After Obama’s Victory: What’s Next for Women?
Even as jubilation among Democratic voters was still erupting after Sen. Barack Obama’s historic presidential victory, women’s groups began looking ahead to what comes next and how to get there.
From fixing the domestic health-care system and the economy, to making child care more accessible to working mothers, to rescinding the so-called global gag rule that cuts off foreign aid to groups that provide abortion or counseling, or even lobby for changes in abortion laws, women’s groups started exercising the type of grassroots activism that political analysts say helped bring the Democrats to power on Tuesday.
Obama’s sweeping win was hailed by pro-choice political action committee EMILY’s List and other organizations as a women’s triumph because their votes clinched the victory for Democrats.
In places like New Hampshire, where former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, handily beat Republican incumbent Sen. John Sununu, women made the difference, said analysts from Washington-based EMILY’s List in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday.
New Hampshire also elected three new women to its state Senate. Thirteen of 24 seats are now held by women, making it the first legislative chamber in the nation to have a female majority.
“How did Obama win New Hampshire? He won it with women. Sixty-one percent of women supported Barack Obama, 38 percent McCain,” said Maren Hesla, who directed an EMILY’s List initiative to get women to the polls. Given that men in the state were divided evenly between Obama and McCain, with 49 percent each, “the complete margin of victory in New Hampshire … came from women.”
Article continues at http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/106401/after_obama’s_victory:_what’s_next_for_women/
Women’s groups may have ousted Summers
Protest against reversal of gay marriage law
Thousands of supporters of same-sex marriages held rallies this weekend across the United States and abroad in a coordinated protest at California’s vote this month to ban same-sex marriage.
Demonstrations were organised for Saturday afternoon in the United States and elsewhere, including Canada, Europe and Australia, coordinated by a campaign on the internet(*).
In Manhattan Sean Petersen, 21, a musician from Brooklyn, called the vote “mean-spirited and divisive”.
In Chicago, Andy Thayer, a co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network, exhorted a crowd that had listened to a gay men’s choir sing a version of the hymn Down by the Riverside to follow through on the spirit of the protest.
“We can’t just let this be a blowing-off-steam rally, as satisfying as that might be,” he said. “We’re here to win equal marriage rights in Illinois.”
Los Angeles police estimated 8,000 people attended a protest filling the central plaza in San Francisco. Gatherings in other cities were estimated to be made up of hundreds of protesters.
On November 4 California voters narrowly approved Proposition 8, which triggered the protests, defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
It reversed the right of gay people to marry – a right that had been granted by the state’s supreme court this year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/17/marriage-gay-rights-law-us
(*) Join the Impact http://jointheimpact.com/press/
Recent postings- Murder of human rights activist Natalia Estemirova condemned
- Three publications from AWID’s Resisting and Challenging Religious Fundamentalisms
- Rabbanit? Rabbah? Maybe just plain Rabbi? What should be the title of an Orthodox woman who happens to also be a rabbi?
- Inquiry urged after Sudan women flogged for wearing trousers
- Accountability To Women Could Upset Business As Usual
- Fight Sexism to Help Young Mothers – South Africa
- Soldiers Who Rape, Commanders Who Condone: Sexual Violence and Military Reform in the Democratic Republic of Congo
- Worrying increase in gang rape say police in Angola
- Repatriation of Rwandan Women Refugees in Uganda could increase hardships
- HRW condemns Rwanda’s draft law on HIV tests and sterilisation
- Gender Wire
- AFRICA: Organic Farming Could be Answer to Food Insecurity
- EDUCATION: Mother Tongue Absent in Thousands of Classrooms
- Q&A: 'Farmers Can Gain From Crisis'
- DR-CONGO: Rape by Regular Army a Growing Problem, HRW Says
- PERU: Going to School Still a Feat for Rural Girls
- CUBA: What Schools Can and Cannot Do for Equality
- FILM: Graphically Condemning a "Barbaric and Horrific Punishment"
- ECONOMY: Accountability To Women Could Upset Business-As-Usual
- POLITICS-US: Sotomayor Poised Amid Senatorial Jousting
- Q&A: "My Boyfriend Insisted I Quit Dancing, My Answer Was No"
- new on womensgrid
- Natalya Estemirova
- A Woman of Substance Award – nominations close 31st July 2009
- Art Exhibition & Panel Discussion – Women in Conflict – 31st July and 1st August 2009
- Public Meeting: Margaret Prescod – Tell us about Obama, about US policy in Haiti & Honduras …
- Disproportionate number of children who are killed came from homes with domestic violence
- Lost daughters campaign
- Refused asylum seekers forced to eat from bins says Rowntree trust
- Four years on Tesco still stalling on South African women’s farm pay
- The words of God do not justify cruelty to women
- Irish Women Challenge Abortion Ban in European Human Rights Court
- new on women in london
- 4 vacancies - Refuge - 28th July 2009
- Female Community Outreach Officer - Kiran - 14th August 2009
- Volunteer Co-ordinator - Jewish Women’s Aid - 10th August 2009
- 2 vacancies - Eaves - 17th and 22nd July 2009
- Public investment in childcare : who cares, who pays? - Daycare Trust - 17th November 2009
- Feminism in London - conference organised by London Feminist Network - 10th October 2009
- GLDVP Newsletter - July 2009
- GLDVP Stella Project advanced training for experienced workers - 6th August and 8th September 2009
- Being a mum has ‘devastating’ impact on earnings - new report - Fawcett
- The GLDVP response to: The Way Forward – A call for action to end violence against women
