Emergency Rally in Los Angeles at 12 Noon TODAY!

Stand up for women's health and join Planned Parenthood Los Angeles for an emergency rally in Los Angeles TODAY at 12 noon!

Governer Schwarzenegger has just announced his intention to cut funding for family planning services - including the life-saving cancer-screening, contraception and STI testing and treatment services that millions of Californians rely on.

Today, Planned Parenthood Los Angeles will be rallying to thank a long time supporter and ally in the fight to protect family planning, Speaker-Elect John A. Perez, and to stand up against cuts to these vital services!

Where: 320 4th St., Los Angeles 90013.
When: Tuesday, January 12, 12 - 1pm.

PPLA will provide signs.

Hope to see you there!

TONIGHT: Conference Call for Activists on Health Care Reform

If you missed this Action Alert in your inboxes this morning, please help us get the word out about this conference call! We invite all our activists to join us in this call tonight to get the 411 on Health Care Reform! - Val

We need your help! On November 7, the U.S. House took an historic step in passing its version of health care reform. Unforgivably, this major victory was achieved by selling out the health of women and passing sweeping new restrictions on abortion access.

Federal funding already cannot be used to pay for abortions. But with Stupak/Pitts, no plan in the health insurance exchange could offer abortion coverage.

Even worse, it would prevent women who receive federal subsidies for insurance from purchasing plans that cover abortion - even if they use their own money!

Confused? Get your questions answered tonight! Call 218-862-1300 at 8pm EST and use the conference code 789637. Be sure to RSVP.

Health Care Reform is not as complicated as it seems, and this is an opportunity to activate on your campuses! We welcome all feminist activists to join us for an informative conference call.

RSVP now!

The purpose of the call is to:

1. Clarify the Stupak/Pitts amendment and its impact.
2. Update you on the Senate version of health care reform.
3. Outline where we go from here - and the role each of us has to play to protect women's health and rights.
4. Share ideas about how to activate your campus and community to make sure women's ability to access abortions is not only for the wealthy.

TONIGHT (Monday, Nov. 23rd) at 8pm EST, the Feminist Majority Foundation, Advocates for Youth, and Choice USA will be hosting this call for youth activists nationwide to shed some light on the critical need for activism around the health care bill!

There's still time to stop this restriction from being included in the final health care bill! But we have to act now, and we need your help!

One more time: to join us, call 218-862-1300 at 8pm EST and use the conference code 789637. Be sure to RSVP.

We need to make sure our voices are heard on our campuses, in our communities and throughout the halls of Congress.

FMF Organizers, Intern and Campus Leader on Feminist Magazine radio show!

FMF Campus Organizers Jacqueline Sun and Allie McDonald, FMF Intern and UC Santa Cruz student, Lindsay Frank and Pasadena City College Feminist Club leader, Marissa Anderson were featured on the KPFK/Pacifica Radio show, "Feminist Magazine" last night!

Jacqueline and Allie gave a recap of the Western Regional Feminist Leadership Conference and spoke about the next steps - specifically the STOP STUPAK Day of Action on Dec. 2! If you're in DC, go to the Lobby Day/Rally! If you're in LA, come to the FMF Headquarters for our STOP STUPAK phone banks! And if you're anywhere in between, take action on your campus, organize an on-campus call-in-day, and visit your Senators' and Representative's local office!

Marissa spoke about what inspired her to launch the PCC Feminist Club last spring and about her speaking role in the FMF's recent Western conference.

And Lindsay spoke about what it's like to intern at the FMF (we are currently accepting applications for Spring 2010) and her plans to launch a feminist club at UC Santa Cruz in January.

You can listen now! Just visit the KPFK archives, and scroll down to Feminist Magazine. Then click "play" or "download" and enjoy!

Leave a comment letting us know what you think!

Scheduling A Congressional Meeting

We have less than 2 weeks before hundreds of pro-choice activists descend on Washington, DC for the Stop Stupak-Pitts Lobby Day and Rally on December 2. We hope that you will be joining us if you are able!

Before you head to Capitol Hill, however, you need to schedule a meeting with your members of Congress. See below for a step-by-step guide.

Scheduling a meeting:

1. Call your representatives and senators’ offices. To call directly, find your senators’ contact information at senate.gov; and your representative’s numbers at house.gov. You can also call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for the member by name.

2. When you reach the office, explain that you are a constituent and that you will be in Washington, DC on Wednesday, December 2 to discuss comprehensive healthcare reform, the Stupack-Pitts amendment, and women's reproductive healthcare. Ask to schedule a short meeting with the member of Congress, ideally, or their chief of staff, their healthcare staffer, or women’s issues staffer some time between 10 and 11:30 or 1:30 and 5.

3. If for whatever reason you cannot schedule a meeting, don't lose hope. You can drop in on members once you are on the Hill, or you may be able to join forces with a larger group day of.

Remember, if you cannot join us in Washington on December 2 there is still so much important work to do at home! Visit your local congressional office (especially during the week of Thanksgiving), hold a rally, write letters to the editor, and call, email, fax, and write your Congresspeople!

We can do this, but we need to keep the pressure on and keep fighting!

Email ekadar@feminist.org with any questions.

CALLING ALL DC FEMINISTS: Rally Today in Support of Pro-Choice Health Care Reform!

