Author: Feminist Majority Foundation Blog

Earlier this month, Hamas released a new set of restrictions that will sex segregate co-ed classrooms in Gaza. The law passed by Hamas, the Islamic group that rules the Palestinian territory, states that classes must be divided by gender beginning at age nine and also bans male teachers from girls’ schools. Government run schools within Gaza have previously been separated by gender. The law will take effect with the new academic year in September and is expected to mostly effect private institutions, including the few Christian and international schools in Gaza.

A member of the education committee and Hamas lawmaker, Yousef Al-Sherafi, said in an interview: “This law is a safety valve for our national principles… One male staffer among 20 female teachers in a girls’ school would not allow our sisters to feel comfortable.”

The Center for Women’s Legal Research and Consulting, the only legal-aid organization for women in Gaza, warned that the law is “based on a culture of discrimination against women, by reinforcing gender separation which takes our society back to ancient times when there was no respect for women’s rights and women were eliminated from public life.”

Cory L. Richards, Executive Vice President and Vice President of Public Policy at the Guttmacher Institute, passed away on Thursday at age 64 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. For 40 years, Richard championed the expansion of birth control and abortion access. As his colleagues at Guttmacher stated,”he was the intellectual architect of crucial policy changes that continue to benefit millions of U.S. women and families.”

In 1994, Richards spearheaded the report Uneven and Unequal, which drove the issue of gaps in insurance coverage for contraceptives into public debate. The report led to the Institute’s efforts to guarantee birth control coverage in 28 states prior to passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

“Cory was passionate and determinate about saving women’s lives,” Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation said. “We will all miss him.”

Richards also held volunteer positions with NARAL Pro-Choice America, the National Abortion Federation, and National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association and Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS).

According to the Guttmacher Institute, “Cory leaves a void that will be difficult to fill. He will be acutely missed by his family, his friends, his colleagues at Guttmacher and the sexual and reproductive health community he served with such dedication and skill.”

Dr. Mariam Chamberlain, founder of the National Council for Research on Women, passed away last Tuesday at the age of 94. Dr. Chamberlain has a doctorate in Economics from Harvard University and was instrumental in the establishment of women’s studies as a field of study in college curricula.

Through her role directing the higher education program at the Ford Foundation, Dr. Chamberlain began to expose the need to teach women’s studies in college and universities. She awarded $5 million in grants to studies, projects and organizations that documented the lack of visibility for women in college classes and took pro-active steps to increasing the discussion of women’s role in history. She is responsible for funding The Feminist Press and the National Women’s Studies Association. As Feminist Majority Foundation president Eleanor Smeal remembers her, “She was the godmother of women’s studies.”

Her passion was not consigned solely to women’s studies. Dr. Chamberlain was also passionate and active in understanding the barriers women faced in the workplace and society at large. She funded the Center for Women’s Policy Studies, which was one of the first organizations of its kind. She also studied domestic violence, discrimination in loan practices, and inequalities in the work place.

In 1981, she founded and directed the National Council for Research on Women (NCRW). According the NCRW, “Under her leadership, NCRW has increased and promoted research on women, built alliances for synergistic work, and advanced research into policy applications. Her vision has evolved into a dynamic network of thought leaders and change agents working to ensure more fully informed debates, policies and practices, thereby contributing to a more inclusive and equitable world for women and girls, their families and their communities.”

A bill defining life at the “moment of fertilization” has been sent to the Governor of Kansas to be signed into law after passing in both the state House and Senate.

The final version of the bill passed on Friday night after a 90 to 30 vote in the House, which resolved minor differences after it was approved in a 28 to 10 vote in the Senate. The measure requires that abortion providers supply women with a list of organizations that provide abortion alternatives, prevents any abortion facility from receiving state funding or tax credits, and requires doctors to provide patients with medically inaccurate information. In addition, HB 2253 would define life as beginning at the moment of fertilization.

Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, told reporters “It’s a statement of intent and it’s a pretty strong statement.” She continued, “Should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade or should the court come to some different conclusion, the state legislature would be ready, willing and able to ban abortions.”

