Closing the Wage Gap: It’s a Matter of Survival for Working Families

Valerie Jarrett, chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls, writes in The Washington Post: “America first put an equal-pay law on the books in 1963, when women earned 59 cents for every dollar earned by a man. While this legislation was landmar…

Witnesses Say Cops Make Rape Cases Go Away

Colleen Flaherty reports for Women’s eNews: “A woman who was robbed and sexually assaulted in 2004 wound up as a suspect in her assailant’s crime. This week she told her story at a congressional hearing into the under-reporting and poor policing of rape…

Reading Between the Lines: Women’s Poverty in the United States, 2009

Legal Momentum issued this report (PDF), which reveals: “There has been a large gender poverty gap in every year since the official poverty standard was created. In 2009, adult woman were 32 percent more likely to be poor than adult men, with a poverty…

Five Myths about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

Aaron Belkin writes in The Washington Post: “It’s been 17 years since Congress enacted the law known as ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ (DADT), and the Senate will finally vote on its repeal this week. . . . On the long path to regulations that treat all troops…

Congo Rapes Spotlight New ‘Conflict Minerals’ Law

Joe Lauria reports for Women’s eNews: “The recent mass rapes in a mineral-rich area of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo underscore the urgency of a new U.S. law to certify consumer goods free of ‘conflict minerals’ tied to the violence. The law may b…