We return this month with our series which recaps our favorite (or least favorite) moments in gender equity from news, media, and longreads all over the internet. You’ll see installments for This Month in Gender Equity the fourth week of each month. If you have ideas or contributions, leave a comment or tweet at us! Ahead this month: when male partners step up or hang back, lies one author thinks our mothers told us, and what we can do with all that anger.
Read MoreCheck back here for twice-monthly updates from AEC! We will provide you with content about current events, tips and resources, and new strategies to try in your districts, schools, and classrooms. To view ongoing and past blog series, click on the links below.
Over the past two months, Ohio, Georgia, and Missouri have recently passed stricter versions of their own abortion bills – referred to popularly as “heartbeat bills” – which ban abortion after a heartbeat can be detected in a fetus (often at about six weeks and well before most women even know they are pregnant). Last Tuesday, Alabama governor Kay Ivey signed into law the nation’s strictest abortion law. It bans all abortion except in the case of “serious” health risks to the mother. This law is explicitly positioned to be appealed, which would set it on a trajectory to be heard in the United States Supreme Court. The bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative Terry Collins, said, “The bill is about challenging Roe v. Wade.” While the Supreme Court can select the cases it hears in each session, the recent proliferation of abortion-related legislation increases the likelihood that one of these cases will reach the highest court in the land, on which a majority of conservative judges currently sit.
Read MoreWe just celebrated Mother’s Day in the United States and I’ll admit that it isn’t my favorite holiday. I lost my mother to an incredibly heroic battle with pancreatic cancer about six years ago and so the barrage of emails, advertisements, and grocery store reminders about remembering moms is a little much to take. This year, though, I started thinking more about how I could honor the legacy of a wonderful woman all days of the year and not just on the second Sunday in May. And then, on a larger scale, I thought about how we as a country and a culture need to do a better job of respecting, supporting, and honoring the incredible work that moms do (we extend that to anyone who does the work of mothering).
Read MoreTwo seemingly unrelated articles from the last week illustrate the systematic obstacles women face in the fight for pay equity. The first article talks about the ways in which women sacrifice career and earning potential to assume home and care responsibilities so that their (typically male) partners can take on jobs with longer, more unpredictable hours. The second article talks about the wage increases in a few states where teachers struck or took other political action over the last year. Taken together, the two articles suggest that there are numerous ways in which women, despite being better educated and more qualified for high-paying jobs than ever before, still lose the wage war.
Read MoreWe return this month with our series which recaps our favorite (or least favorite) moments in gender equity from news, media, and longreads all over the internet. You’ll see installments for This Month in Gender Equity the fourth week of each month. If you have ideas or contributions, leave a comment or tweet at us! Ahead this month: High schools can be guilty of gender bias, rampant abuse in a diamond industry leader, and Coachella takes safety seriously. We’d love to know what you’re reading and learning.
Read MoreAnyone who is a regular reader of my blog knows that I have very strong feelings about dress codes, particularly as they pertain to holding girls accountable for the educational experience of boys. So you can only imagine my reaction to the recent spate of controversy about leggings. This week, I examine why the continuing conversation is so damaging to girls and why we should stop holding women responsible for the thoughts of men.
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