Not all Kansas state legislators are happy with the decision. Rep. John Wilson, a Lawrence Democrat, said the bill was about “about politics, not medicine.” He continued, “It’s the very definition of government intrusion in a woman’s personal medical decisions.” State Senator David Haley argued that the provision establishing life at fertilization was a “Taliban-esque” method of allowing religion to dictate a woman’s reproductive rights.

While Governor Sam Brownback (R) has said he would have to review the policy, he is also a strong opponent of abortion rights. It is expected that he will sign the measure into law and that the restrictions in HB 2253 could take effect July 1, 2013.

On Tuesday, state Representative Bill Cook (R-Beaufort County) introduced a controversial “Equalizing Voter Rights” bill (SB 667) that would negatively impact North Carolina students who are registered to vote where they attend school as opposed to being registered at their parents address. The bill would only apply to students from North Carolina attending college in the state. It would make such students ineligible for dependent status on a parent or guardian’s state income tax forms. The bill was filed on Tuesday and is also paired with a larger voter suppression bill that would limit early voting days and times and ban same-day registration (SB 666).

Last year, 17 states passed voter suppression laws that increased wait times at the polls, decreased early voting days, and mandated state-issued ID requirements for voting. New laws affecting the election process have already been suggested this year in preparation for the 2014 mid-term elections. The Supreme Court is also currently debating Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires areas with a history of voting discrimination to have any changes made to voting laws reviewed by the Department of Justice.

Nelson, Georgia, a small town with a population of just 913 recently passed a law that would make gun ownership mandatory. The Family Protection Ordinance was passed Monday night by all five members of the Nelson City Council.

The ordinance states the following: “In order to provide for the emergency management of the city, and further in order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition therefore.” Exemptions to the law include residents with physical or mental disabilities, felons, and “paupers.”

Duane Cronic, City Councilman, insisted that the ordinance was symbolic in nature and would not be enforced. “I likened it to a security sign that people put up in their front yards. Some people have security systems, some people don’t, but they put those signs up,” Cronic said. “I really felt like this ordinance was a security sign for our city.”

The city council’s agenda also stated their intent is “opposition of any future attempt by the federal government to confiscate personal firearms.”

A bill that would ban so-called “reparative therapy”- therapy intended to “convert” gay men and women to be heterosexual- is headed to the New Jersey Senate floor. The ban would apply to children under 18. It already passed in the state Senate’s Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee on a 7 to 1 vote in March.

The legislation emerges from a late 2012 lawsuit against the organization Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, which aims in part to assist gay Jewish men in obtaining so-called “reparative therapy.” The four plaintiffs in the case cite being asked to perform humiliating exercises as part of therapy, for example exposing their genitals to a counselor. The lawsuit and the testimony of many other gay and transgender individuals suggests that such “reparative therapy” is harmful to psychological well-being. A former advocate of the practice, Dr. Robert Spitzer, reversed his position in May 2012. He issued an apology to the LGBT community and renounced such practices as “a waste of time and energy.”

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s position on this issue is unknown. According to the New York Times, Christie “does not believe in conversion therapy,” but is also “hesitant to sign a bill that effectively tells parents what they can and can’t do.”

Rep. Don Young of Alaska reminisced on his childhood in Central California on a radio show earlier this week, using the term “wetbacks” to describe the migrant workers who picked tomatoes on the family farm. Young expressed minimal remorse when he was blasted for using the word, stating his belief that it didn’t have a derogatory meaning when he was growing up.

This misstep comes in the wake of the “Growth and Opportunity Project”, a formal report on the GOP that suggests in part that the party become more sensitive to undocumented migrants.

A Women’s Day rally and lobby day will be held in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 2nd to address the Extreme Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law pending in the state Senate.

The Alabama House voted 73 to 23 for TRAP law in February that would require all comprehensive women’s clinic to comply with stringent, unnecessary hospital-like building requirements and would require their doctors to have local hospital admitting privileges. The goal of the legislation is to close all abortion and family planning clinics in Alabama.

The House bill has now been approved by the Senate Committee and could go to the Senate floor for a vote as soon as this coming Tuesday.

