The Department of Defense (DOD) released a report last week that found 112 cases of sexual assault of women in the military by their male counterparts over the past 18 months in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait. The report stated that military authorities investigated nearly 2,120 alleged cases of sexual assault within the general military population […]
The Canadian government recently announced its plan to make emergency contraception (EC) available without a prescription at any pharmacy in Canada. According to the New York Times, the proposal still needs to go through a review process by Health Canada but it is expected to be granted approval. Currently, Canadian women can buy the pill […]
Groundbreaking cultural theorist, Chicana writer, and feminist activist Gloria Anzaldua passed away on Saturday due to diabetes-related complications. Anzaldua was best known among feminist circles for co-editing with Cherrie Moraga This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color in 1981. She most recently reprised this effort with Professor AnaLouise Keating of Texas […]
Kuwait’s Council of Ministers approved a bill this weekend allowing women the right to vote and to run for parliamentary election. The draft still needs to go before the full 50-member Parliament for approval. According to Reuters, Kuwaiti women have been fighting for the right to vote for over 40 years. In 1999, Emir Sheikh […]
Massachusetts became the first state to allow lesbian and gay couples to marry as the state Supreme Court ruling went into effect today. Some 250 couples lined up outside of Cambridge City Hall just after midnight to be the first to apply for marriage licenses, while over 10,000 supporters gathered outside. “It is an historic […]
A federal appeals court in Washington, DC on Friday dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Title IX, the landmark law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded education, threatens collegiate male sports teams. In the suit, the National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) claimed that Title IX directly caused discriminatory reductions in men’s sports when schools sought to […]
Today marks the 50th anniversary of Brown v Board of Education, the 1954 landmark US Supreme Court ruling that segregating students by race was inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional. Although the number of black Americans with college degrees has risen from 4 in 1954 to 20 percent today, as the Associated Press reports, currently, more […]
The president of Iraq’s Governing Council was killed this morning in a suicide bombing near the coalition headquarters, marking the second member of the Iraqi Governing Council to be assassinated. The first member was one of only three women on Iraq’s Governing Council, who was assassinated this past September. In another deadly attack, two Iraqi […]
New Jersey Governor James McGreevey signed into law on Wednesday legislation that will create the nation’s first state-supported stem cell research facility. New Jersey joins California as the only two states to provide funding for stem cell research. Gov. McGreevey plans to have the state fund $6.5 million each year for the next five years, […]
At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Afghanistan on Wednesday, several witnesses asserted that security is the main concern in Afghanistan. Mark Schneider of the International Crisis Group stated that efforts in Afghanistan “may fail because the administration has been unwilling to recognize the magnitude of threats which we face and to direct sufficient […]
Women’s rights and human rights advocates fear that whether or not there was widespread sexual abuse of female prisoners in Iraq, the women who were imprisoned face even more problems upon release. In Iraq, women who are raped are sometimes killed by male relatives in order to preserve family “honor.” A member of Iraqi’s Board […]
A broad coalition of women’s rights and religious leaders yesterday joined members of Congress on Capital Hill to express outrage over the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to give in to right-wing pressure and reject over-the-counter status for the emergency contraceptive (EC) Plan B. Representatives Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY) and Christopher Shays (R-CT) sponsored […]
Several US lawmakers, including Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, sent a letter to the Uruguayan Senate urging them to vote against a bill that would have liberalized Uruguay’s current abortion law. The bill, that the Uruguayan Senate rejected by 17-13 on May 5, would have made abortion legal in the […]
Anti-abortion extremist John Burt was sentenced today to over 18 years in prison for molesting a 15-year-old girl. A jury in Pensacola, Florida found him guilty of four counts of lewd or lascivious molestation and one count of lewd or lascivious contact in early April. The young girl was living at Our Father’s House, Burt’s […]
The panel of prominent lay Catholics charged with investigating the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church has accused US bishops of stalling on important actions and reneging on promises. The review panel this week made public letters between members of the panel (the National Review Board) and various bishops. At issue is the fact […]
On Monday, President Bush nominated Title IX critic Thomas Griffith of Utah to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, considered the second most powerful court in the country. Griffith is currently the senior legal counsel for the Mormon-affiliated Brigham Young University and served as the director of religious education for the Church of Jesus Christ […]
On April 21 the Iraqi Governing Council agreed to establish an Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. Submissions of nominations were just announced and will only be taken until May 15. The Independent Electoral Commission will be responsible for overseeing, preparing, and conducting Iraq’s elections according to international law and the established Iraqi framework. There are […]
Last Wednesday, the New Hampshire House passed a bill that would allow women to purchase emergency contraception directly from pharmacists without a prescription. The Nashua Telegraph reports that neither the state House nor the Senate, which passed the bill in March, had enough votes to overcome a veto by Governor Craig Benson who has yet […]
The board of selectmen in the Cape Cod town of Provincetown, which has a large gay population, voted yesterday to issue marriage licenses to couples even if they do not intend to live in Massachusetts. The town clerk in Worcester has also said that he will issue licenses to out-of-state couples, the New York Times […]
Native women die younger and have a higher rate of being attacked by men. At a United Nations forum on the rights of indigenous women, an Australian delegate asserted that “levels of violence against indigenous women are unacceptably high” and that “there is no room to fudge basic human rights issues in deference to outdated […]
