Category: Women’s sex-based rights

EXCITING FORUM MAY 10th ON PERSPECTIVES & STRATEGIES FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT

Posted on by

Tickets on sale now for forum on the ERA with well-known feminist leaders and activists. 

PERSPECTIVES & STRATEGIES FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ERA

Feminists in Struggle is honored to have three amazing guest speakers who have been in the forefront of the fight to register the already ratified Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution. This is a strategic discussion not to be missed!

This will be a remote event on Zoom. A link will be sent to everyone who registers. REGISTER

WENDY MURPHY is an adjunct professor of Sexual Violence and Law Reform at New England Law | Boston where she also co-directs the Women’s and Children’s Advocacy Project (WCAP) under the Center for Law and Social Responsibility. WCAP runs the Judicial Language Project, and the Hate Crimes Against Women project, WCAP also files amicus briefs and engages in public interest litigation to advance the rights of women and children. On January 7, 2020, WCAP filed a first-in-the-nation federal lawsuit to validate the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in Massachusetts federal court.

Wendy was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School from 2002-03 and served as the Mary Joe Frug Assistant Professor of Law at New England Law | Boston from 2001-2002. She is a former child abuse and sex crimes prosecutor and founded the first organization in the nation to provide pro bono legal services to victims of violence involved in the criminal justice system. Wendy is an impact litigator who practices in state and federal courts and specializes in advancing the constitutional and civil rights of women and children.

Wendy has authored numerous scholarly articles including a landmark piece explaining the legal relationship between sexual assault on campus and Title IX. Wendy filed many impact litigation cases involving Title IX and campus sexual assault resulting in groundbreaking victories and leading to widespread awareness and reforms, including the well-known April 2011, Dear Colleague Letter. Her most recent law review article is a feminist critical reexamination of the history of women’s struggle for equality and is entitled, “Unequal Protection of the Laws for Women is Constitutional Terrorism, So How Come Nobody Knows about It?”

She has also appeared on television as a legal analyst for many years and has worked for NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox News and has provided legal analysis for print and television media. She is the author of two books, “And Justice For Some,” published by Penguin/Sentinel in 2007 and “Oh No He Didn’t, Brilliant Women and the Men Who Took Credit for Their Work,” published by Cynren Press in 2024..

KAMALA LOPEZ, is a founder and President of Equal Means Equal, filmaker, activist & President of Heroica Films,.Kamala Lopez, launched the movement and documentary film Equal Means Equal, to educate Americans about the importance of equal rights under federal law for women and complete the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

JEAN SWEENEY graduated from the College of the Holy Cross as part of the third class of women and is a New York attorney who spent 15 years on Wall Street as counsel to the money managers. In 2001 she joined the litigation practice of Maloof and Browne LLC as a managing attorney. For the last 12 years she has had the privilege of following her passion of getting women to be honored and respected as equal citizens. She was one of the activists working to get the last 3 States to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and has worked for the last 5 years on getting our Constitution published with the ERA by leading the National ERA Publication Task Force. She is also an award- winning photographer, Kripalu-trained yoga teacher, writer, speaker, and founder of Rethinking Eve LLC, a business focused on uplifting women.

This is a woman-only event and is interactive, with plenty of time for questions and discussion from participants.

 

The ERA: the Journey to become the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution

Posted on by

Picture: Lady Justice also known as Themis and Justitia from Greek and Roman mythology

Flag: Represents the ERA with the suffragist colors and the stars for the 38 ratified states

Our Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the document that defines how the federal government is structured and how it operates. Additionally, the Constitution includes important civil rights that are guaranteed to all citizens. The Constitution became effective on March 4, 1789. It has been amended 28 times, beginning on December 15,1791 with the first 10 amendments, also known as the Bill of Rights.

For an amendment to be added to the constitution it must meet two requirements outlined in Article V of the Constitution.

1. An amendment must be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose.
2. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures (38), or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification.

The United States National Archivist then follows the 1 USC 106b Statute passed by Congress which defines its ministerial duties that includes recording the date of ratification for each State. Once ratified by three-fourths of the States, the National Archivist enters the date into the National Register that serves as an announcement to the States and others that the Amendment has been added. An updated Constitution is then published by the National Archivist. The Archivist primary role is to direct the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) – the nation’s record keeper.

On January 27, 2020, Virginia became the 38th State to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (“ERA”) making it the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution. With this amendment women gained the human right of equal protection of the law.