Today, the United States Supreme Court is set to hear the second case on the topic of same sex marriage presented this week. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which states the federal government will only recognize marriage as between one man and one woman, is being argued today.

The current Obama administration has stated that it will not defend the law, though it will continue the law’s enforcement. The lawsuit against DOMA was filed by plaintiff Edith Windsor of New York, married in Canada to her late partner, Thea Spyer. When Spyer died in 2009, she left her estate to her spouse. However, because the marriage was not recognized by the federal government, Windsor was forced to pay over $360,000 in federal estate taxes that she would not have owed had their marriage been federally recognized.

DOMA was first signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1996, before same sex marriage was legal in any state. Since that time, however, beginning with Massachusetts in 2003, nine states and the District of Columbia allow same sex marriages. Clinton recently came out in opposition of DOMA, encouraging the Supreme Court to overturn it.

Yesterday, President Obama announced that he will appoint Julia Pierson to direct the Secret Service. Pierson will be the first woman to lead the Secret Service in United States history.

President Obama in a statement, described Pierson, “Julia is eminently qualified to lead the agency that not only safeguards Americans at major events and secures our financial system, but also protects our leaders and our first families, including my own. Julia has had an exemplary career, and I know these experiences will guide her as she takes on this new challenge to lead the impressive men and women of this important agency.”

Pierson currently is the Chief of Staff in the Office of the Chief for the United States Secret Service. She has been a Secret Service agent for over 30 years after beginning her career in Florida.

Yesterday the devastating Ryan Budget for 2014 was passed on a party line vote of 221-207 in the House of Representatives. Later that day it was solidly defeated in the Senate in a vote of 40-59. The Ryan budget would repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which prohibits insurance companies from classifying being a woman as a pre-existing medical condition and eliminates co-pays for birth control. The Ryan budget would also turn Medicare into a voucher system that would leave seniors, particularly women, struggling to get coverage, and authorize the Keystone XL Pipeline. In addition, the proposed budget would restructure the way Social Security Living Adjustments are determined, threatening the stability of seniors nationwide. Paul Ryan also seeks to undo sequester cuts to the Pentagon by instead transferring the cuts to already severely impacted domestic programs.

After passage in the House, no Senate Republican offered the Ryan Budget as an amendment to the Senate Democratic proposal by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA). Senator Murray, as chair of the Senate Budget Committee, introduced the Ryan Budget where she and her fellow democrats were joined by five Republicans in voting against it. The Senate is anticipated to vote on the Murray budget on Friday.

This morning, the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted to bar the state executive branch from privatizing the prison system. This decision contrasts with the state’s position on the issue last year, when it considered a bill that would send all male prisoners to private prisons. The House said that states are constitutionally required to rehabilitate inmates, so shifting this duty to private entities violates the Constitution. The bill now will move on to the state Senate.

Several private prison companies have donated generously to politicians and groups which seek to intensify drug and immigration laws, in effect producing a greater influx of prisoners. Lawmakers argue that privatization is more cost-effective for the state, but many others see that benefit as moot if the prison system seeks to grow, not shrink.

The Kansas state house passed a bill on Tuesday that would deny tax breaks to abortion providers, prohibit providers from participating in sex education programs, and require doctors providing abortions to inform patients they have an increased risk of breast cancer, an unproven correlation within the medical field.

The language of the legislation states that human life begins “at fertilization” and that “unborn children have interests in life, health and well-being that should be protected.” In addition, an amendment by Rep John Wilson (D) that would provide exceptions for victims of rape or incest was defeated in a vote of 31 to 90.

It is anticipated that the senate will also pass the bill and Kansas Governor, Sam Brownback (R) has said he will sign any anti-abortion bill he receives.

Today the North Dakota state legislature passed a measure that would amend the state Constitution to define life as starting as conception, granting full personhood to fertilized eggs. The state House approved the measure in vote of 57-35. The state Senate already approved the measure in February. The measure will go before North Dakota voters in November 2014. It is the first time a Personhood measure has passed in a state legislature, instead of being added to a ballot through signature drives.