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.

A new movement is pushing back against a growing list of legislation targeted at women.

“The ongoing war against women is being challenged,” said Edna Kunkel, Wisconsin’s liaison for the group United Against the War on Women.

A protest is planned on Saturday, April 28, on the Capitol grounds in Madison.

The organization has already gained 1,500 supporters in the state and 20,000 nationwide. The immediate impetus is what they see as an assault on reproductive rights, and they aren’t alone.

Read the full article

(Headline clarification: Neither a wildcat nor an attractive post-menopausal woman — though I don’t doubt there are plenty of either who would fight for us — but rather referring to the University of Houston Cougars)

Frustrated with recent legislation, like the mandatory sonogram bill, alumna Reesa Graham decided to create an event, “Wear White For Women’s Rights,” which will take place Monday.

The purpose of the event is to encourage people to stay informed, talk about issues and vote.

“The real goals of this movement are empowerment, education, motivation and change. I want us all, average citizen and lawmaker alike, to remember who has ultimate control over this — and that’s us — the voters,” Graham said. “I know our political system is far from perfect, but if we don’t speak up when it matters, then it will never get any better.”

Graham, who currently lives in New York City, said she never considered herself political until recent events “forced” her to pay attention.

“This whole thing started because I was so frustrated at what was happening in the world around me,” she said. “I was home on a Saturday evening, reading yet another article about yet another crazy bill that impeded on women’s rights. This particular one was the one in which a Georgia Senator compared women to livestock. And reading the comments that people had written (online) as well, the outrage that people had.”

Graham said on that evening she came across Nobel Peace Prize-winner Leymah Gbowee’s nonviolent protest for women’s rights in Liberia. Gbowee inspired Graham to start her own movement.

“There is so much outrage online, but no one does anything with it. We make our comments on bulletin boards and articles and then walk away,” Graham said.

“I wanted to find a way that the average American could support this movement — Americans who may not have the resources to travel or even the ability to take the time off work.”

As far as her critics go, she said what is most important to her is that she and her board respond to any feedback by being polite and civil.

“I am tired of politics being about who can out-rude the other.

“No one learns anything that way; people spend too much time defending against the attack,” Graham said

Graham asks people to wear all white or a white shirt with pink “I support women’s rights” on it Monday to remind those who write and pass bills to think twice about the laws they are trying to pass.

“I want everyone to have a voice, and I want to find a way in which all those voices are heard,” Graham said. “Restrictions or laws that effect only on a single subset of people — in this case, women — is discrimination, pure and simple. Discrimination, in all its forms, should be fought against at all times and by all people.”

For more information, go to www.facebook.com/WearAllWhiteForWomensRights.

“One of the things that happened in Idaho was that the legislators assumed people weren’t going to pay very much attention,” says Luther, who helped organize a social-media campaign against the bill. On the ground, Monica Hopkins, executive director of the ACLU in Idaho, agreed: “The public outcry is what killed this bill.” She pointed out that a 20-week abortion ban passed relatively quietly last year. “I think really it’s a nationwide trend that Idaho is participating in.”

Activists in other states that have successfully beat back anti-reproductive rights laws have noticed a similar pattern: A legislator says something terrible and condescending; women use social media to stoke nationwide outrage about the comment; and the legislators, cowed by the unexpected attention, back down.

Read the full article on Salon.com