Showing posts with label War On Women. Show all posts

We Are Woman is proud to be an official partner of the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017!

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We Are Woman is proud to be an official partner of the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017! 


Together, we will send the message loud and clear that women's rights are human rights! We will NOT go back!

WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER! 
UNITE, RESIST and ORGANIZE!

We stand in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families - recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country. 

Can't make it to DC? Find a Sister March in your area!
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It's Time to Play Offense to Protect Women's Rights

By Lisa Wirthman of The Denver Post
POSTED:   07/20/2014 05:01:00 PM MDT


"It's not all about a woman's uterus. But having a uterus shouldn't prevent women from being able to participate equally in the workforce and support our families. It's time to play offense to make sure our daughters can do the same."         - Lisa Wirthman

(J. Scott Applewhite, The Associated Press)
In the war on women, women have been losing. Besieged with a wave of laws restricting reproductive freedoms, defeats on fair pay legislation, and the Supreme Court's recent decision to exempt employers from providing contraceptive coverage, women have been playing defense for too long.

Thankfully, that tide is turning, and Colorado is playing a leading role in a growing women's movement to take the offensive on protecting their reproductive rights.

Growing up with increasing access to education and jobs, today's generation of women took for granted many of the freedoms our mothers and grandmothers won for us in the 1960s and 70s. The Equal Pay Act in 1963 and the Civil Rights Act in 1964 banned gender discrimination in the workplace. But laws forbidding women to prevent conception (such as in Connecticut and seven other states) still made it difficult for women to enter the workforce.

Landmark Supreme Court decisions in 1965 and 1973 dramatically changed women's economic prospects by upholding their right to use birth control and have safe and legal abortions. With the ability to control their childbearing decisions, women flooded the workforce, and began to pursue advanced degrees that opened doors to careers in medicine, law, and business.

Today, women vote in greater numbers, control some 75 percent of household purchases, and hold the majority of college degrees. Individually, we exercise our rights to control our bodies, our families, and our careers. But collectively, we lack strength when those rights are threatened.

With just 19 percent of the seats in Congress, five governorships and a third of the Supreme Court, women still lack political power. That became painfully clear when conservatives swept the mid-term elections in 2010. Since then, state legislatures have passed over 200 anti-abortion restrictions — more than the previous 10 years combined.

Inundated by the wave of attacks, and underrepresented in the political arena, women began to play defense by staging protests on the steps of statehouses across the country, and fighting to block the offensive laws in court. But the Supreme Court's recent Hobby Lobby decision reminded women that we're outnumbered in the judiciary branch as well, with all three female justices strongly dissenting from a majority opinion penned by five white men.

Ironically, it was one of those five male justices who pointed the way for women to fight back. In 2010, Justice Antonin Scalia said the Constitution doesn't guarantee equal rights for women. "If the current society wants to outlaw sex discrimination, hey, we have legislatures," he said.


Lisa Wirthman of Highlands Ranch is a monthly columnist for The Denver Post. Follow her on Twitter: @Lisa Wirthman.

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Senator Mike Lee and Recreational Sex


Think Progress reported that during an appearance on Sirus XM’s The Wilkow Majority, show host Andrew Wilkow argued that the real question in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., was about “whether or not a person who runs a business should be forced to provide something that is largely for recreational behavior, if it goes against their religious beliefs.”

Lee answered, “Yeah, that’s right, that’s right,” before he said  that “this administration is using the often coercive power of the federal government to force people into their way of being and their way of existing, their way of believing and thinking and acting.”

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Excerpts from Liberal Unite
Author: Kimberley Johnson

Kimberley will be a speaker at the We Are Woman Constitutional Day Rally in Washington D.C. on September 13th, 2014. Visit the Rally Hub for more information.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) 
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A Big Thank You to Sandra Fluke!




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Vote Like a Girl Guide

From Women: Rise Up Now: "We’ve tried to assemble as many resources as we could in one place ... the “Vote Like A Girl Guide” is chock full of active links to check out your state’s voter ID laws, the records of your representatives, and what to do if you get turned away at the polls. It also contains a printable Get Out the Vote poster, voter registration forms, and download links to some nifty swag that we created just for this!"

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Inspirational Video With Darcy Burner


Darcy Burner gives a keynote at the Friday mid-day plenary, "2012 and the War on (and for) Women" Netroots Nation 2012 in Providence, Rhode Island. She outlines some of the strategies women can take over the next year.