The Equal Rights Amendment

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

The ERA gives Congress the power to legislate and requires the courts to enforce laws that lift women to equal citizenship with men. This is important in order to ensure that women are no longer subject to discriminatory laws, policies, or statutes. The ERA ensures United States laws embraces equality for everyone, thereby providing equal rights and protections to all human beings.

When the government chooses to discriminate against women on the basis of sex, the ERA demands that the analysis applied by the courts be the highest standard of judicial review, called “strict scrutiny”, which is currently applied to discrimination based on immutable characteristics like race and national origin. Using a strict scrutiny analysis, the government must show that sex discrimination is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest, and the government is using the least restrictive means available. Without strict scrutiny, far more discrimination against women is legally allowed. With the ERA in the federal Constitution cases involving sexual harassment, unequal pay, and/or other issues discrimination based on sex can be challenged with a higher probability of success.

Herstory about the ERA

It’s been a long road for women’s equality in the world’s oldest continuous democracy. When America began, single women were legally considered chattel, owned by their fathers, brothers, and sons, and married women were considered legally merged with their husbands. This remained the case for most of the United States’ history.

After the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were added to the Constitution. The 13th Amendment ended slavery unless convicted of a crime, the 14th Amendment established equal protection of the law for all citizens, and the 15th Amendment, created the right to vote for former enslaved males. The 14th amendment explicitly named “males” as having voting rights, and the 15th amendment excluded voter discrimination based on sex, though suffragists had fought hard for its inclusion.

After Reconstruction, women developed a two-prong strategy to remedy their exclusion from the Constitution, get the vote, and get equal protection of the law. Though women got the vote in 1920, when the 19th Amendment was added, women of color faced barriers, especially in the Jim Crow South, and were not actually able to exercise their right to vote until 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

The first iteration of the Equal Rights Amendment, written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman, was proposed to Congress in 1923, three years after the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. The ERA was named the Lucretia Mott Amendment after another prominent suffragist. After almost 50 years, an updated ERA was passed by the House on October 12, 1971 and Senate on March 22, 1972. State ratification began in 1972 through 2020. It took almost a century to meet the Constitutional requirements for an Amendment ensuring equal rights based on sex to be added to the Constitution.

When passed by Congress, a 7-year time limit was added to the preamble of the Amendment, which Congress extended for 3 more years. When that time limit expired, 35 of the required 38 states had ratified. At first women were disheartened, however, following the ratification of the 27th Amendment after over 202 years, women rallied. In fact, the 27th Amendment about Congressional pay raises was proposed with the original 10 amendments but was not ratified by the states until 1992. The National Archivist, Don Wilson, certified and published the Amendment without any judgments or involvement of others. He stated, “If I didn’t publish the 27th (Amendment) then I would be playing a role not delegated to me. The biggest factor for me was the fact that I shouldn’t interfere and needed to follow the statutory process.” Wilson was scolded by a member of Congress for certifying the amendment without congressional approval. According to Article V in the Constitution, Congress’ role is only the first step of the process. Historically, Congress passes a ceremonial affirming resolution after ratification of an Amendment.

Proponents of the ERA reached out to the then current National Archivist, David Ferriero, to confirm that he would certify and publish the 28th Amendment if the additional 3 states needed were ratified. This was confirmed in writing by the Archivist. Advocates, led by Equal Means Equal, then adopted a 3-state strategy arguing the time limit put in the preamble of the Amendment not in the text that the States ratified, like the 18th and 21st Amendments, is not constitutional and began again to press for ratification in the remaining states. Nevada ratified the Equal Rights Amendment in March 2017. Illinois ratified in May 2018. Then on January 27, 2020, Virginia became the 38th State to ratify the ERA, making it the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

There are only two requirements to amend the United States Constitution in Article V – that Congress pass the proposed amendment by a two-thirds vote, and that three-fourths of the states ratify the amendment. The Equal Rights Amendment met these requirements to become the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This has also been affirmed by the American Bar Association and the American Constitution Society. There is nothing in Article V about time limits or rescissions as some states purport.

The Equal Rights Amendment is the only Constitutional amendment which has met the requirements in Article V, but to date has not yet been published.

