Women need to unite to regain our rights.

Despite the persistent gender gap in opinion polls and mounting criticism of their hostility to women’s rights, Republicans are not backing off their assault on women’s equality and well-being. New laws in some states could mean a death sentence for a pregnant woman who suffers a life-threatening condition. But the attack goes well beyond abortion, into birth control, access to health care, equal pay and domestic violence.
Republicans seem immune to criticism. In an angry speech last month, John Boehner, the House speaker, said claims that his party was damaging the welfare of women were “entirely created” by Democrats. Earlier, the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, sneered that any suggestion of a G.O.P. “war on women” was as big a fiction as a “war on caterpillars.”

But just last Wednesday, Mr. Boehner refuted his own argument by ramming through the House a bill that seriously weakens the Violence Against Women Act. That followed the Republican push in Virginia and elsewhere to require medically unnecessary and physically invasive sonograms before an abortion, and Senate Republicans’ persistent blocking of a measure to better address the entrenched problem of sex-based wage discrimination.

On Capitol Hill and in state legislatures, Republicans are attacking women’s rights in four broad areas.

ABORTION On Thursday, a House subcommittee denied the District of Columbia’s Democratic delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, a chance to testify at a hearing called to promote a proposed federal ban on nearly all abortions in the District 20 weeks after fertilization. The bill flouts the Roe v. Wade standard of fetal viability.

Seven states have enacted similar measures. In Arizona, Gov. Jan Brewer signed a law that bans most abortions two weeks earlier. Each measure will create real hardships for women who will have to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy before learning of major fetal abnormalities or risks to their own health.

These laws go a cruel step further than the familiar Republican attacks on Roe v. Wade. They omit reasonable exceptions for a woman’s health or cases of rape, incest or grievous fetal impairment. These laws would require a woman seeking an abortion to be near death, a standard that could easily delay medical treatment until it is too late.

All contain intimidating criminal penalties, fines and reporting requirements designed to scare doctors away. Last year, the House passed a measure that would have

Stop. Stop trying to control women

allowed hospitals receiving federal money to refuse to perform an emergency abortion even when a woman’s life was at stake. The Senate has not taken up that bill, fortunately.

ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE Governor Brewer also recently signed a bill eliminating public funding for Planned Parenthood. Arizona law already barred spending public money on abortions, which are in any case a small part of the services that Planned Parenthood provides. The new bill denies the organization public money for nonabortion services, like cancer screening and family planning, often the only services of that kind available to poor women.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature tried a similar thing in 2011, and were sued in federal court by a group of clinics. The state argues that it is trying to deny money to organizations that “promote” abortions. That is nonsense. Texas already did not give taxpayer money for abortions, and the clinics that sued do not perform abortions.

Last year, the newly installed House Republican majority rushed to pass bills (stopped by the Democratic-led Senate) to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood and Title X. That federal program provides millions of women with birth control, lifesaving screening for breast and cervical cancer, and other preventive care. It is a highly effective way of preventing the unintended pregnancies and abortions that Republicans claim to be so worried about.

EQUAL PAY Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, the epicenter of all kinds of punitive and regressive legislation, signed the repeal of a 2009 law that allowed women and others to bring lawsuits in state courts against pay discrimination, instead of requiring them to be heard as slower and more costly federal cases. It also stiffened penalties for employers found guilty of discrimination.

He defended that bad decision by saying he did not want those suits to “clog up the legal system.” He turned that power over to his government, which has a record of hostility toward workers’ rights.

President Obama has been trying for three years to update and bolster the 1963 Equal Pay Act to enhance remedies for victims of gender-based wage discrimination, shield employees from retaliation for sharing salary information with co-workers, and mandate that employers show that wage differences are job-related, not sex-based, and driven by business necessity.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE Last month, the Senate approved a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, designed to protect victims of domestic and sexual abuse and bring their abusers to justice. The disappointing House bill omits new protections for gay, Indian, student and immigrant abuse victims that are contained in the bipartisan Senate bill. It also rolls back protections for immigrant women whose status is dependent on a spouse, making it more likely that they will stay with their abusers, at real personal risk, and ends existing protections for undocumented immigrants who report abuse and cooperate with law enforcement to pursue the abuser.

Whether this pattern of disturbing developments constitutes a war on women is a political argument. That women’s rights and health are casualties of Republican policy is indisputable.

—Excerpted from the New York Times

This is the second time we have picketed many of our issues

There are no doubts that there is a War on Women. There was one in the 60’s and 70’s. We protest to Take Back the Night. These protests are organized because women need to be able to be out at night without fear of violence, such as rape. 95% of rape victims are women. When a woman says no, it is no. Forcing sex on her is a crime. If a woman has too much to drink or has done some drugs, if she says no, it is no. A woman wears a mini skirt to a party? She is not advertising, she is being a fashonista. She has the right to say no. There is never a reason for a man to ignore a woman saying no. You wanting sex with a woman in these circumstances is not because you are a stud, she is too hot to leave alone. It has to do with the perp’s need for power and control. It makes you a sexual predator.

Domestic Violence is also a crime. There is never a reason to hit a woman. Abuse can be physical such as slapping, pinching, hitting, punching, kicking, or twisting limbs. Abuse can also be verbal and emotional. This includes demeaning words, telling a woman how stupid she is. It is telling her she is ugly and no other man will want her. It is manipulating her to do what you want her to do. Please refer to previous blogs that you will see in my sidebar for October, 2013. If you are being hit, save some money and keep it hidden well. Call your local hotline for your city. Leave and take your children and go to the shelter. You will receive all you need to be free. You never have to live in violence ever again. Women have legal recourse and you will have support getting a protection order or a restraining order.

Equal pay for equal work. People often think this is funny. But woman work as hard as a man and sometimes harder. Even with the Equal pay law that President Obama has signed and it is law women earn less. This is left over from the sixties and seventies. Corporations  felt men where heads of households and if the wife was working, then she was just doing it for “pin money?” When we worked to get women the right to leave the house and go to work it was so that every woman had a choice. That she had the right to do what would make her happy. So staying home raising kids was fine and so was going to work.But our wonderful corporations made it almost necessary for a woman to work. Two incomes are needed to survive.

Sexual harrassment is a federal crime. If you have a supervisor or someone else and they want sex from you and you are not interested just say no. If he makes it plain that your job or salary or promotion are at risk you are being sexually harrassed. Go to Human Resources and file a complaint. It is your right. You can’t be fired because you said no. They may try to tell you that but it isn’t true. Get a lawyer.

Remember that being a woman is something to be proud of, just as being a man is something to be proud of if you are not sexist or racist. You have the right, as a woman, to live freely in a place where you or you and your children are safe from violence.