Darcy Burner is the Democratic candidate for U.S. Representative from Washington's 1st District. Please visit her website at: http://darcyburner.com/


A special thanks to Penelope Duby for bringing this video to our attention!

Also See: Recap: 2012 and the War on (and for) Women

"The right-wing is attacking Darcy Burner's Netroots Nation speech and her support for women's rights. Let's stand with her. Please consider donating to her campaign." Click Here

Darcy Burner On the Issues:







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Women, Wake Up!

By Guest Writer Margarita Mercure Hibbs

'When Jimmy Kimmel said, "This just wasn't Rick's year. 1954 is Rick Santorum's year." He is not kidding. The GOP wants to take women back to the 1950's and strip us of all our civic, healthcare/reproductive and labor rights!

Every woman's and Democratic organization better start hosting Voting Guide Open Houses with good hard copy articles, resourced charts and good training and candidate DVDs to go along with good food and drink to get them to understand the importance of voting. Too many of all voting age women are not even registered to vote!

Time to break out the template of presentations that Mary Kay Cosmetics uses. If they can sell makeup in an informal, cozy fashion in small groups of women 6-12, around a kitchen table or living room, then surely we can get them to see the importance of voting.  It is good to see Organizing for America doing something like this. Otherwise, women are going to find themselves without hard fought rights, freedoms and opportunity.'

I posted my opinion above and apparently a few men found it offensive. For this offense, I received two private messages telling me some very unpleasant things and another, quoted P.J. O'Rourke, of all people in the Conservative Realm, as an attempt to equate what a huge majority of women view as civil rights and freedoms, to "rations of slavery and human cattle"?! How charming?

After more than 1000 bills and proposed legislation in states and in the GOP Controlled House, if people really believe that Women do not have a legitimate reason to feel under attack, then this whole discussion is too ridiculous to even pursuit. Romney has stated along with his Extreme Right members of his party, that they have more than business, profits and a deficit on their agenda. Remember, he and his fellow Presidential hopefuls signed Pledges to "Personhood" and Grover Norquist.

Thanks to the many miles of video tape, we have a really good picture about what Romney intends to do from the perspective of his great expertise as a "Gordon Gecko" Corporate Raider with regards to the economy. Let us not forget, all the Chicken Hawk FOX Pundits ranting to push us into war with Iran, as if we don't know that this is nothing more than a craven pursuit for military industrial profits, at the expense of our sons' and daughters' lives.  While they hold down investment in rebuilding our own country and press for more and more tax breaks, they ask us to forget that tax revenue is our government's income.

Most of us women have to balance our household budgets every day and know that when we don't have enough income, we can't pay our bills.  When we don't take care of our credit rating, we have to pay more for our credit.  The GOP showed us that they are irresponsible in their spending when they are in control of the purse strings, especially if they own the White House, Congress and Senate and last year's Deficit Battle and the resulting S&P rating was proof of their ignorance or arrogance in managing our country's credit rating.

As women, many of us know quite well what that means and has meant to us from businessmen like Romney. You see, we don't hate wealth or wealthy people.  We hate greed that is bathed in craven indifference to the struggling, elderly, disabled and poor. We are working our asses off in a stark economy, that has been created and made worse by too many Corporate CEOs who focused on Profits to Shareholders and principals, over working people for the last 30 years.  Because of corporate types like Romney and Carly Fiorina, we have seen our manufacturing jobs shipped overseas for cheaper labor while demonizing organized Labor and walking away with Golden Parachutes; Wall Street Lobbyists bought our Congress and Senate to legislate in their favor, on taxes, trade and special access.

Do not insult our intelligence or frayed nerves by telling us that President Obama is a socialist, fascist or Nazi.  This is a Republic rooted in Democratic representation.  This is not a Dictatorship.  So as much as I want President Obama to be more liberal and progressive, he is not.  Sadly we are all too aware of how broken our government is now that some of the mega wealthy and Extreme Right are just plain greedy and don't want to pay their fair share of taxes.

The Extreme Right along with Wall Street, have also worked systematically to rig the lobbying, voting laws and the Courts while exploiting the many in our ranks through their faith communities.  They claim that the poor should know the dignity of work, as if the poor don't want to work.  They say that they represent Christ's greatest mandates; Feed the Poor, Clothe the Naked, Love One Another and then through hypocritical representatives such as Catholic Cardinal's threaten not to do these things because they oppose Birth Control coverage to their female employees.