President Trump through his Attorney General, William Barr, inserted himself in the constitutional amendment process by stopping the Archivist, David Ferriero, from completing the certification of Virginia’s ratification. He did this by issuing an Office of Legal Council (OLC) memo, which is nonbinding. In a press release, Archivist Ferriero summarized the conclusion from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) “Congress had the constitutional authority to impose a deadline on the ratification of the ERA and, because that deadline has expired, the ERA Resolution is no longer pending before the States … [and] the ERA’s adoption could not be certified.” The memorandum also stated that once Congress proposes an amendment to the states, it has no further role in the ratification process and therefore lacks authority to modify the original deadline.

It is the role of the Courts to determine the ERA’s validity if someone chooses to challenge the amendment. Historically, those who oppose any Amendment had to argue their case with the burden on them.

President Joe Biden’s Administration, once in office, called on Congress to act swiftly which prompted two Congressional resolutions. One to remove the ERA time limit and the other to affirm that the ERA was the 28th Amendment. During the next four years, Congress was unable to pass either resolution.

In 2021, the Department of Justice under Attorney General Merrick Garland fought against the ERA in two federal lawsuits. On January 26, 2022, the Department of Justice issued an OLC opinion that did not withdraw the 2020 memorandum’s conclusion concerning the ERA time limit but said there was no obstacle to Congress’s ability to act with respect to the ERA’s ratification or to judicial consideration of questions regarding the constitutional status of the amendment.

Some ERA Advocates focused only on passage of the resolutions while other advocates used a pressure campaign pushing President Biden to instruct the Archivist to publish the ERA before he left office. The pressure included letters, phone calls, texts, emails, social media posts, petitions, press conferences, and outreach to anyone that could influence the President including his sister. Letters were sent to the President from 46 Senators, 122 House members, 143 diverse organizations (led by Shattering Glass and the League of Women Voters), 100s of women leaders of the Labor Movement, 60 faith-based organizations (led by the National Council of Jewish Women), National Association of Women Lawyers and Women Lawyers on Guard, Women’s Bar Association of DC, along with the New Hampshire and Ohio State Legislators. The following organizations made public statements: the Reproductive Health Coalition (led by American Medical Women’s Association and Doctors for America), North Carolina Association of Women Lawyers, New York City Bar Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other leading fertility and OB/GYN associations. On August 6, 2024 a Resolution and Report from the American Bar Association urged immediate publication/implementation warning that without the ERA, the 14th Amendment sex-based equal protection is “in grave peril.”

In addition, on December 13, 2024, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women sent President Biden a letter and urged him to direct the Federal Archivist to publish the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution immediately. She stated, “Your role is to fulfill your Article II, Section 3 duty under the “Take Care” Clause, to ensure that laws are faithfully executed. This duty is mandatory. By directing the Archivist to certify the last state that ratified in 2020 and publish the ERA, you will be allowing the Constitutional process to continue and be able to inform the UN that the United States has finally met its obligation.” She reminded him that the United States of America is required to adopt a constitutional sex equality amendment that “guarantee protections against sex- and gender-based discrimination in its Constitution, including through initiatives such as the Equal Rights Amendment. She requested that he answer three critical questions. It is unknown if he ever responded.

Equal Means Equal (EME) orchestrated mass protests in DC and across the country to pressure President Biden to publish the ERA. On January 10th at the National Archives in Washington DC, EME in partnership with Vote Equality US conducted a final direct action that resulted in over thirty people being detained and 6 arrested. Dressed in construction worker safety gear activists replaced the building’s center banner with one calling out President Biden directly: “Publish the ERA, Hero or Zero,” This banner, along with two others, were confiscated by police. Additional activists arrived dressed as women from the science-fiction Dune holding a banner announcing SISTERHOOD ABOVE ALL. The National Archivist then issued a statement on the National Archives website stating an act of Congress or a court order is now required before publication. Never in the history of constitutional amendments has an Archivist made judgements or dictated requirements outside their ministerial role in the process as defined in the 1 USC 106b Statute. Subsequently, the New York Bar Association issued a rebuke of this statement by the National Archivist’s inappropriate presumption of this authority.

Due to the pressure campaign and direct action, on January 17, 2025, President Biden issued this statement affirming that the Equal Rights Amendment (“ERA”) is the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: “In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.” Those who publicly supported the Presidents’ affirming statement included Laurence H. Tribe (a Carl M. Loeb University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus at Harvard University), Kathleen M. Sullivan (former Dean of Stanford Law School and professor of law at Harvard and Stanford), and Russ Feingold (President of the American Constitution Society).
It is important to note that Presidents have no authority to declare the validity of amendments. That is up to the courts.

