Marissa Alexander’s plea deal provides a large measure of relief to her family and her supporters in Florida and around the globe. But it is not the justice she deserved. She should never have been prosecuted in the first place.
In 2010, Scott Roeder was sentenced to 50 years in prison for the 2009 murder of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller. But that doesn’t mean he’s given up his hobby of threatening abortion providers. Roeder is now in a court battle with the Kansas Department of Corrections, arguing that they violated his freedom of speech rights when they disciplined him for making threats against Julie Burkhart, the woman who reopened an abortion clinic in the Wichita location where Tiller’s clinic used to be.
The media tells women, communities of color, and LGBTQIA individuals that they are not worthy of being anything other than a sidekick because no one like them is ever the protagonist of a story worth telling. Rather than being representative and producing an inclusive culture, visual media outlets are constructing a culture of exclusion dominated by the thin, the white, and the male.
Faces of Feminism: Strength in Diversity Conference Agenda Thursday, June 26 Time Activity 3:00 pm – 8:00 pm Registration Friday, June 27 Time Activity 8:30 am – 5:00 pm Registration 8:30 am – 4:30 pm Ask NOW Kiosk 8:30 am – 12:00 pm: Field Department 2:15 pm – 4:30 pm: Communications Department 9:00 am – Read more …
Following up on Part One we continue with additional information about what’s happening around the country that would depress voter turnout for the upcoming mid-term election. Of particular concern are tactics that would hinder electing feminist candidates for public office. We provide information on voting requirements in specific states and resources for activists who plan to help build the turnout of the Rising American Electorate – single women, persons of color and youth – for the November 4 general election.
Today, August 26th marks Women’s Equality Day. It is also a little more than two months from the 2014 midterm elections. In my mind, these two things are inextricably linked.
The central tenet of reproductive justice is that every woman has the right to have children, not have children, and to parent the children we have in safe and healthy environments.
Jeffrey Gettleman writes for the New York Times: “In front of an overflowing courtroom in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, a panel of five judges announced that the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which punishes some homosexual behavior with life in prison, was invalid because it had been passed by Parliament without a proper quorum.”
Two and a half weeks ago, I was thrilled to open the annual conference of the National Organization for Women in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Albuquerque felt like the perfect place to meet up with activists and map out action plans to move the feminist agenda forward. Just a year ago, the women of Albuquerque formed an emergency coalition, Respect ABQ Women, to fight against a dangerous municipal anti-abortion ballot measure.
On May 1, Brunei, a small country of about 415,000 people neighboring Malaysia, implemented a series of brutal laws targeting women and members of the LGBT community.