Category: Women’s Rights

2020 Conference CANCELED!
CANCELED Mar.13 & 15: 1920-2020 Remarkable Women Conference

A message from Congress of History President Christopher Milnes:

Based upon the Governor’s proclamation that all nonessential gatherings be postponed due to the state of emergency regarding this fast-spreading virus, the Congress of History is sad to announce that we must CANCEL the “Remarkable Women” conference schedule for March 13 and 14, 2020.

By Richard Riehl / The Riehl World / February 15, 2020

All three male members of the San Marcos Planning Commission, whose two-year terms expired in December, were reappointed by the mayor and city council in January. The only woman on the seven-member commission, Wendy Matthews, was also reappointed.

There are no term limits for commissioners, allowing for the growth of the good old boys network. Kevin Norris begins his eleventh year on the council, while Bruce Minnery stepped down after eleven and a half years.

Five women were among the twelve new applicants who failed to win a seat on the commission. Filling vacancies with incumbents was a missed opportunity for the city to bring gender balance to the commission. Here are a few of the qualifications of the women applicants who were passed over.

4th Annual Women’s March – San Diego
Saturday, January 18, 2020
10:00 AM 2:00 PM
Waterfront Park (West Side)

From WMSD:

Our marchers continue to make a difference.

2020 Elections…a critical time, and Women’s March San Diego marchers are seen, heard, and powerful!

On election night, Tuesday, the Virginia state legislature flipped – and now the state is blue. Virginia Democrats have been out of power in the legislature for a quarter of a century but the voters have spoken.

This turn-over now creates a road for the ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment, to become law. Virginia is now – with the first woman to serve as speaker in the body’s 400-year history, Democrat Eileen Filler-Corn – poised to pass the ERA. And when it does, Virginia becomes the crucial 38th state to ratify the measure. This would be the three-fourths of the all 50 states threshold needed to add it to the Constitution.

But there are two main hurdles.

For one, Congress set a deadline of 1982 – but by that date, only 35 states had ratified the ERA.

And two, some states have withdrawn their approval.

Suuunny Day ….. Sweepin’ the clouds awaaay…?

You’re invited to join the women at the OB Woman’s Club for a fun and nostalgic trip down memory lane as we listen to insider stories from Dr. Lucille Burbank, a researcher on the show and the author of “The Inside Secrets of Sesame Street”.

There’s a fun meeting on tap, packed with info about the upcoming Ping Pong Tournament, Card Night, the Obcean Luau Fundraiser and more!

A light meal of Buddha Bowls will be served

By Colleen O’Connor / Times of San Diego / August 9, 2019

The reasons why a woman will be on the Democratic ticket are in the news every day.

That news is not just ugly, violent and unbelievably cruel, but repulsive in the extreme. And it affects women in visceral and now political ways.

While this may sound alarming, the list below points to some reasons why even Orange County—that Republican bastion—is now majority Democratic.

The answer is women.

Originally posted August 6, 2019

Here’s a recent gem attributed falsely to Gloria Steinem:

“How about we treat every young man who wants to buy a gun like every woman who wants to get an abortion:

• mandatory 48-hour waiting period,
• parental permission,
• a note from his doctor proving he understands what he’s about to do,
• a video he has to watch about the effects of gun violence…

Let’s close down all but one gun shop in every state and

By Joni Halpern

Since 1896, Ohio voters have picked the winning candidate in all but two presidential elections – 1944 and 1960 – giving rise to the state’s renown as a “bellwether” to which candidates cannot afford to turn a deaf ear. If Ohioans are going to be so influential, maybe we could help inform their future choices by sharing some concerns from the Golden State

Dear Ohio,

It has occurred to me to ask you to take a second look at the abortion controversy. It seems to be splitting us apart as a nation. Apparently, it is not enough for some groups of Christians to refrain from abortion in their own lives. They seem to believe they can save their souls only if they ban abortion for every woman of every belief, under every circumstance. They contend that a full-fledged human life with all rights to maximum protection begins at the moment sperm and egg join. They believe government must protect the fetus.

In the old days, long before modern techniques of abortion were available, women of every culture and religion knew how to encourage miscarriage. Mothers and grandmothers taught daughters and granddaughters. There were potions and teas before there were coat hangers and curettes.

On Tuesday, May 21, hundreds of women – with a few men – rallied in front of the Federal Court House in downtown San Diego – joining rallies in 50 states and Puerto Rico to say “Our bodies! Our choice!”

It was a nationwide protest against the onslaught of anti-abortion legislation being passed in State Houses across the South and Mid-West – all aiming to destroy Roe v Wade.

Locally, San Diego Indivisible and Women’s March San Diego joined together to organize the rally “in Support of Women’s Rights & Reproductive Freedom !”

By Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew

The war on women is on.

Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, and, soon, Louisiana, will join several other states to enact draconian legislation aiming to criminalize abortion, and, by extension, women’s reproductive freedom. The purported endgame is to wave a red flag under the noses of the Supreme Court to get them to overturn Roe v. Wade and abolish legal abortion in the U.S. once and for all.

As Michelle Goldberg put it in the New York Times :

“You can see, in the anti-abortion movement, a mood of triumphant anticipation. Decades of right-wing politics have all led up to this moment, when an anti-abortion majority on the Supreme Court could end women’s constitutional protection against being forced to carry a pregnancy and give birth against their will.”

By ZawnVillines / Daily Kos / May 16, 2019

One in four women has had an abortion. It’s a figure that’s prompted activists to remind us that everyone loves someone who has had an abortion, and that group discussions of abortion will almost always include at least one person who has undergone the procedure. Many women have worked tirelessly to destigmatize abortion. They’re willing to risk their lives and reputations, subjecting themselves to judgment, derision, and threats, to share their abortion stories.

Yet a person with a penis is involved in 100% of abortions. Where are they? Why aren’t they shouting their own abortion stories, talking about how abortion allowed them to pursue their dreams, live their lives, and pursue financial health?

I know dozens of women who devote every spare second they have to fighting for safe and legal abortion. Many of them also have full-time jobs and multiple children. Where are their husbands?

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt / Excuse Me, I’m Writing

Mother’s knees, they were misshapen by the lumps and scars of a lifetime.

There she sat, unaware of the lens, skirt pulled high to defy the wet Eastern heat that dampened doting offspring. The edema of unspoken words and fateful adventures swelled her joints and crippled her sidestep, yet still she twirled to the rhythms of her youth. Although achingly unsure in her final years, those knees had long served her well.

They held her aloft when she was barely tall enough to reach the outhouse seat—loath, she was, to rest on it for fear of all the crawling, stinging things her older cousins convinced her lurked there. And surely those knees propelled her toward the heavens when the plumbing was miraculously moved inside her grandfather’s Maryland farmhouse.