President Trump’s Administration, once back in office, dismissed the National Archivist, Colleen Shogan, on February 7, 2025. Then, several senior staffers quit or retired. Other staffers at the agency accepted government-offered deferred resignations or were fired because of their probationary status. Since February 16, 2025, Marco Rubio, newly appointed Secretary of State, became the acting National Archivist. Prior to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) becoming a nonpartisan independent agency, the duty was vested in the General Services Administration, and, before the establishment of that agency in 1949, it formed part of the duties of the United States Secretary of State. The position of National Archivist was created in 1934 by Congress.

There are a number of process irregularities in the way this particular amendment has been handled:

1. Although the constitutional process only has two requirements to be added to the Constitution, Congress added a time limit which essentially modifies the constitutional process which does not require one to be set.
2. An Attorney General inserted himself in the ratification process that made a judgement about the time limit when he has no role in the process.
3. An Archivist whose role is ministerial presumed to expand their authority by declaring that additional requirements must be met before publication. Ministerial duties have also been inconsistently executed.
4. And finally, a President who could have used his Article II, Section 3 duty under the “Take Care” Clause to order publication of the ERA, thereby ensuring that laws are faithfully executed, decided instead to issue an affirming statement.

These irregularities are all arguably unconstitutional as changes to the constitutional process require changes to the Constitution itself. As this amendment is about sex discrimination which uniquely affects women, the pattern of obstruction throughout the constitutional process reveals what we believe to be an intentional effort to keep women in second-class citizenship and an attempt to obfuscate this intent. The failure of the Biden Administration to see that the Equal Rights Amendment was published is particularly galling given his campaign promises of being pro-ERA and pro-women’s rights, and the fact that he and Harris were aware that it could have protected Roe from being overturned.

Regardless of whether the National Archivist, Coleen Shogun, performed the appropriate ministerial duties or not, the Equal Rights Amendment met the two requirements to be added to the Constitution and is the 28th Amendment to the Constitution and enforceable. According to the DC District Court of Appeals, it dismissed Illinois v. Ferriero in 2021 on grounds that the litigating states did not have standing to claim harm from the Archivist’s failure to publish because the Archivist’s actions have no effect on the ERA’s legal status.

Women were first challenged to get the right to vote without having that Constitutional right, and again with the Equal Rights Amendment that would provide a means to challenge sex discrimination, women have had to deal with barriers being purposely put in place to discourage or stop its passage, ratification, and publication. In both the 19th and the 28th Amendments, women have persevered against all odds through five generations and will continue to be vigilant about their rights. While we understand that the ERA remains formally unpublished by the National Archives, and that only the courts can validate any amendment, we nevertheless feel it is important that it be acknowledged as having met the Constitutional requirements to be added to the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, we are posting a link to the Unabridged U.S. Constitution that includes the 28th amendment. This version is in commemoration of the ratification of The Equal Rights Amendment in 2020, and is being provided by an informal group of women’s rights advocates carrying on the work of their foremothers that started over a century ago.

Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered, and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

To stay current on The Equal Rights Amendment, you can subscribe to updates at: www.EqualMeansEqual.org,

FEMINISTS IN STRUGGLE MEMBERS VOTE TO ENDORSE CALIFORNIA LEGISLATION ADVANCING WOMEN’S AND CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

Posted on by

By a 78% vote of its membership, Feminists in Struggle voted to endorse three important pieces of proposed California legislation that would curb the extremist policies of sex denying gender identity ideologues that have dominated California’s state government.  The bills, if approved, would go a long way to securing the rights of women and girls and those of children of both sexes that have been compromised as a result of this reactionary, misogynistic and homophobic ideology.

The proposed legislation is the following:

Yaeli’s Bill: This bill  would end the despicable practice under current law of removing custody from non-abusive parents, even forcing a child into foster care, merely because a parent refuses to agree to “transition” their child.  “Transition” of minors, often involving removal of healthy body parts, and high risk of sterilization, and other permanent harms to a child’s developing body, is an unproven practice that is increasingly being rejected by the UK and Scandinavian countries that have conducted comprehensive reviews.  See the Cass Review, available for download here. [ARCHIVED CONTENT] Final Report – Cass Review  If this bill is approved, it would no longer be deemed  child abuse to refuse to socially or medically transition your child, and the refusal to transition your child will no longer be considered in custody disputes.

