On Friday, the US House passed a bill to defund Planned Parenthood. It is not expected to pass in the Senate, but it looks like Republicans will try to now fast-track a 20-week abortion ban bill. Contact your Senators to OPPOSE ABORTION BANS via the Planned Parenthood action alert. Planned Parenthood has been the target…
Over the past 18 or so months, the gender wage gap in Pennsylvania closed by another penny, to 78%. That is, Pennsylvania women make, on average, 78 cents to every dollar made by their male counterparts. Pay equity in Pennsylvania has been law since 1959, enacted more than five decades ago, when the gap was…
The first International Women’s Day was held in March of 1911, celebrated by over a million people in Europe. This German poster for the 1914 event reads: “Give Us Women’s Suffrage…Until now, prejudice and reactionary attitudes have denied full civic rights to women, who as workers, mothers, and citizens wholly fulfill their duty, who must…
The US House of Representatives has scheduled a vote Thursday, on the 42nd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, to ban all abortions after 20 weeks. HR 36, the cynically misnamed “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” would prohibit all abortions after 20 weeks based on the professionally unsupported notion that fetuses are capable of feeling pain…
Hard to believe that Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McLay would get any flack for participating in a social media campaign to stand up against racism, yet Fraternal Order of Police President Howard McQuillan took offense, charging that McLay’s action is targeting the Pittsburgh police force as racist. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, McLay sent out…
Mike Brown was senselessly shot dead August 9th by a Ferguson, MO police officer for no reason other than “walking while black.” An ongoing effort to keep these issues in the public eye is gathering momentum in Ferguson. Connect with it via #BlackLifeMatters. Here are some pieces from around the Internet about the tragedy, about…
Monday June 30, 2014, the Supreme Court of the United States published its decision in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case. Hobby Lobby craft stores had petitioned the court to be exempt from having to cover contraception in the insurance they offered employees. The suit claimed this mandate by the government in the implementation of…
What is the legacy of the “Second Wave” for feminists, and what is its unfinished business? Join host Caryn Hunt, President of Pennsylvania NOW, as she talks with feminist historian Karen Bojar, author of Feminism in Philadelphia (more about her book) and National NOW Board member Jocelyn Morris about the Second Wave of the feminist movement.
Equality & Justice NOW, sponsored by Pennsylvania NOW, examines the news and issues relevant to women.
Memorial Day Weekend was hijacked by yet another crazed “lone gunman” who went on a shooting spree killing strangers. As details were revealed, it became more and more clear that Elliot Rodger was seemingly headed full-speed towards a tragedy of this sort. But as many commentators on Friday’s rampage have pointed out, this type of…
Did you know: The federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour. The minimum for tipped workers is $2.13/hour plus tips. Although employers are supposed to make up the difference between $2.13 and $7.25 for times when tipped workers don’t earn that much in tips, many do not. That when the minimum wage was increased in 1996 and…
