April 2, 2012
Why did you choose the color white?
Partially under inspiration from Leymah Gbowee’s peace movement in Liberia, partially from the original suffragist movements in the UK and the US, and partially because it can mean so many different things. Some of the interpretations are explored in this post.
In case you were wondering whether the gender/wage gap is still a problem: yes. It’s actually a little worse for women in the financial indusyry, according to Think Progress:
“At the moment, women in America earn about 77.4 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts, and as we’ve been noting, the pay gap extends to even the most lucrative of industries. In the financial sector, women earn about 55 to 62 cents for every dollar made by men, while women who head major lobbying firms make about 57 cents to the dollar.”
-Jess
118 notes (via stfuconservatives)
American Shakespeare Center staff members in Staunton, Virginia, proudly wearing white for women’s rights!
I don’t generally want to get too political on this blog because I’m not a political person. But I do quietly believe what I believe and, on this one post, it is okay with me for us to all be a little less quiet and say what we believe. I believe in my right to choose. I stand for as few limitations on that right as possible. I need affordable access to health care.
Think I’m nuts? Feel the same? All okay here.
She’s got some fantastic photos — wearing the white in style.
Today, April 2, people across the country are wearing white in support of women’s rights and against the latest backlash against women, this time lead by conservative Republicans. A Facebook page has been created, and although the number of participants is small, I’m doing my bit. Why? It’s a small gesture, but big things have usually started small. I do it, in large part, to honor my fore mothers who struggled to gain basic rights for women that we now take for granted. Like voting. Like safe and legal abortions. Like not being property.
I do it because I feel as if we are experiencing a national nightmare with regards to women’s freedoms and our right to exist as free persons in a free nation. Women are the majority population in this country and on this earth. It is only by staying informed and engaged that we will retain any kind of political power and self-determination.
It’s a no-brainer.
Joni Mitchell writes
“Truth goes up in vapors
The steeples lean
Winds of change patriarchs
Snug in your bible belt dreams
God goes up the chimney
Like childhood Santa Claus
The good slaves love the good book
A rebel loves a cause”
Fight on.
The Next Step
You’re up and about and wearing white — fantastic! So what next? Why not take the opportunity today to contact your elected officials at the local, state, and federal levels, to let them know how you feel about women’s rights? Let them know that you’re watching their votes and that you will remember how they treat women come election time. Encourage them to stand with us, and thank the ones who already do. Most of all, just make the contact. Their job is to represent you. They should know how you feel.
Here’s our suggestion — edit at will, or write your own. A personal message is always best.
I am contacting you today in regards to women’s right that are currently coursing through our nation’s consciousness and raising extremely high levels of concern for all of us who value women’s freedom and the equanimity that should be as available to women as equality is to any subgroup of people.
The support of any of the bills currently in debate in congress about women’s rights, specifically but not limited to, reproductive rights, is the one of the most egregious acts of discrimination and sexism that I, one of your constitutes, have ever experienced.
I encourage you to fight against these bills, to stop allowing them any debate in session, and to definitely not let them pass into law.I am sending you this email today to remind you:
that women deserve honesty from their doctors - 100% of the time
that a fetus’s life is not more important that the mother’s
that state sanctioned rape is still rape and not ok
that it is not ok to charge a mother with attempted murder
for a miscarriage
that it is not ok to force women to carry a stillborn baby to term
that it is not ok to take away the funding of women to receive medical treatment to make a political point
that it is not ok to fire a woman because she is taking a medicine you disagree with
More over, I am writing you to remind you that I voted you in, and I can vote you out too.For these and many other reasons I am asking you to stop allowing laws to be introduced that restrict access of a single subset of people, in this case, women, into even the debate among the legislation of both state and country. Stop these bills before they start, and if you cannot, then stop them before they pass.
Thank you.
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