According to Rebecca Traister’s cover story for the February 22, 2016 issue of New York Magazine, single women will have a “profound effect” on this year’s general presidential election. As a single woman, why was I not more keenly aware of this? Perhaps it is because most of the news coverage regarding presidential and mid-term politics in the last four years has led…
Posted February 24th, 2016. Dora Pope | 24 February, 2016, 11:25 The deal with prosecutors came together on Thursday night, Woodfox’s attorney said. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court, however, overturned Brady’s ruling and set the stage for Friday’s third trial. Wallace died in 2013 just days after he was released. He was released from prison in 2001 after 29 years.…
Bureaucracy is boring. “Regulatory Plans,” “Notice and Comment,” “Final Rules”—the Administrative State tends to glaze eyes. But for a moment last July, the media set its gaze on bureaucracy. That’s because a bureaucratic agency, the Department of Labor, proposed a rule that could increase the wages of millions of workers. Specifically, the DOL proposal makes approximately 5 million additional “white…
A lot has been written about why talented women aren’t advancing in academia the way their male colleagues are – including the heavy “baby penalty” paid by female academics. But the gap we see in tenure rates between male and female faculty members can’t be explained by differences in family commitments or productivity alone. New research points to another problem women face – a…
A United States prisoner who spent four decades in solitary confinement has been released from jail. Brent Miller, a guard at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, was killed in 1972. He was released on Friday – his 69th birthday – after pleading “no contest” to manslaughter. He and two other men became known as “Angola Three”, a group that was the…
Albert Woodfox, 69, was released on time served after pleading no contest to manslaughter in the 1972 death of a prison guard. Albert Woodfox was the last of a group known as “Angola Three” for their decades-long stays in isolation. Albert Woodfox raised his fist defiantly as he walked out of his prison gates after 43 years behind bars. In a statement, Woodfox…
I’m a feminist for Bernie Sanders. No, Ms. Steinem, not because that’s where the boys are – I’m married and pregnant (in other words, entirely unavailable) – but because my informed political opinion is that Bernie Sanders is the superior candidate for president. I am humbled by and grateful to our feminist foremothers but will not be voting for Hillary…
Paid family leave has been at the fore of both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns. According to their campaign websites, both Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton support creating an entitlement to at least 12 weeks of paid family leave. While paid family leave would be a tremendous step forward, it is not the only issue affecting caregivers. Another related…
The New York Times recently published a fascinating and tragic article about a small group of women in rural India who challenged the social order of their village by seeking and obtaining jobs at a meat-processing factory. The women walked 10 miles each way (to save the 7-cent rickshaw fare) to the factory. There, they labored crushing rocks to rubble, carrying cement,…
In any uphill battle, solidarity is often the key to success. Last weekend I had dinner with an old friend, Chloe Safier, who has been an ongoing advocate for women’s rights, both in the US and abroad. I took the opportunity to talk with her about the global movement for gender justice and how building bridges for and amongst women…