Category: sexism
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Should we outlaw sex?
Jonathan Mitchell, one of the architects of Texas law SB 8, which severely limits abortions, wrote this in a “friend of the court” brief to the Supreme Court. “Women can ‘control their reproductive lives’ without access to abortion; they can do so by refraining from sex.”
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Women on the Supreme Court?
Why have women serving on the Supreme Court? Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice, once said, “I think the important thing about my appointment is not that I will decide cases as a woman, but that I am a woman who will get to decide cases.” Of course,…
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Who’s to blame?
Cecile Richards places blame for Texas’ new restrictive abortions law on the state’s Republican leadership and Governor Greg Abbott. “This is not what Texans want, and that’s what I think is so important because, of course, as a Texan I try to explain to people what you are seeing happen here is not because of…
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They were clueless
In Susan Page’s biography, Nancy Pelosi tells about women’s struggles to be heard in Washington—especially in the early years after she was elected to the House in 1987. In the early 1990s, there were a few women in the House. These women met with a group of Democrats once a week for dinner and conversation.…
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Longings seized her
Sarah Grimke, born in 1792, was studying with a tutor when she reported: “Increasingly, during those classes, longings had seized me, foreign, torrential aches that overran my heart. I wanted to know things, to become someone. Oh, to be a son.” I am reading about Sarah Grimke, an early activist for abolition and women’s rights,…
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Let them be sea captains
“We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down,” said Margaret Fuller, writer and women’s rights advocate, who was born in 1810. “We would have every path laid open to women as freely as to men. If you ask me what offices they may fill, I reply—any. I do not care what case you put; let…
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A little progress
Women still hold only about one-fourth of the seats in Congress, concludes Ms. magazine in its winter 2021 issue. They hold 27 percent of the seats in the House—and 24 percent of the seats in the Senate. That’s progress—but not enough progress.
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Was the battle over on August 26, 1920?
In 1921, Alice Paul answered: “It is incredible to me that anyone should think that the fight for women’s equality has been won.” And, as we all know, the larger battle for diversity and equality in this country is still ongoing.
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Susan B. Anthony votes
Susan B. Anthony and more than 150 other women around the country voted—illegally—in 1872. The judge at Susan B. Anthony’s trial was federal Judge Ward Hunt. Anthony described him as “a small-brained, pale-faced, prim-looking man.” Judge Hunt made one BIG mistake when he asked: “Has the prisoner anything to say why sentence shall not be…