened the door and said, “I’m home”, Lindy and my daughter came out of the kitchen carrying a tray with a teapot, mugs, and cookies. They each hugged me and then we all sat down to have some tea.
By Larry Schwartz / AlterNet
The issue of abortion is never very far 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…]
By Carrie Weisman / AlterNet
In 1995, cultural anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler wrote a book called Breastfeeding: Bicultural Perspectives. Her research took her to Mali, West Africa, where she attempted to explain the western eroticization of breasts. Those she fell into conversation with regarded the behavior as “unnatural,” even “perverted.” They seemed to have a hard time believing that “men would become sexually aroused by women’s breasts, or that women would find such activities pleasurable.”
Years earlier, anthropologist Clellan Ford and ethnologist Frank Beach conducted a study of 191 cultures. The pair found that breasts were considered sexually important in only 13 of those cultures, and of those, just nine preferred large breasts. If you’re reading this from Anywhere, America, you might join me in assuming the U.S. was one of them. [Read more…]
By Bree Davis
International Women’s Day is a global celebration to recognize the women of the world. Af3irm, a leading political feminist organization that has many chapters throughout of California, is the organization that put the march together in downtown Los Angeles this year. The focus of the March 5 celebration was different issues among transnational women of color.
The rally started out strategically in front of the Downtown L.A. Police Department with speakers and musicians. Supporters of the #blacklivesmatter movement were there and even went as far as to call out the LAPD and their racist police officers and how racial profiling needs to end. Other people came to talk and support the trans+ community, Muslim community, Asian community, and reproductive justice, along with other issues that face women of color. [Read more…]
By Kate Stringer / Yes! Magazine
Marla Smith-Nilson has completed more than 1,500 water sanitation projects as founder and executive director of Water1st International, but there’s a moment she still anticipates at the completion of each one.
At every ribbon-cutting ceremony for new groundwater wells, a woman from the community—whether in Bangladesh, Honduras, Ethiopia, or India—stands on stage with a large pot that has served as her companion during daily, mile-long treks to the river. Sometimes the woman is young. Sometimes she’s as old as 75. She raises the pot over her head and shouts “I will never carry this again!” before smashing it to the ground where it explodes into shards.
The community laughs as the pot shatters, but it’s the women in the crowd who feel the most relief. As primary caregivers, many women in poorer countries are responsible for trekking miles to collect water and fuel. When climate change depletes water, women notice first. Water is a climate change issue, and climate change is a women’s issue. [Read more…]
By Brett Warnke
On the trip to Brooklyn, there is a large sign that says “OY.” From another perspective it also spells “YO,” an insider joke to the division of the borough between the Jewish and African-American diaspora population. Christopher Wallace (“Biggie Smalls”) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (“The Notorious RBG,”) both were born and raised in Brooklyn. Both grew up in families without much money. And both had to gain respect in a world that had marginalized them.
Just as Justice Stevens was the best decision to come out of the mediocre Gerald Ford administration, RBG was undoubtedly Bill Clinton’s only decision that has had a progressive result.
President Clinton’s goal was to find someone who, when their name was uttered, said, “Yes. Wow. A home run.” [Read more…]
By Krizia Puig
Every Saturday, a big group of mixed people gathers there to protect the women who go to the clinic. The Catholic protesters who harass the women use red shirts that say “Life Guard” while the other group uses yellow shirts that identify us as patient escorts. Each group is strategically waiting in specific spots of the parking lot and when a car arrives, the actual battle begins. [Read more…]
By Sher Watts Spooner / Daily Kos
In 2016, it’s hard to imagine a time when women in the United States weren’t allowed to vote. Yet it’s been less than a century in this country—and even less than that in other places around the globe—since women weren’t allowed to have a voice at the polls.
Women (well, white women, anyway) received the right to vote on a national scale with the final adoption of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Some Western states had given women the vote earlier, as did a few other countries in the 1800s. Women in South Australia, Finland, Denmark, Germany, and elsewhere received voting rights before U.S. women did. The United Kingdom had a widespread women’s suffrage movement and enacted full women’s suffrage in 1928.
Throughout the 20th century, many countries followed the franchise lead by giving women the vote. The United Nations-backed women’s suffrage after World War II, and in 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women adopted suffrage as a basic right, with 189 countries signing on. Women even voted in Saudi Arabia for the first time in 2015. [Read more…]
