Join our call for a Presidential Commission on Women

The Women's Media Center has joined WomenCount, and many other leading women's organizations, in requesting that President-elect Obama establish, within the first 100 days in office, a Presidential Commission on Women. This Commission will bring together the best minds in the country to tackle participation in the administration and the issues facing women. President John Kennedy formed a Commission 47 years ago to address women in the workplace and put Eleanor Roosevelt in charge. We think it's time for the same approach.

For more information -- and to join us in this effort!

posted 13 December 2008

The worst place on earth to be a woman?

The Democratic Republic of Congo.

Help change the situation:
contact President-Elect Obama TODAY.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is host to the world's deadliest conflict since World War II.

And women and girls have borne the brunt of this horrific crisis, with rape as a weapon of war on a scale seen nowhere else in the world.

But you can do something about it.

Tell President-Elect Obama to announce his plan to end sexual violence in Congo.

posted 12 December 2008

Obama: Ratify the Women's Convention Soon

Friday 05 December 2008
by: Marjorie Cohn, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Nearly 30 years after President Jimmy Carter signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the United States remains the only democracy that refuses to ratify the most significant treaty guaranteeing gender equality. One hundred eighty-five countries, including over 90 percent of members of the United Nations, have ratified CEDAW.

US opposition to ratification has been informed not simply by an objective analysis of how CEDAW's provisions might conflict with US constitutional law. Rather, it reflects the ideological agenda and considerable clout of the religious right and the corporate establishment. Issues of gender equality raise some of the most profound divisions between liberals and conservatives. The right-wing agenda was born again in the Bush administration, which issued numerous directives limiting equality between the sexes. Bush targeted funding for family planning and packed the courts and his administration with anti-choice ideologues.

Read more about US opposition to CEDAW
posted 6 December 2008

President-Elect Obama - NOW is the time to remedy 8 years of failed women's health policies

Sponsored by: Reproductive Health Reality Check

A letter to President-elect Obama

Throughout his campaign, Senator Obama has worked hard to broaden the sexual and reproductive health and rights conversation to include a focus on solid pregnancy and STI prevention strategies and comprehensive sexual health education, in an attempt to expand beyond the tired pro/anti choice discussion that ultimately does little to improve health outcomes or women's lives in any way. Please stand with RH Reality Check in asking President-Elect Obama to immediately take action on critical SRHR policies that will immediately improve American's health and lives:

Where Conviction Meets Action
So What Do We Do About it?

Check out Gloria Feldt's Political Action Tools