This past weekend The Washington Post published an op-ed by Dr. Alan Braid, a San Antonio-based physician, who revealed he had performed an abortion violating Texas’s new law banning abortions after six weeks.  Senate Bill 8 was passed in May 2021 and took effect on September 1. The law bans abortions after six weeks, or as soon as a heartbeat can be detected, much earlier than most people know they are pregnant. SB8 also allows private citizens to sue those involved in, or suspected of being...

My Name is Pauli Murray is quite possibly one of the most eye-opening documentary about race and gender identity to come out in recent times. The 91-minute long documentary chronicles the life and work of African-American writer and civil-rights activist Pauli Murray. Born in 1910, the Baltimore Maryland native struggled with her sexuality and gender identity their whole life.  A graduate of Howard University School of Law, Murray was admitted to the bar in California in 1945, later working as the deputy attorney general of...

    “When I went viral,” Tarana Burke says, “it amplified the work that I was already doing. It gave me an opportunity to mainstream the work and ideas that I had been carrying for a long time.” Four years ago, on October 15, 2017, Burke found herself catapulted into a long-overdue national conversation. At the time, she was the program director for the Brooklyn nonprofit Girls for Gender Equity. A lifelong activist who saw a lack of empathy in traditional responses to sexual assault, Burke had been...

Last Thursday the National Radio and Television Administration in China revealed an eight-point plan reflecting President Xi Jinping’s efforts to strengthen China and impose an official moral code for the nation. The plan calls for “further regulation of arts and entertainment shows and related personnel.” This includes banning effeminate men from television or, in the words of the regulator, "resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal esthetics" in the media.  In 2018, the annual Chinese Central Television’s back-to-school special featured New F4, a...

On Tuesday, Sept 7, Mexico’s Supreme Court set a precedent that could lead to the legalization of abortion procedures in this predominantly Catholic country. The court made a unanimous ruling that penalizing abortions is unconstitutional, thus decriminalizing abortion procedures across the country. Up until now, many Mexican states could mandate jailtime for people who got abortions, and the ruling, which many hope will legalize abortions in the near future, follows years of public demands for greater rights and protections by a prominent Mexican women’s movement,...

Under the leadership of the Women's March Foundation, on October 2nd thousands of women across all 50 states, in major cities from Los Angeles to Washington D.C., will march alongside one another to defend their reproductive rights. With the recent eruption around Texas SB8 near-total abortion ban, which consequently bans abortions in Texas after six weeks, the long-term effects on abortion clinics and safe healthcare seem daunting. Grassroots movements on a local level are crucial in dismantling the stigmas and policy reform around federal abortion restriction. In...

After the report a month ago that Robbie Kaplan, TIME’S UP Legal Deference Fund Co-Founder, would be leaving the group, the organization is reeling from continued shifts in leadership. Actors Eva Longoria and Jurnee Smollett, along with producer Shonda Rhimes, will be stepping down from the TIME’S UP board because of the recent scandal surrounding former New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment case. When Kaplan’s resignation was first announced by The New York Times, there were still lingering questions about how this would impact...

September has barely started, but the state of Texas has already managed to implement the most extreme abortion bill in the United States. The bill, which the Supreme Court failed to suppress, bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy (when embryonic cardiac activity is detected for the first time). Most people aren't even aware they are pregnant before seven weeks, when morning sickness typically starts. To make things even more horrifying, the bill also includes a $10,000 bounty, plus lawyer’s fees, for anyone who sues...

  On Friday, August 13, 2021, in Plymouth, England, Jake Davison, 22, shot and killed five people before turning the gun on himself. According to CNN, the victims included the shooter’s mother Maxine Davison, 51; Sophie Martyn, a 3-year-old; her father, Lee Martyn; 44, Stephen Washington, 59; and Kate Shepherd, 66. Footage was later found of the shooter, Jake Davison, talking about his frustrations with women as a result of his lack of a sex life, calling women “simple-minded” and saying that the only thing women...

In “BLACK EFFECT,” a track from Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s 2018 collaborative album “EVERYTHING IS LOVE,” Beyoncé describes a quintessential Black female form: Stunt with your curls, your lips, Sarah Baartman hips Gotta hop into my jeans like I hop into my whip, yeah The celebration of Sarah Baartman’s features marks a departure from her historical image. Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman was an African woman who, in the early 1800s, was something of an international sensation of objectification. She was paraded around Europe, where spectators jeered at her large buttocks. With...