Dare To Be A Feminist

Angela Campbell is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law, McGill University

In a fortnight marked by intense media focus on sexual assault and harassment in the workplace, another news item – also bearing deep-seated gender implications – has moved far more discretely through the Canadian public circuit. Bill C-36, the federal government’s proposed new law to govern sex work, passed through Senate last week, and is now set to receive royal assent.

A new report says that the federal government is the largest funder of low-wage jobs for working women and people of color, and that President Obama should take executive action to help lift them into the middle class.

History, politics & culture as this woman sees it. The serious, the kitsch, the opinionated.

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After calling Gov. Dalrymple, I called my state legislators too. And then I sent this letter via email to all as well in response to all the insanity occurring in...

For today, we don't even have the right to enjoy our homes, our private spaces, without fearing violence, rape, or worse. And when we dare to point that out, we are not merely dismissed, we are punished.

So many of us are still having to say, "That's life."

ThinkProgressSeverely Conservative Appeals Court Blocks Access To Birth ControlThinkProgressIn a brief, one sentence order yesterday, the conservative United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit temporarily stayed Judge Jackson's decision.

by ELENA SHORE, New America Media

2011 saw a record number of laws restricting abortion in U.S. states. It also saw a record number of state anti-immigrant laws. Coincidence?

Maybe not.

In 2011, U.S. states enacted 135 new reproductive health provisions, 92 of them seeking to restrict abortion.

In 2000, 13 states were considered “hostile” to reproductive rights; by 2011, that number had doubled to 26 states, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Last year, more than half of women of reproductive age (15-44) were living in states that were hostile to abortion, up from less than one-third in 2000.

But 2011 was also a record year for anti-immigrant legislation. Five states (Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, and Utah) passed anti-immigrant bills modeled after Arizona’s 2010 law, SB 1070. An analysis by Mother Jones found that 164 anti-immigration laws were passed by state legislatures in 2010 and 2011. 

Here’s a look at five states where anti-immigrant and anti-choice efforts converge: [MORE]

The UN Commission on Population and Development is considering “sexual and reproductive health and rights” for children as young as ten. Even the Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon agrees. In a statement recently released he said, “Young people, as much as all people, share the human right to health, including sexual and reproductive health.”