Citizens of the Republic of Ireland will vote on a referendum on May 25, 2018 to potentially overturn the state’s notoriously harsh anti-abortion laws.1 This moment is being characterized as a defining one, a watershed moment for a state that Amnesty International and the United Nations have chastised for its misogynistic, anti-feminist policies. Indeed, for… Read more →
Tag: Women’s Rights
“A Basic Issue of Women’s Liberation”: The Feminist Campaign to Legalize Contraception in 1970s Ireland
On May 22, 1971, forty-seven members of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement (IWLM) boarded the 8am train from Dublin to Belfast. Their aim was to purchase contraceptives in the north, where contraception was legal under UK law, and to travel back to Dublin with them in order to highlight the hypocrisy of Irish law, which… Read more →
Women On the March
The Women’s March in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere the day after Donald J. Trump was sworn in as president attracted much attention. There were accolades for the feeling of sisterhood that pervaded the rallies across the nation, fueling a sense among liberals that women denied the presidency would be the ones to lead the next… Read more →
100,000 Women in Trafalgar Square: Remembering The Forgotten Women’s March of 1979
On January 21 this year, thousands of people rallied in central London in solidarity with the Women’s March on Washington, along with millions of others around the world. These protesters were, of course, responding to the specific brands of misogyny and racism that are seen to characterize Trump’s America and Brexit Britain. And yet the… Read more →
The Pill Kills: Women’s Health and Feminist Activism
On December 16, 1975, a group of Washington, D.C. area women’s health activists held the first-ever protest at the headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The demonstration took the form of a “memorial service” to commemorate the thousands of women who had died from using the contraceptive pill and other estrogen-containing drugs, and… Read more →
What Lies Beneath: The Handmaid’s Tale in Trump’s America
I first came across Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale in my junior year of college, when it was assigned for my feminist theory class. I didn’t know much about the novel, but I remember that the professor emphasized how relevant the book’s message was in 1985, when it was first published; in 1990, when… Read more →
Irish Abortion Trails and Informal Care Networks: Facilitating Continuities in Care
Women from the north and south of Ireland have travelled to England to access abortion services since the advent of the British Abortion Act in 1967 (and before this as single expectant mothers.)1 Lacking help from health services in either jurisdiction of Ireland, activist networks on these abortion trails have emerged to support the thousands… Read more →
You Know What? Equality Feminism is Crap
In the wake of the Women’s March, one thing is clear — we haven’t resolved a debate that has been at the heart of feminism since 1848. What, if anything, does women’s equality mean? Does it mean we’re equal with men? Does it mean something else based on our physical and social status as women?… Read more →
“Your Presence Has Brought the Attention of the World”: Native American Protest and the Media
On December 4, 2016, Native American water protectors won a major battle against what they call the “black snake” — the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The Department of the Army announced that the oil pipeline, which would pass near the source of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s drinking water, would not be drilled under a… Read more →
Keep On Marchin’ – The Women’s Marches of 1876, 1913, and 2017
I routinely listen to Slate’s DoubleX Gabfest, a podcast about women’s issues hosted by Hanna Rosin, June Thomas, and Noreen Malone. A few months ago, it focused on the planned Women’s March in Washington, D.C., the day after the presidential inauguration. Dismissing its importance, one participant questioned why anyone would want to take a bus… Read more →