WMC News & Features
Afghanistan: Will Obama Listen to the Women?
Eight years ago on October 7, the United States sent troops into Afghanistan. Having just returned from there, the author, co-founder with Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK, brings an open letter to President Obama from prominent Afghan women and their supporters from Pakistan, India and the United States—asking that he send no more troops and work quickly toward a political solution.
WMC News & Features
October 05, 2009 | Ellen Bravo |
Arts and culture
Daylight Lessons from Letterman’s Late Night Escapades
The author, an expert on the prevention of sexual harassment and other issues of women in the workforce, suggests that human resources professionals and corporate executives take the occasion of David Letterman’s revelations to revisit their companies’ policies with the understanding that “sexual favoritism is sexual harassment.”
WMC News & Features
October 02, 2009 | Marcella Chester |
Arts and culture,
International,
Media,
Violence against women
What Consequences Should Roman Polanski Face After 32 Years?
The author, a rape survivor, takes a clear-eyed view of the Polanski case, sorting out both the needs of his victim and those of a society that cannot afford to tolerate sexual violence.
WMC News & Features
October 01, 2009 | Marcia G. Yerman |
Sakena Yacoobi’s Vision for Afghanistan
For over a decade, Sakena Yacoobi has worked for the welfare of her nation, particularly the girls and women of Afghanistan. The West can help with infrastructure, she says. But solutions for a better future must be forged with respect to a culture that is thousands of years old.
WMC News & Features
September 29, 2009 | Carolyn Forché |
In Defense of the French Health System: Having a Baby in Paris
As the U.S. Senate struggles to produce health-care reform legislation that can win the votes of 60 members, cost issues rise to the forefront of the debate. Poet Carolyn Forché’s experience suggests that universal access to health care is not only the right thing to do morally but financially as well.
WMC News & Features
September 25, 2009 | Courtney Young |
Colorism, Black Women, and Contemporary Representation
Former President Jimmy Carter touched off a media firestorm recently by suggesting that racism explained the extreme rancor of some criticism of President Obama’s health reform plan. The resulting debate, however, didn’t begin to reach the nuance of how attitudes about race are experienced in this country, particularly by black women, as the author explains.
WMC News & Features
September 23, 2009 | Marianne Schnall, Patty Goodwin |
Coming to Terms with the “F Word”
At this year’s annual Omega women’s conference in Rhinebeck, New York, participants reached across generations to empower themselves and their communities. The authors spoke to two of the younger “t...
WMC News & Features
September 21, 2009 | Kim Knowlton |
Doctors Demand Climate Change Action to Avert “Global Health Catastrophe”
As Congress continues to grapple with health care reform this week, heads of state meet at a UN summit to face the challenge of climate change in preparation for a December conference in Copenhagen. Given the dire health consequences of global warming noted by the author, success at the UN could rein in health care costs in the long run, while taking a giant step toward a healthier world.
WMC News & Features
September 16, 2009 | Kate Murphy |
Marilyn French’s Characters Speak to Me
A college senior considers both The Women’s Room and French’s posthumously published novel, The Love Children, from the point of view of her own generation. And the experience clarifies her feminist sensibility.
WMC News & Features
September 12th—The Long Day After
The author, a Pakistan-born New Yorker, connects our collective sorrow on 9/11 to what terrorism and its aftermath continue to take away.
WMC News & Features
Health Care: A Lesbian Mother’s Sudden Passion for Reform
As the author found out, the rules of our broken health care system are so baroque, something entirely unexpected can trip you up, threatening family finances. She asks us to help President Obama sell the nation on reform this week.
WMC News & Features
Broadcast News: When Women Become Two out of Three
The author, whose first job after earning her journalism degree was with Katie Couric’s evening news show, argues that both Couric and Diane Sawyer will adjust to a changing TV news scene, one in which the traditional evening broadcasts coexist with interactive new media.
WMC News & Features
For Wage-Earning Women—A 21st Century Answer
Employed women have a wide variety of needs—equitable wages, reliable benefits, regular hours and flexible schedules—the very issues that unions can address through collective bargaining. Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act can help.
WMC News & Features
Health Care Reform: Post-recess Politics
House and Senate members return to D.C. next week having heard an earful from constituents on health care reform. It falls to President Obama to cut through the confusion.
WMC News & Features
Military Coup Reverses Honduran Women’s Gains in Human Rights
In Honduras, the first military coup of the 21st Century is having a devastating effect on human rights, according to the author, a producer at FIRE (Feminist International Radio Endeavour), which was represented in an international delegation visiting the country this month.
WMC News & Features
Media Blind to GOP Hypocrisy in Health Care Debate
On this Women’s Equality Day, the author suggests that the Republicans should not have a free ride as they deny women reproductive care while sanctifying the doctor-patient relationship and decrying government involvement in the health care system.
WMC News & Features
August 24, 2009 | Nichola Gutgold |
Politics
Secretary Clinton: The Uses of “First Lady Tendencies”
A recent media take on the secretary reveals a truncated view of appropriate diplomatic style. A sense of mission derived from her own experiences drives Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, and the broad scope of her background grounds her work.
WMC News & Features
Health Care Reform—What’s At Stake for Women?
The firestorm about the public option may miss the point for women. Women’s groups have worked with the White House and legislators to put critical expansion of care in all the major health care reform bills making their way through Congress.
WMC News & Features
When Girls Come First
At a time when both arts and physical education classes are threatened with extinction due to school budget cutbacks, non-profit programs are all the more important, especially for underserved girls.
WMC News & Features
Honoring Evelyn Coke
She fought all the way to the Supreme Court to win justice for home care workers. Now we must honor her by advancing her cause.
WMC News & Features
“Imani” for Rape Survivors: A Nurse's Travels to Kenya
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton completes her trip to Africa, the author describes how nurses in one city torn by conflict are combatting violent crimes against women.
WMC News & Features
What Were Laura Ling and Euna Lee Looking For in North Korea?
The trafficking story is a dangerous pursuit—but without more information and world attention, tens of thousands of North Korean women and girls are caught up as victims with no place to turn.
WMC News & Features
August 07, 2009 | Peggy Simpson |
Politics
Sotomayor’s Confirmation—What Her Victory May Cost the Republicans
Conservatives tried to convince the Senate, and the nation, that an impressive judge with an impeccable record was simply a product of affirmative action. It didn’t work.
WMC News & Features
Pakistan's Little Rock Nine
Protecting schoolgirls forced to face down the Taliban mob in the Swat valley—education is the place to start, writes the author, toward an equitable and secure future.
WMC News & Features
Saving Afghan Women from the "Liberators"
The Obama Administration acts as though George Bush abandoned Afghanistan for Iraq and, therefore, an infusion of troops and money will solve the country’s massive problems. But, argues the author, the international community is already engaged and intent on supporting Afghan women. Lasting change must come at the hands of Afghan women themselves—and Afghan men.