It is an indisputable fact that the GOP has taken our country and economy to the very brink of more financial disaster, simply because they hate President Obama more than they love their country and their people.  He has been obstructed since the first day after the Inauguration.  There are miles and miles of documentation to prove this intent; "Our goal is to make sure that President Obama is a One Term President.  We will not compromise or collaborate on anything!  We want President Obama to fail!"

While raising children or not raising children, often working 2 or more jobs, we women have no intention of going back to Pre-Roe vs. Wade, simply because we are desperate to keep our jobs or businesses. But it is very clear that they also now think that we should not have access to birth control on the same par as men have to Viagra and Cialis, as part of a healthcare prescription plan. Nor will we let slip the attacks on Planned Parenthood. pay parity and redefinitions of Rape be changed to accommodate male chauvinism and control over our vaginas.  Birth Control is still the most effective way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

As you may have noticed, the "Marvelous Ryan Plan" includes a great many callous cuts to programs that help disabled, elderly, working families, poor women and children. For Romney and his GOP, sanctity for human life only applies to the babies in uteri. For the record, even though I happily acknowledge the many good fathers who raise their own children, you know very well, that it is the women who still do the majority of child rearing. If Romney and Ryan get their way, this will be all the harder.

If you are a woman or you love women and are not registered to vote, please register.  If you care about the War on Women and equal rights, please sign the petitions to support the Equal Rights Amendment http://equalrightsamendment.org/ and get involved in the National Organization for Women at http://www.now.org/, We Are Woman at http://www.wearewoman.us/ and Progressive Democrats of America at http://www.pdamerica.org/.  Contact your Congressman or woman and tell them how you feel about their actions and remind them that they work for us, not Corporate America.


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Call Out for Artists: Backlash On Womens Basic Rights and Freedoms

OPEN CALL FOR ENTRIES 

APPLY HERE


SOHO20 Gallery Chelsea presents BackLash

BACKLASH  / On women’s basic rights & freedoms

An exhibition addressing the current political climate towards women.  
SOHO2O Gallery Chelsea is a non-profit artist run gallery that has been promoting the work of women artists since 1973 through gallery exhibitions and public programming.  This non-juried exhibition is open to both men and women artists working in all media.

Open Call: In response to the incredible increasing tension against providing women with basic healthcare needs and the ensuing media firestorm, which demonizes women, Soho20 Gallery Chelsea is hosting a venue for outrage. Backlash is in response to this ‘war on women’s basic rights and freedoms.’ We are accepting submissions of art that address this theme. Work will be accepted in order of receiving.

DEADLINE: Friday June 1, 2012 at midnight

ELIGIBILITY: Open to all artists. Must be 18 years or older.

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War on Women: GOP will kill before allowing abortions

By: Erin Nanasi
From: Mad Mike's America

"Kansas and Arizona are trying to pass one of the most stringent and dishonest pieces of anti-choice legislation in the country."



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Florida: Unite Women Rally Highlights Equal Rights Amendment

Florida is one of the states that has not yet ratified the Equal Rights Amendment but there is a lot of action going on there. Please see our post, "Wouldn't it be nice if we had an amendment?" for more information on the ERA and the National Equal Rights Amendment Alliance, one of the groups that is featured in the following video.





Feeling inspired? Please sign our petition to let Congress know that we have not forgotten the Equal Rights Amendment.


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State Marches Inspire Women to Keep Fighting

By: Jessica DelBalzo


Yesterday, progressive men and women across the nation joined forces to rally and march against the War on Women.  UniteWomen.org volunteers coordinated events in 45 states and the District of Columbia, featuring speakers from a variety of diverse organizations including NOW, Catholics for Choice, the Center for Inquiry, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights, the National ERA Alliance, and many, many others.  

Although I'm from New Jersey, I chose to attend the rally in DC.  I admit that I'm guilty of accepting any and all excuses to visit my favorite city, but my main motivation for traveling was that I felt it was exceptionally important to help create a sizable presence outside the U.S. Capitol.  I was very happy with my choice.  The event was well-organized, the speakers were passionate and inspiring, and the crowd came through with loud voices, bold signs, good humor, and plenty of enthusiasm.  


I loved that in DC - and I hope this was true around the nation - so many different groups were represented.  Our speakers were male and female, religious and non-religious, caucasian and POC, straight and GLBTQ, younger and older, students and professionals, experienced activists and passionate newbies, joining forces to illustrate that the War on Women is something we all need to fight.

