By Cindy Cooper, cross-posted at On The Issues Magazine . In 1892, suffragist and temperance leader Frances Elizabeth Willard had a truly wild idea: she would learn to ride a bicycle. Willard made this brave decision, in her words, “at the ripe age of fifty three.” She later explained it was “an act of grace,” emerging from the [...]

These days anti-abortion ingénue Lila Rose needs no introduction. In advertisements for this year’s Values Voter Summit, an annual conservative Christian confab, Rose was a headline attraction. While former Attorney General Edwin Meese required a note of background, Rose, like fellow speaker and antifeminist icon Phyllis Schlafly, was advertised [...]

By the On The Issues Editors, cross-posted at OTI Magazine A new study puts another face on women’s reproductive decision-making during an economic downturn. It indicates that low-income women increasingly are being forced to “choose” abortions out of economic need.

Condicted by independent researcher Robin H. Pugh Yi, Ph.D., president of Akeso [...]

By Carole Joffe, cross-posted at On The Issues Magazine What about abortion gives it staying power as the central issue in domestic politics, even in the period of the worst economic situation since the Great Depression of the 1930s? This is a question well worth pursuing. I sounded a much more hopeful note in my recent book, Dispatches [...]

By Carolyn Gage, cross-posted at On The Issues Magazine The emergence of the Occupy Wall Street movement would not have been a surprise to one woman activist born over a century ago. Mary Harriman Rumsey was the partner of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, who was the first woman to occupy a [...]

By Loretta Ross, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine In Mississippi, we are witnessing the intersection of race and gender politics in two ballot initiatives on which African American voters are the critical constituents on voting day on November 8, 2011. The 2011 Mississippi ballot Initiative 26 on Personhood and Initiative 27 on Voter ID exclusions may [...]

By Rosalyn Baxandall, cross-posted at On The Issues Magazine At last the 99 percent are shaming them: “This is not a Recession; It’s Robbery,” one sign read in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Usually U.S. social movements occur every 30 years: the 1900s, the 1930s, the 1960s. Even with the longest war in history against Afghanistan, and [...]

By Laura Whitehorn, cross-posted at On The Issues Magazine If you saw the film The Weather Underground , you saw about three minutes of me. The film, through interviews, narration and clips, describes the genesis and decline of the radical activist group by that name from 1969 to the mid-’70s. I gave some reflections from my participation in it. [...]

By Linda Stein, cross-posted at On The Issues Magazine Conservative Republicans flexed considerable muscle earlier this year and threw a knockout punch against freedom in the arts. Led by House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the Catholic League and other groups, conservatives succeeded in getting the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery to remove a four-minute 1987 [...]

By Shelagh Daley, cross-posted at On The Issues Magazine You can’t build peace leaving half of the people out. Women are a prime target in conflict, yet when it comes to building peace, they are being left out. The discourse around peace building often emphasizes the importance of inclusive and sustainable peace; however, many negotiations proceed [...]

By Gabrielle Korn, cross-posted at On The Issues Magazine On September 20, 2011, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — the law barring gays and lesbians from serving openly in the U.S. military — will officially be repealed. Created by President Clinton in 1993 as a compromise between the existing ban on homosexuals in the military and his campaign [...]

“Pioneering Women War Correspondents” profiles six trailblazing women journalists, including Peggy Hull, Martha Gellhorn, Marguerite Higgins and Dickey Chapelle, who managed to report from the front lines. Author Penny Colman narrates. Produced by Milena Jovanovitch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzYclFUIBo4&feature=player_embedded

By Lauren Wolfe, cross-posted at On The Issues Magazine. Wolfe is senior editor of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Her report, “The Silencing Crime: Sexual Violence and Journalists” was published in June. “I’ve never told anyone this before,” the email said. It was one of several that landed on my desk at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) [...]

By Debra Sweet, cross-posted at On The Issues Magazine . Sweet is the Director of World Can’t Wait , based in New York City, which engages in efforts to stop occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Ten years ago, when the Taliban had mostly wrested control of Afghanistan from former fundamentalist warlord allies of the United States, the U.S. government turned [...]

By Michelle Chen, cross-posted at On The Issues Magazine When a little girl starts growing breasts a year after losing her first baby tooth, her parents probably understand the situation as little as she does. And when it happens to girls across the country, and to many girls growing up in certain neighborhoods but not others, scientists [...]

By Cate Owren, cross-posted at On The Issues Magazine . Owren is the Executive Director of WEDO, a global women’s advocacy organization working to foster the interlinkages between gender equality and women’s rights, sustainable development and global governance. A major paradigm shift in dealing with climate change has been unfolding in the last few years – largely thanks to [...]