Under a new program announced Monday by Mayor Lauren Breed, 150 pregnant Pacific Islanders and Black people in San Francisco will be allocated $1,000 monthly throughout their pregnancies and for six months postpartum. The goal of this program is to create birth equity in a city where pregnant people who are Black or Pacific Islander have higher maternal mortality rates and higher rates of preterm births than their white counterparts. Black people in San Francisco represent only four percent of births but 50 percent of maternal...

According to the Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit, the Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department are investigating allegations that ICE guards assaulted and harassed detainees in areas that were not visible to security cameras. A crucial witness in this ongoing investigation was deported by the U.S. government this Monday. The woman was held in the El Paso detention center f and told her lawyers about a pattern of harassment and abuse. Guards would systematically assault her and other detainees in security camera blind spots. Several guards...

On September 13th tens of thousands marched in Minsk on the eve of Alexander Lukashenko’s visit to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin. This protest is one of many that has occurred in the last month where the women-lead Belarusian protest group called The Women in White takes a leadership role.  These women-led protests continue to flood the streets of Minsk and other Belarusian cities in opposition to the unfair election of Lukashenko and continued police brutality. The United Nations has reported that an estimated 6,000...

Founder of the Feminist Press and sometimes called the “mother of women’s studies,” Florence Howe died on Saturday in Manhattan at the age of 91. The Feminist Press, a literary nonprofit that publishes works that promote free speech and social justice, confirmed Howe had been in hospice care with Parkinson’s disease. In the 1950s when Howe was teaching, women’s studies was not a “real” academic path. “A decade ago, it had no name,” Howe wrote in The New York Times. “A few academics around the country...

Last Wednesday, Denmark announced that sex without explicit consent can be prosecuted as rape. This modification to the country’s sexual violence laws “is one of the most important battles for gender equality in Denmark that has taken place for a very long time,” said Danish Justice Minister Nick Haekkerup. According to News18, the new law prioritizes consent when it comes to the prosecution of rape, specifying that it “must be given voluntarily and as an expression of an individual’s free will through words or action.” The...

Need some good news today? (Whatever that means)... A badass feminist collective in Mexico City has taken power into their own hands by seizing the headquarters of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) and converted it to a shelter for victims of gender-based violence in Mexico City, Mexico. Let me hear you say, Power to the People! According to the Mexico News Daily, frustrations and tensions between feminists and the Mexican government continue to swelter as women are continually left ignored and unprotected after reporting gender-based...

On Tuesday, Senator Ted Cruz co-authored a letter to the FDA requesting the removal of the abortion pill, otherwise known as RU-46 or Mifeprex, from the U.S. market. Cruz asked Commissioner Stephen Hahn to classify Mifeprex as an “imminent hazard to public health” and “a significant threat of danger,” claiming that “pregnancy is not a life-threatening illness, and the abortion pill does not cure or prevent any disease.” Cruz’s statements, backed up by his pro-life posse, dismiss the health hazards that women frequently face while...

We have seen athletes protest racism, past, and present, but it feels special with two-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka. Monday was the first day of the 2020 U.S. Open, and Osaka wore a cloth face mask that read Breonna Taylor, the name of the 26-year-old EMT who was shot eight times and killed by police in her home. Osaka ascended into the public eye after becoming the first tennis player born in Japan to win a Grand Slam championship — against her childhood...

  It looks like the stigmatization of periods and menstrual products is far from over. Earlier this month, a Tampax ad which aired in the UK and Ireland was pulled from the airwaves for being “vulgar,” “brash and disgusting and unnecessary,” and “crossing a line of decency.” Titled “Tampons and Tea,” the ad addressed an issue so many people with periods are all too used too: being able to feel your tampon. In the commercial, an actress playing the role of a talk-show host explains that if...

Damn, Donald! Back at it again with the predatory behavior. Over the past four years, Donald J. Trump has become known for his “locker room talk.” From his infamous “grab 'em by the pussy” line to talking about how he’d like to date his own daughter, his misogynistic rhetoric doesn’t really surprise your average feminist at this point. Still, with just two months until election day, one would think that there wouldn’t be much time for Trump to sneak in any more jaw-dropping, blatantly sexist...