RN 25 03490 This bill allows parents to Opt-Out of all instructions related to transgender.  This ideology is heavily promoted in schools, teaching children tthe unscientific view that sex doesn’t exist or is a spectrum, and that some children are born in the “wrong” body and need medicalization to be themselves. The group most vulnerable to this message are children who don’t conform to sex stereotypes, most of whom are likely, if left alone, to grow up to be lesbian or gay.  Also vulnerable are autistic children who have problems fitting in and children, especially girls, who have experienced sexual abuse or other forms of male violence.

Repeal of Education Code 221.5: The proposed legislation would repeal the California law that permits students to decide changing facilities/sports teams based upon Gender Identity (all grades and college) rather than sex.  Female only sports teams are needed for fair competition and to provide equal opportunity for women and girls to develop themselves and receive equal recognition and scholarships for their athletic achievements.   Separate changing rooms for women and girls based on sex are necessary to respect their privacy and safety needs in a world where male voyeurism, exhibitionism, sexual harassment and rape are pervasive problems.  There is no evidence that males who transition are less prone to anti-woman violence than any other male.

FIST fights for a world free of male violence where women’s rights to equality, dignity, reproductive choice, and equal opportunity are respected; children’s health is protected from experimental treatments; there is no longer a stigma against same sex love; and everyone is free to dress and express themselves as they like without the sexist strait-jacket of “masculine” and “feminine” sex roles and stereotypes imposed on people based on their sex.  In other words, women’s liberation.

As we work toward such a world, we urge all our supporters to get behind these bills.

 

ON DARKNESS, BETRAYAL, AND THE POWER OF SISTERHOOD

Posted on by

By Ann Menasche

This piece contains the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the collective views of Feminists in Struggle.

Many spiritual and religious traditions celebrate the dark, cold time of the year – winter solstice – by lighting candles, stoking a fire, and gathering close with loved ones.  We do so to help us survive this dark time and to remind us that after darkness comes the light.

The sadness for me this year is palpable.  We lost our beloved dog, Jaz, on December 9th.  And I can’t forget the state of the world that haunts me and disturbs my sleep: the relentless slaughter of the women and children in Gaza; the women in Afghanistan prisoners in their homes, denied work or study.  And closer to home, my homeless neighbors including a growing number of women – virtually all survivors of male violence -subsist crammed into government-sanctioned rat-infested camps, tents three feet apart, with no way to stay warm or dry.

And the state of our rights as women in the U.S. is abysmal.  Over 100 years after Alice Paul introduced the Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution, we are still considered second class citizens, as first Trump, then Biden refused to register the duly ratified Amendment into the Constitution. This weakens our ability to fight to regain reproductive rights, to end violence against women, and to achieve equal pay and opportunity in the workplace for women. Meanwhile, trans activists are attempting to erase our sex class from existence in law and public policy so it will be impossible to name, measure, or remedy ongoing sexism.

Is it any wonder that so many young girls are attempting to “identify” out of their womanhood?

Then there is the bitterness of betrayal. Over the last several months, FIST joined with Equal Means Equal and became part of a broad coalition of organizations demanding that the Biden administration instruct the archivist to publish the ERA.  We recently learned that behind our backs, leaders of mainstream feminist organizations such as NOW and the Feminist Majority, supposed feminists and ERA supporters, were urging Biden not to publish the ERA.

How do we explain this treachery?  Is it their loyalty to the corporate dominated Democratic Party that while using women’s rights as a campaign slogan to win votes and donations, never had women’s best interests at heart?  Or do they really believe that the best way to fight for our rights is to be “ladylike” and polite, to not rock the boat?

I’m with Frederick Douglass who said in 1857, “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are people who want crops without ploughing the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning, the want the ocean without the roar of its many waters…Power concedes nothing without a demand.  It never did and it never will.”

I learned a lesson in courage and tenacity watching my sick dog with her back legs failing her, forcing herself up again and again and walking through the house, and up and down stairs.  No matter how many times she fell, she persisted, until she could no longer move at all.

Building movements takes that level of persistence, along with a recognition that when women unite, collectively we have the power to bring in the light, to change everything.  We have that power regardless of who is in the White House.

Like the women in Iran who against incredible odds, led (and will continue to lead) their people in a movement against theocracy proclaiming, “Women, Life, Freedom.”

Like our foremothers, the suffragists.  Women like Alice Paul and the Women’s Party that declared their independence from the patriarchy and its two political parties and were relentless in carrying out their struggle.

It took 100 years to win the vote, but we were not defeated.

 

 

 

 

 

Trump’s Threat to Women’s Rights & the ERA

Posted on by

The Equal Rights Amendment MUST Be Published Before Trump Takes Office!