Perhaps my favorite take-away from the event was something several speakers mentioned: the fact that without reproductive freedom, all the other rights we're fighting for are impossible. Without the basic right to bodily integrity, what good is equal pay or anti-violence legislation? What good are any of our rights if we do not have final say in determining when and if we become mothers?


I know I'm not the only one who left one of yesterday's events inspired to do more, work harder, and speak louder as a voice for women's rights.  Let's carry that enthusiasm with us as we prepare to make an event bigger statement in September!


    
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GOP Waffling on Welfare Reform

By: Jessica DelBalzo

Conservative Republicans, specifically those heavily invested in the War on Women, are notorious for their contradictions.  For instance, anti-choice legislators say they want to eliminate abortion, but at the same time, they also want to restrict access to birth control and sex ed.  They claim to love freedom, yet they are unwilling to support marriage equality and other equal rights for LGBTQ individuals.  They tout the Constitution as sacred while ignoring the First Amendment's provisions for religious freedom.  

Presumptive GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, infamous for waffling on serious issues like universal health care and abortion rights, recently found himself in hot water again.  This time, he declared support for his wife's work as a stay-at-home mom and then, a few campaign stops later, proclaimed that he would force mothers who receive welfare to take jobs so that they will have "the dignity of work."  

There are several different angles from which we can examine these controversial statements, and none of them look very good for Romney.  Of course, they illustrate a classic case of a Republican inconsistency.  These politicians seem to place themselves and their families above reproach, so just because Mitt Romney accepts something as a good choice for his own family doesn't mean he won't judge you or me for the very same decision.  Don't bother seeking the approval of this incongruous candidate!

The "dignity of work" gaffe also demonstrates, once more, that while Republicans are eager to see us women get pregnant (and stay that way), they aren't interested in helping to make life easier for us or for the children we bear.  This isn't news.  Rather, it has been painfully evident in various measures that have attacked funding for public education and health care and painted single mothers as child abusers.

However, perhaps the most noteworthy issue raised by Romney's welfare reform statements is the issue of poverty.  Clearly, this GOP candidate - and his co-horts - support a double-standard that hurts poor women.  They would have us believe that when a wealthy businessman's wife devotes herself to child-rearing and home-making, she is doing respectable work.  Yet women in poverty who follow suit are without dignity; Mr. Romney would rather fund daycare than afford these mothers the opportunity to make the same choice Mrs. Romney made for her family.

Does he agree with the Wisconsin Senators who propose that single mothers are child abusers?  That could explain his eagerness to send their mothers to work, getting those children out of their homes and into daycares post haste.  Or is he simply so detached from the lower and middle classes that he cannot fathom us as equals, deserving of equal decision-making power and equally up to the task of providing loving, enriching environments for our children?  Any way you slice it, Mitt Romney's latest waffle turns our stomachs.
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We are Warriors: Message from Erin Nanasi

By: Erin Nanasi
Mad Mike's America

We are Warriors: Apathetic No Longer

In February, my husband set up the video camera in our kitchen and I read from a script I wrote earlier that day. I was angry at the GOP for the attacks on women’s health care, our bodies, our privacy, our everything. I uploaded the video, titling it “We Are Warriors.” We went to bed.

In October of 2011, I tried to organize a protest in Anoka, Minnesota. This was to be a protest against the now defunct “No Homo Promo” legislation adopted by the schools in the district and to bring attention to what the public health department called a “suicide contagion area.” Other than my husband and my son, only one other person wanted to come. So, we canceled.

That’s what I thought would happen with the We Are Warriors video, and the We Are Woman march. My husband, son and myself would show up at Dulles, check into the Residence Inn in Herndon, eat dinner at the best restaurant in Northern Virginia, Jasmine Café, head to the Capitol the next morning, stand there with three signs for an hour, then go back home. The end. Once bitten, twice shy and all that.

I was wrong. See, I picked April 28th out of the air, literally. It was spring, the weather would be nice, spring break would almost be over, and since only 3 people were going, it didn’t matter what date I chose. I really thought that the apathy I had met head on regarding the teen suicides and homophobic bigotry in Anoka would repeat itself. We were actually kind of excited to go as a family to DC; my folks used to live in Northern Virginia, and we had not visited since 2009.