-- Please Forward This Message Widely --

Dear NOW Members and pro-choice allies,

We MUST protect our rights! We NEED you on the streets! NOW! After a
backroom deal late Friday night, and a floor vote late Saturday night,
the House has accepted restrictions on abortion that go far beyond
the despicable Hyde Amendment, which has denied federal funding of abortion
since 1976. We must denounce the House's passage of the Stupak Amendment.

We can not allow the Senate to incorporate similar language in its own
bill.

For more information, please see the following statement from our President
Terry O Neill:
http://www.now.org/press/11-09/11-08.html

Please join together with NOW activists over the lunch hour tomorrow to make
sure our Senators know women are watching. We will rally on the sidewalks
for all women, because we have been left out of the House health care bill.

Date: Monday, November 9
Time: 12 p.m. (noon)
Location: Meet at the corner of Constitution and Delaware
Walking a loop around Russell, Dirksen and Hart Senate Office Buildings
Bring: Cameras, NOW Rounds (we will bring some for those who need them)
Homemade signs* (please remember to write on both sides of the signs)

We will bring additional signs for those who need them.

Thank you,
Erin
Erin Matson
Action Vice President
National Organization for Women
(202) 628-8669
www.now.org

Should Only Men Get Tenure?

Passing this along - if you're in Chicago, join up! If not, this is just a reminder to support women faculty in your respective institutions!

If you’re concerned about discrimination against women in academia and the subordination of academic fields in which women predominate, please show your support for diversity in higher education TODAY, Thursday November 5th, from 1-3pm at the DePaul University student center to protest the discriminatory denial of tenure to female Professors.

As featured in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-depaul-tenure_grossmannov01,0,648862.story), DePaul University disproportionately denied tenure to qualified female Professors last year. These tenure denials will reduce the number of female Professors on campus and diminish the strength of the Women’s and Gender Studies Department, among others.

We need your help to show DePaul—and all institutions of higher education—that students do not support and will not tolerate their administrations denying tenure in a discriminatory manner. Please come and support diversity and non-discrimination in academia:

WHERE? Corner of Sheffield and Belden, NE Corner of LP Student Center by the statue.
WHEN? Thursday, November 5th, 1-3pm.
FACEBOOK? Tenure Bradshaw
QUESTIONS? Contact Chera Tribble, chera.patrice@gmail.com

Rape Is Rape

On Saturday, October 10, rallies were held in front of movie theatres across the country and abroad in response to the startling media and Hollywood support of Roman Polanski, the film director convicted of sexual assault and fleeing the country. These powerful demonstrations are part of a global campaign, Rape IS Rape.


Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment (PAVE), the sponsor of this campaign, held the event to combat the support for sexual assault perpetrators:

According to the US Department of Justice, every two minutes someone in the U.S.
is sexually assaulted. Sexual assault is one of the most under reported crimes,
with 60% still being left unreported. The outcry of support for a sexual assault
perpetrator is a strong message we are sending out to victims across the country
that they will be forever silenced and blamed for these atrocious acts.

Did you go to these protests? If so, please share your experiences. If you haven't signed the petition yet, you can sign it here.

Rally Alert: Health Care Reform

As the Obama administration sets its sights on health care reform, organizations are gearing up for the push to ensure (ha) that women will receive adequate support from any new plans that are formulated.

At this very moment the Health Care Can't Wait '09 Rally is going on in Upper Senate Park. It started at 11:30 a.m. today, but activist activity will continue until 5 p.m. From 1 to 4 p.m., attendees can visit members of Congress or go to town hall meetings to discuss reform. Health Care for America Now organized the event, which is expected to draw over a thousand people from grassroots organizations, labor unions, and faith groups. Click the link for more details and to learn more about gender equality in health care reform!

Unlocking Condom Cases at CVS

For teens and adults alike, it is awkward enough walking through CVS to grab a pack of condoms, but imagine needing to ask an employee to find a key to unlock the condom case! CVS has locked condom cases in stores nationwide, exacerbating this awkwardness, undoubtedly causing people who had planned to be careful in their sexual practices to second guess the need to buy them out of fear of shame.

In a time when sexual education has been practically eliminated in many public schools, and the rates of STIs and HIV/AIDS are skyrocketing (especially in Washington, DC), there is no reason for condoms to be difficult to access.

Six FMF interns and I braved the DC metro yesterday to attend a rally in front of CVS in Dupont Circle. The rally supported the Cure CVS initiative to stop CVS from locking up condom cases. Speakers ranging from Los Angeles to Washington, DC, came to the rally to fight for this cause, and speak about safe family planning. While CVS might argue that locking condom cases is a method of theft prevention, speakers from Los Angeles who had sampled CVS stores in East Los Angeles found that 75% of locked cases were in neighborhoods that were predominantly African American or Latino, insinuating racial slurs.

Additionally, speakers mentioned how the language barrier might prevent Latinos and other ethnicities whose first language is not English from being able to buy condoms. Skeptics of this campaign argue that we take our business elsewhere, to RiteAid, Walgreens, etc, but many of these stores are not open 24 hours a day like many CVS stores are.

Locking up condoms leads to larger public problems that I am not sure that CVS understands. Unwanted pregnancies that might arise from lack of accessibility to condoms might lead to the want/need for abortion, which automatically becomes a political issue. The risk of contracting HIV/AIDS from not wearing condoms also leads to health care issues and extraordinary medical bills. We live in a society that understands the importance of condoms, and there is no need for CVS to continue blocking their access.