In view of recent election results and, despite denials, the clear intention of the Trump Administration to implement Project 2025, which reads as a male supremacist manifesto, it is imperative that Biden reverse his obstructionism and instruct the National Archivist, Colleen Shogun, to publish the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.  The ERA has met all the legal requirements, having been ratified by ¾ of the states, the 38th of which, Virginia, ratified on January 27, 2020.  Women have been waiting for over a century for the ERA to first be passed by Congress, and then be ratified by the required number of states.

The National Archivist is a ministerial position under the Executive Branch, and Biden is the only person who can reverse the decision by the Trump Administration to unconstitutionally interfere with its automatic publication following ratification by the requisite states, and reverse his own administration’s continuation of the Trump obstructionism.  The ERA represents our best, and only, real bulwark against the tide of male supremacism Trump promises to deliver.

We acknowledge that biological women, as a sex class, have enemies on the Left and on the Right. The embrace and promotion of gender ideology on the Left and its erasure of women has been breathtaking, despite its utter lack of scientific evidence; its having been founded on junk science; its clear misogyny and homophobia in its exaltation of sexual stereotypes; its disregard for the safeguarding of children and legitimate concerns of parents; the willful blindness to the real harms of medicalization, and the corporate pharmaceutical money behind it; the pain of detransitioners and regretters; and total disregard of the infringement on the sex-based rights and safety of women and girls.

In addition, the cancel culture, McCarthyist repression of free speech and de-platforming of anyone questioning gender ideology and so-called “gender affirming care”, has exposed the authoritarian nature of this men’s rights movement, which has captured the Left, with rare exception.

Among other issues such as Gaza, the border, the disastrous handling of the exit from Afghanistan, concerns about the price of living, etc., the Biden Administration’s elevating the rights of trans-identified males over the rights of women and girls and the promotion of gender ideology was one of the reasons that the Presidential Democratic ticket lost the election to Trump.

In following the dictates of the TQ+ gender lobby, the Biden/Harris Administration and the Harris/Walz campaign ceded rational ground to the other enemies of women’s rights, the Christian nationalists and their MAGA allies, men’s rights activists, and other garden variety misogynists, who nevertheless know what a woman is and that there are only two sexes, observable at birth. Their adherence to this ideology contributed directly to Trump’s appeal and ultimate win, as this is an issue he plans to confront, some long-time Democrats even voting for him because they hope for some relative sanity to be restored in this regard.

The men’s rights activists insist that women are inferior, should cater to men, be subservient, and allow themselves to be sexually exploited. Some young incels and “bros” have been emboldened by Trump’s win to the extent that they are now exultantly proclaiming “Your body, MY choice!” in defiance of the abortion rights battle cry and women’s right to bodily autonomy and agency and in their zeal to dominate and control women’s lives and bodies.

The Christian Right, the other enemy of women’s sex-based rights, has embraced Trump as their champion and tirelessly devoted itself to his campaign, and has been greatly empowered by Trump’s win and takeover of Congress and the Supreme Court. It would like to not only turn women into handmaidens, but outlaw and criminalize abortion and also birth control, attempt to grant fetuses “personhood”, track women’s pregnancies and penalize miscarriages, do away with no-fault divorce, treat rapists with kid gloves and accuse victims of “false reporting”, end investigation of campus rape, penalize unmarried women, and generally return women to 1950’s America. The Christian Nationalists also take a very dim view of our federal government and welcome Trump’s plan to dismantle it.  The truth is, it aims to destroy our representative democracy, do away with the separation of church and state, and transform this country into a theocratic dictatorship. If you think this is an overstatement, please view the recently released documentary, “Bad Faith”, and prior to that, “The Family“. This is the enemy that will be in ascendance with Trump in power.

We call on all women and men who oppose tyranny and the destruction of the rights of natal women and girls to help us get the ERA finally published onto the Constitution in order to protect us from the twin threats of gender ideology and the religious right.  We have allies in Congress who have signed onto the resolutions, SJR 39 in the Senate, and HJR 82 in the House, which recognize that the only remaining step for the ERA to become law is publication, and that it is up to Joe Biden to finally take this step to ensure that all the hard-won rights women have fought for, including voting rights, abortion rights, contraception, equal pay, no-fault divorce, owning property, obtaining credit in one’s own name, safe spaces, sports, etc. are not rolled back. The ERA would ensure that women cease to be treated as second-class citizens before the law, and would have prevented Roe being overturned.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the sponsor of SJR 39, is hosting a virtual Town Hall on the ERA on this coming Tuesday, December 3rd at 4 PM PDT, 7 PM EST and we need supporters of the ERA to register now and attend! We also need you to call these Senators and U.S. Representatives and direct them to apply pressure to Biden to publish and text Biden at 302-404-0880 and Harris at 310-861-2977.

