Category: Women’s Rights

Originally posted September 29, 2010

By Anna Daniels

“Feminism is doomed to failure because it is based on an attempt to repeal and restructure human nature.” … “What I am defending is the real rights of women. A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother.” Phyllis Schlafly

“Schlafly’s discussion reveals a paradox. She was able to have it all: family and career. And she did it by fighting those who said they were trying to get it all for her.…” Pia de Solenni

When I walked into the unisex bathroom at the Livingroom coffeehouse, I deftly threw a kung fu kick, successfully lowering the toilet seat from its upright position with a soul satisfying BANG! accompanied by my hissed words “Here’s to you Phyllis Schlafly!”

Schlafly spear headed the anti-Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) movement in 1974, maintaining that the ERA’s passage would lead to compulsory military service for women, same sex marriage and (drum roll please…) public unisex bathrooms!

From Women’s March San Diego

Happy Women’s Herstory Month! It’s been a long road, we know. On behalf of the entire Women’s March San Diego team, we truly hope you and your loved ones are doing okay. We invite you to some upcoming events that honor those who’ve made a path before us, and are helping us navigate the path forward:

Millions of us, longtime activists, new activists, sisters side by side, marched through streets everywhere to guide and inspire a new generation. We broke barriers, we got the vote out, we got more women elected than ever before and you created US, the Women’s March. Despite a global pandemic and an insurrection, we continue onward, fighting for equity — we are not equal, yet.
A woman’s work is never done.

By Collen O’Connor

Women’s History Month (March) usually features the deeds of great women; mostly ahead of their times and by now familiar names.

Their gains (since women’s right to vote) often came from progressive or “left leaning” quarters. Yet, even now, they have been unable to secure the Equal Rights Amendment; the White House; or even a woman’s face on a dollar bill. The attempt to get Harriet Tubman’ face on the $20 bill remains stuck in legislative limbo.

Champagne, Champagne: to Toast a Brilliant Bookend for Women’s History

By Colleen O’Connor

It only took 100 years from securing women’s right to vote to winning the Vice-Presidency. Grandmothers; Great Grandmothers; and their ghostly presences are cheering.

My own grandmother was a suffragette who held strategy sessions in her farmhouse in North Dakota. Could she have imagined a woman becoming the Vice-President of the United States; Speaker of the House of Representatives; Justices on the Supreme Court; Head of the U.S. Treasury; Secretary of State; Ambassador to the U.N.; Presidents of Colleges; Senior Counsel to the President; Director of Intergovernmental Affairs; Manager of Major League men’s sport team?

From a Justice for Gender Equality to a “Justice” for Gender Oppression

By Marjorie Cohn / TruthOut / Sept. 29, 2020

Amy Coney Barrett and Ruth Bader Ginsburg could not be more different when it comes to their respective notions of justice. Ginsburg, a pioneer in the protection of gender equality, spent her entire career, including 27 years on the Supreme Court, fighting for the rights of women, immigrants, people of color, criminal defendants, LGBTQ people, workers, people with mental disabilities and the poor. Barrett seeks to strip health insurance from tens of millions of people and crush reproductive rights.

Donald Trump rushed to nominate Barrett and enlisted his consigliere, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), to ram her nomination through the Senate so she can support Trump’s legal challenges to any election results that favor Joe Biden. Trump, who refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power,

Events All events are online and free unless stated otherwise.

Every Saturday at 10:30 a.m. Climate Mobilization Coalition Zoom Meeting. September 5th,12th,19th and 26th
September 1st Tuesday 6 pm – 7pm Project Community Care Hosted by Sunrise Movement San Diego
September 1st Tuesday 7 pm – 9 pm SD Veterans For Peace General Monthly Meeting via ZOOM Hosted by San Diego Veterans For Peace
September 2nd Wednesday – 5th Saturday 10 am – 12 pm Screening and Panel Discussion of the Film “Public Trust – The Fight for America’s Public Lands” Hosted by North County Climate Change Alliance
September 2nd Wednesday 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm No Justice, No Games Petco Park 9th and J Street Vigil (please bring a candle) Let’s join our voices to ask the San Diego Padres to walk off the field in protest for the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many more due to the color of their skin.
September 3rd Thursday 6 pm – 7 pm Rooting Out White Supremacy in the US Military: A KPBS News Online Event
September 4th Friday 6 pm – 7:30 pm Intersectionality & Justice Panel Hosted by Andréa N. Agosto and Diversionary Theatre
September 5th Saturday 9 am – 4 pm Black Panthers Fundraiser Yard Sale
September 6th Sunday Rot On Sundays! Hosted by Food2Soil Composting Collective
September 7th Monday 11 am – 1 pm Protest Sea World San Diego – Labor Day

By Colleen O’Connor

The Biden campaign’s search or the right woman to be his Vice-Presidential nominee has dragged on for over 5 months. He first committed to selecting a woman on March 15th.