Then everything exploded. Facebook groups popped up, organizing state marches on capitols all over America. People wanted to help with the national march. It was shocking to me that one video made such an impact. We began receiving emails from people, expressing confusion about the state marches versus the national march. There was no way we would be able to have permits for a national march by April 28th. So, much to the excitement of most, and chagrin of a few, we changed the date of the national We Are Woman march to September.




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The Four Funniest Responses to the War on Women

by Jessica DelBalzo


Abraham Lincoln said, “I laugh because I must not cry.”

Surely, the War on Women is enough to bring any self-respecting woman to tears. One might even say that attitudes of paternalism and misogyny are nothing to laugh at. However, many women (and some men) have come up with clever ways to use humor as a weapon, roasting conservatives with hilarious tactics that illustrate the absurdity surrounding their efforts to deny us our basic freedoms. What follows are some of the funniest ways women are fighting back.
  1. Crafting for a Cause: Feminist knitters and crocheters have joined forces to provide “A Uterus for Every Congressman”. Using simple patterns, volunteers are organizing to deliver wombs and vulvas to the politicians who are obsessed with policing them. The theory is, of course, that if these men had their own lady parts to focus on, they might decide to leave ours alone.

  2. Making a (Funny) Point with Counter-Legislation: When they finish their terms in office, legislators like Oklahoma Senator Constance Johnson, Ohio Senator Nina Turner, and Virginia Senator Janet Howell may want to take their comedic show on the road. Illustrating the ridiculousness of proposed “personhood” amendments and ultrasound laws by proposing similar legislation aimed at men's vasectomies, Viagra prescriptions, and masturbatory habits, these women have given us a show of solidarity that nets a big smile from women's rights activists.

  3. Handy Flowcharts: After political pundit Rush Limbaugh called birth control advocate Sandra Fluke a slut, feminist allies Tim Murphy and Ben Breedlove decided to simplify things with a convenient chart. Simply answer the questions as you go, and you're on your way to determining your own slut potential. If you're less into charts and graphs and more into cute kitties, you can opt for the click-through quiz instead. Here's a hint: if you're reading this, you're probably a slut.

  4. TMI Facebook Campaigns: The male legislators who want to pass laws restricting birth control and preventing abortion are obviously quite concerned about the state of your uterus. Until you can knit them their own, consider giving them an update about yours via Facebook. That's what hundreds of bold women did to Rick Perry, Ryan McDougle, and others. While this particular tactic is unlikely to do anything but annoy those pesky politicians, it's a fun way for women to fight back against the men who want to legislate their bodies.
Did nosy state or federal representatives inspire you to create a funny graphic or write a funny article? Share it with us. Fighting the War on Women requires strength, time, and dedication, but a good laugh can motivate us onward!
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From the Frontlines - Women Don't Know if They've Been Raped?

by Jessica DelBalzo

Before he was assassinated by self-proclaimed “pro-life” extremists, Dr. George Tiller wore a button to work each day that said simply, “Trust women.” That short but profound phrase has become popular among reproductive rights activists as they work carry on his legacy ensuring that women have access to birth control and abortion services.

Unlike Dr. Tiller, the GOP does not trust women.

Conservative distrust for women was evident when the House Oversight and Government Reform committee conducted a hearing on birth control without any women on the panel. It's present every time another state attempts to pass a “personhood” amendment to ban abortion. It's present in laws requiring women to undergo invasive transvaginal ultrasounds, mandating that they view the screen and hear details of the fetus, as if they might not comprehend what pregnancy is without a vivid description.

And distrust is certainly present in the Idaho debate over a yet another ultrasound law. Defending the bill on Monday, Senator Chuck Winder suggested that women may not even understand when they've been raped. In his own words, Winder said, “I would hope that when a woman goes in to a physician with a rape issue, that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage or was it truly caused by a rape.”

His patronizing tone comes through in print every bit as much as it must have on the Senate floor. Not only does he trivialize sexual assault by referring to women as having “rape issues,” but he seems to genuinely believe that a woman might need her doctor to help sort out whether or not she was actually violated. Not only does the GOP think we lack the mental faculties to visualize the biological process of pregnancy without a fuzzy picture to guide us, but now they assert that we are also unable to assess our own sexual experiences.

As these distrustful, misogynistic measures make their way through state houses across the nation, it is more important than ever that women raise their voices to demand equality and respect. We cannot allow conservative politicians to speak for us, nor to deprive us of our freedom. Sign up to march with us today.
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