The time is NOW!  We cannot let the efforts of our First Wave Feminist forebears like Alice Paul’s efforts to be in vain.  Sign up for the Town Hall and start calling and writing these representatives and the White House, remind them on social media, and don’t stop until Biden makes the call to the National Archivist and gets the ERA in the Constitution!

FIST to host Zoom Forum March 25th on Strategies for Winning Back Abortion Rights

Posted on by

Feminists In Struggle continues its series with a forum on abortion rights: “After Dobbs and the continuing threat to women’s reproductive rights, how do we develop a strategy to regain and secure the right to abortion nationally?”  Tickets on sale now!

FEMINIST FORUM: STRATEGIES FOR WINNING BACK WOMEN’S ABORTION RIGHTS Tickets, Sat, Mar 25, 2023 at 1:00 PM | Eventbrite

Here is our exciting panel of speakers:

Andrea Gabay is a grassroots activist who first volunteered in 2020 while living in New York City. She was an active volunteer doing food drives and composting at GrowNYC environmental program to empower New Yorkers to secure a healthy environment. She also supported many marches throughout NYC, including many BLM movements and was involved with Women’s March in Manhattan. Andrea brought her activist work back with her to San Diego, where she organized a march/rally in January 2023 as part of the national Women’s March.

Wendy Murphy , J.D. is an impact litigator specializing in women’s and children’s civil and constitutional rights. She won landmark Title IX cases against Harvard, Harvard Law, and Princeton between 1992 and 2010 that led to the revolutionary 2011 Dear Colleague letter; and sued the Trump and Biden Administrations in federal court to advance women’s rights. She also won landmark cases to improve privacy rights for women crime victims and testimonial rights for disabled crime victims. She is adjunct professor of sexual violence law and law reform at New England Law Boston where she directs the Women’s and Children’s Advocacy Project under the Center for Law and Social Responsibility. She is well known for her legal advocacy in support of the Equal Rights Amendment.  See our ERA-FIST brochure, “Why We Need the ERA” on which Wendy collaborated, and her book, From Suffrage to Inequality.

Ann Menasche is a San Diego civil rights attorney, grassroots activist, lesbian, and long-time feminist who is a founding member and co-coordinator of the national radical feminist organization, Feminists in Struggle. She is also co-chair of the Green Alliance for Sex-Based RIghts. She has fought for access to safe legal abortion in the years before Roe and in the decades that followed. In the 1980’s she led a landmark case against an anti-abortion center or “fake clinic” for consumer fraud and won. She also helped organize Marches for Women’s Lives in San Francisco that drew tens of thousands of people. Ann was recently fired from her civil rights job for asserting that abortion bans harm women as a sex and has filed a wrongful termination law suit against her previous employer as a result.

JOIN US FOR THIS IMPORTANT DISCUSSION!

FIST’S Ann Menasche Files Suit Against Former Employer for Wrongful Discharge, Discrimination, and Retaliation

Posted on by

On January 26, 2023, Ann Menasche filed suit in San Diego Superior Court against her former employer, Disability Rights California, for wrongful termination, sex and sexual orientation discrimination, and retaliation.  She claims she was fired for declaring that “safe legal abortion is a life-and-death issue for women as a sex”  and for supporting the maintenance of sex and sexual orientation as protected characteristics under law.  For this she was labelled a “TERF” and a bigot and a few days later and without warning, fired.

Feminists in Struggle and allies have initiated a Justice for Ann Committee that is working with others on getting media and garnering support for Ann’s case.   The case is the first in the U.S. to challenge in court the silencing and no-platforming of feminists through targeting their livelihoods.  In the U.K. there have been several cases including that of Maya Forstater and Allison Bailey that led to successful outcomes for the women and helped lessen the fear women have of their gender critical views becoming known.

To get more details about Ann’s case, go to defendfeminists.net where you can view the summary of the Complaint, or sign on as an endorser of the Statement of Solidarity.

