WMC News & Features
Depend on Women to Keep the Momentum Rolling on Global Warming
Women are bringing the word to negotiators at the climate change conference in Copenhagen that those closest to the damaging effects of global warming point the way toward lessening the risks to the most vulnerable among us.
WMC News & Features
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Calls on Progressive Catholics to Resist Pressure from Bishops on Abortion
At a critical moment for health care reform, Townsend says it is essential for religious progressives to speak up.
WMC News & Features
December 14, 2009 | Barbara Glickstein |
Health
Breast Cancer Screening: Why I Support the New Guidelines
Media coverage of the new guidelines regarding mammography screening has emphasized controversy and focused on fears about health rationing. However, many women’s health advocates have, for years, warned that the tests are oversold. Here, the author explains and asks us to take a rational look at the evidence.
WMC News & Features
December 10, 2009 | Janus Adams |
Arts and culture
“Truth Goes Marching”
Historian Janus Adams reflects on two Civil War exhibits in New York, featuring John Brown and Abraham Lincoln. In a footnote she finds her key to women’s truth, hiding in the margins of history and giving us insight into the issues of today.
WMC News & Features
Morituri te Salutant: On a “Surge” in Afghanistan
The author, an expert on parliamentary diplomacy, says we must focus today on a strengthened political process to successfully end international military engagement in Afghanistan—and that process must respect the rights of women.
WMC News & Features
December 03, 2009 | Sharmeen Akbani Gangat |
International,
Politics,
Religion,
Violence against women
Fort Hood Tragedy: What Muslim Women Really Think
With the murders at Fort Hood, New York’s Muslim community, however unjustly, was on the defensive. The author explains how Muslim women are reacting.
WMC News & Features
Usual Suspects: On Completing the Washington Post’s Next Great American Pundit Contest
The writer made it to the final stages as a contender for coveted space in the pages of one of the nation’s premier newspapers—and learned just how far we are from gaining equal access in public discourse.
WMC News & Features
A Few Acres and a Cow (or Two): Up from Poverty in East Africa
Backed by Gates Foundation funding, women dairy farmers in Uganda are working collectively to care for their families, their livestock, their crops and the earth.
WMC News & Features
Health Care Reform: Pro-choice Forces Win the First Round in the Senate
Senate Democrats held firm to allow debate to begin on a health care bill that avoids the abortion restrictions of the House-passed measure—and pro-choice activists are mobilizing to keep the heat on. But there are many hurdles ahead.
WMC News & Features
Global Gender Gap Report: Some Gains in Africa
In its country-by-country index comparing the status of men and women, the World Economic Forum finds that Nordic countries remain highest on the equity scale. Here, the co-founder of the Council of Women World Leaders explains the study and its importance to women and girls.
WMC News & Features
November 16, 2009 | Nichola Gutgold |
Politics
Sarah Palin Is on the Road Again, But to Where?
Sarah Palin is back in the news, with an appearance on Oprah and a tour to promote her autobiography that can’t fail to excite her supporters. But can she move beyond her base to become a viable candidate again for national office?
WMC News & Features
Will Progressive Groups Help Feminists Stop Stupak?
After the shocking setback in the House for abortion rights, women’s rights groups turned their attention to the Senate, which could begin debate on health care reform next week.
WMC News & Features
The Democrats’ Dilemma: Their Own Trojan Horse Kicks Free
Democratic leaders have said that the turn-around on abortion contained in the House health-reform bill will not appear in the final version. The author, a Women’s Media Center board member and former president ofPlanned Parenthood Federation of America, explains here why voters who value women’s health cannot sit back and accept such assurances.
WMC News & Features
November 10, 2009 | Colette N. Tamko |
International
Finally, a UN Women’s Agency with Muscle
Recently the UN announced approval of a new agency for women—an event that followed years of complex organizing by individuals and advocacy groups around the world. Here, one of the principle coordinators of that ongoing effort explains what it means for women, and the work that still remains to ensure its success.
WMC News & Features
Taking the Fall for Health Care Reform?
The price for health care reform in the House is women’s right to choose—and, adding insult to injury, the deal was negotiated by the first woman to serve as House speaker.
WMC News & Features
Precious Star Claims the Spotlight
With the confidence of a seasoned performer, Gabourey Sidibe portrays a particular character with universal appeal. The movie, based on a Sapphire novel, opens in limited release on Friday.
WMC News & Features
At the UN, Criminalizing Rape as a Weapon
In the last week of October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made headlines and sparked anger in travels to Israel and Pakistan. Her role some weeks earlier was less controversial yet critically important, as she led UN diplomats forward in an action that could ease the suffering of countless women and girls living in conflict zones around the world.
WMC News & Features
Living With Disability -- And Recession
The U.S. Congress designated October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month. From an international perspective, the author explains how economic hard times are particularly harsh for women with disabilities.
WMC News & Features
From Media Blitz to Women’s Conference: Has Maria Shriver Discerned a Watershed Moment?
A Time magazine cover story and a week of programming on NBC immediately followed the release of The Shriver Report. This week, California’s First Lady will use the findings to engage participants in her annual conference on women. If the continuing activity fails to “ignite a national conversation,” it won’t be for lack of planning and effort.
WMC News & Features
Chronic Illness and Health Care Reform: I’m Too Tired to Fight This By Myself
Health care reform, crucial to all of us, is especially important to the chronically ill, who need coverage of “maintenance medicine”—everyday care that can be guaranteed in a national system. The author is doing all she can, but she needs some help.
WMC News & Features
“Why Aren’t You Smiling, Honey?”
The media and the blog world have been discussing women’s “happiness” quotient since a headlined Huffington Post item offered cumulated poll data indicating they weren’t. The author, who writes about and speaks to women now in their fifties and sixties, reports that she hears quite a different story.
WMC News & Features
The Inflection Point for the World's Girls and Women
The author is attending a global seminar this week in Salzburg, “Smart Change: Investing in Women and Girls, Leveraging Philanthropy for Global Impact,” to produce an international agenda for action. She argues that, in terms of gender, the world has reached an “inflection point,” when old patterns collapse and new ones emerge.
WMC News & Features
It’s Not a Man’s World or a Woman’s Nation
You’re going to be seeing a multimedia blitz about a new national study of women’s status called The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything. Gloria Steinem gives you a preview of this project created by Maria Shriver and a D.C. think tank, and suggests ways you can use it and also judge its success.
WMC News & Features
Gender Discrimination in Filmmaking—Bollywood Style
Moviemaking styles may vary between Hollywood and Bollywood, but women working in the Indian commercial film industry have as difficult a time as their counterparts in the United States getting good roles and investment in their films. Director Zoya Akhtar takes a satiric look in Luck by Chance.
WMC News & Features
With Budget Cuts to Higher Education, Lower-Income Students Struggle
Funding cutbacks not only make tuition less affordable for many college students relying on government loans, but they also affect course availability, campus jobs, and other essential factors for earning degrees.