Why no decision, yet? Not for any discernible rational reasons. Here are five unpleasant reasons that come to mind.

First, after declaring his intentions to name a “woman” to the ticket, Biden then named a man; a 76- old white, male and one-time Connecticut Senator, Chris Dodd to lead the search. The biggest reason given, “trust.” They have been bosom buddies for 30 years.

Herein, lies the problem. The country has changed. Connecticut is not representative. Chris Dodd is not representative. Even Joe Biden is not representative.

Women make up the majority of the Democratic voting base and Republican women have swelled those ranks with cross-over voting evidenced by their 2018 contribution to the Democrats historic House gains.

Women are the majority of voters now. Biden can count. But, which woman?

By Colleen O’Connor

What a day yesterday. Earthquakes everywhere.

No, not the 7.8 quake in Alaska. That is in the range of “normal.”

Not the confrontation between Florida Rep., Ted Yoho and New York Rep., Alexandra Ocasio Cortez. There, on the Capitol steps, the GOP congressman called AOC “disgusting,” “out of her freaking mind,” and a “f***ing b**tch.”

That, too, seems to be the new “normal.”

Yoho, in typical Trumpian fashion denied it happened, fudged some empty words, “apologized” on the House floor, where he accepted no responsibility, and instead defended his “passion,” and lassoed his wife and daughters into the mix.

All of which prompted AOC to righteously refuse to accept the non-apology apology. Trump’s promise to send more masked, unidentified, camouflaged troops into cities beyond Portland, into Oakland and Chicago doesn’t rank as an earthquake.

By Colleen O’Connor

Unless Biden is clueless, one of these two female Senators will be his pick to be the Vice-Presidential nominee; Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren.

Neither one is needed to carry their respective state. California and Massachusetts are reliably Democratic. Forget the need to campaign in either state, except for cash, down ticket teams and some press.

Both of these women bring something to the campaign that Biden lacks. Plans, experience, enthusiasm, heritage, and a big cheer from multi-generations of all women (Republican and Democrat) heretofore left out of the highest ranks of U.S. politics.

Both of these women also make no secret of their desire to be selected for a ticket that just might win.

Then, the debate starts. Choose. Harris or Warren? Why? We need both.

By Marjorie Cohn / Truthout / June 1, 2020

The rights of women to terminate their pregnancies and to receive free contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are on the chopping block. Those challenges to reproductive freedom are consistent with Trump’s agenda of pandering to the religious right while erasing Barack Obama’s achievements. The Supreme Court will rule on these cases during the month of June.

Burdening the Right to Abortion

Although the Court does not yet have a case that contests the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade, it has the opportunity to chip away at the right to abortion as opponents continue to erect obstacles to reproductive health care. Their strategy is to bring about death of abortion by a thousand cuts.

By Colleen O’Connor

Trump has a woman problem. It started with the massive Women’s March just after his inauguration and hasn’t let up.

In the 2018 midterms, 59% of women overall voted for a Democratic House candidate — with those rates reaching 73% for Latinas and 92% for black women. Even greater numbers today.Facing a 2020 election, Trump keeps getting hammered by women. Even Republican women.

Forget the international stars; German Chancellor, Angela Merkel; who politely declined to attend Trump’s G-7 meeting in Mar-A-Lago or Camp David, due to “pandemic concerns;” rolled her eyes at his comments about his German heritage; and who loomed over him at the G-7 summit in June of last year in a domineering photo that went viral.

Let’s look closer to home for our own female leaders. The women Trump frequently denigrates by Tweet.

By Colleen O’Connor / Times of San Diego / March 10, 2020

Remember the massive Women’s March that erupted almost spontaneously after Donald Trump was inaugurated as President?

Remember the elation about turnout and then the jealous remarks regarding crowd size from the same President?

Or how about the 2018 wave election in which so many women in so many counties and cities delivered control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats and the Speakership to Nancy Pelosi?

And those highly educated, articulate women all running for —gasp — President of the United States on the Democratic ticket?

Or Greta Thunberg’s wind-driven voyage across the ocean to steer attention towards a greener planet? Or the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team’s championship. Or the culture-changing #MeToo movement.