FIST Speaks at Abortion Rights March in San Diego

Posted on by

On January 22, 2023, the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Ann Menasche, member of the Coordinating Committee of FIST, spoke at a San Diego rally for abortion rights.  Ann framed the abortion issue as one of women’s rights, called for the restoration of abortion rights in all 50 states and that women rely on ourselves and not the politicians to win back our rights.   She was well received by the crowd. The spirited demonstration of a few hundred was organized quickly by grassroots feminist activists when the Women’s March failed to organize anything locally. FIST also distributed 60 half page flyers with our statement on abortion rights on one side and our thirteen principles on the other.  The rally was followed by a march through downtown San Diego.   San Diego FIST members and supporters look forward to future local feminist work.

Building Hope for the New Year

Posted on by

It’s been a tough year for women’s rights.  We lost abortion rights (even though access had been eroded for years) when the decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health was issued this past June with our reactionary Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade and 50 years of precedent to give a green light to states to outlaw abortion.  Now 13 states ban all or virtually all abortions and only 17 states and the District of Columbia broadly protect abortion rights. No doubt, many women’s lives and liberty now hang in the balance.

Meanwhile, the Biden Administration has continued to fight in the courts against adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, even though already ratified by the requisite 38 states. See Maura Casey’s article, Publish ERA, let skirmishes begin and watch Equal Means Equal’s video: Joe, Do It!

The ERA would establish sex as a protected category, with the same weight as race, which would make it far easier to challenge all kinds of discriminatory practices in every state in the union, including jobs discrimination, violence against women, and yes, abortion bans. See and share our Why We Need the ERA brochure.

And then the coordinated worldwide effort to deny the existence of sex, and to remove sex-based protections including the ability of women to organize against our oppression and to even have language to talk about ourselves, has continued apace in 2022.  California passed two horrific bills this year, SB 923 and SB107 and would respectively indoctrinate the medical and mental health professions in gender identity ideology and make the state a magnet for minors seeking sterilizing and mutilating so-called “gender affirming care.”  See our post about these dangerous bills.

Indoctrination in our schools and universities is endemic.  Feminists are losing jobs and livelihoods and facing civil rights complaints for refusing to deny the existence of two biological sexes. A lesbian in Norway was even facing criminal charges and up to three years in prison for supposed “hate speech” for stating that men could neither be lesbians or mothers.

And most recently, Scotland passed a gender self-ID law, the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, that will allow any male, including convicted sex offenders, to enter women’s spaces and programs simply on his say-so, disregarding concerns about women’s safety.

So, there is plenty of reason to despair.  But there is also reason to hope.

Women can and are fighting back.  Women in Scotland protested and sang a rendition of Auld Lang Syne outside of parliament during the vote, “women’s rights are human rights.”  Their struggle is not over.

Rise-Up for Abortion Rights has done amazing organizing in response to the overturning of Roe.

Two women who challenged their sacking in the UK for their gender critical views were vindicated in court:  Allison Bailey  and Maya Forstater.

Our Duty, a non-partisan group of parents opposing child medical transition, organized a successful “First Do No Harm Unity Rally” of 100 people in Anaheim California in front of a national convention of pediatricians.  The central organizer is a mother, lawyer, and liberal Democrat.  The Tavistock Gender Clinic in the UK has been shuttered following the investigation headed up by Dr. Hilary Cass revealing dangerous invasive procedures being recommended for gender dysphoric youth with little screening or oversight.

And then there are the women of Iran, who are leading a struggle against an extremely repressive and misogynist fundamentalist regime.  In response to the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in custody of the morals police for not wearing her headscarf properly, and at great risk to themselves, our Iranian sisters have poured out into the streets again and again.

The song, Baraye, has been the anthem of the protests:

For the sake of dancing in the street

For the fear felt in the moment of kissing

For my sister your sister, our sisters

For changing the rotten minds

For shame, for pennilessness

For the yearning for an ordinary life

For the sake of the children that mine the garbage and their dreams…

For women, life, liberty

 

For women, life, liberty!  If they can do it, we can do it!

Happy New Year, sisters!

JUSTICE FOR ANN MENASCHE – SIGN THE SOLIDARITY STATEMENT!

Posted on by

Ann Menasche was fired from her job of 20 years for asserting that abortion bans harm women as a sex.  Find out more about her story here: Justice for Ann Menasche – Defend Feminists!

We urge everyone to sign a Statement of Solidarity in support of Ann and share it with everyone who supports maintaining sex as a protected category under law, and the rights of employees to their own political opinions and activities independent of their employer.

 

Ann Menasche comments on sex-denialism