Feature Archives

"Crisis Pregnancy Centers" (CPCs) claim to offer help for women who face unplanned pregnancies, but they are in fact run by anti-abortion organizations that want to prevent women from obtaining abortions. These fake clinics use deceptive methods to get women in the door and then bombard them with misleading information. To address this problem, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) has introduced the Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services Act (H.R. 5052) which would enforce truth-in-advertising standards for reproductive centers. Women who have gone into CPCs have reported being harassed, intimidated, and made to feel guilty for considering abortion.

On May 18th, students at UC Santa Cruz held the annual Take Back the Night. Starting with a rally at 6:30pm in Baytree Plaza, there were speakers and live performance addressing issues such as prison violence, sterilization, domestic violence, and institutionalized patriarchy. After marching through the colleges on east side of campus, the march stopped outside the College 9/10 Multi-Purpose Room for performances by UCSC's Slam Poets Team, before making its way through the rest of the colleges. Finally ending up at Oakes, students ate food while listening to testimonials about gender-based violence.

Take Back the Night has been organized at UC Santa Cruz since 1983 - two years after the event was started in San Francisco. The event has traditionally been a women-only space but this year's event, controversially, was open to all genders. Read more and view photos

Santa Cruz Indymedia

On Wednesday, May 31st, Bay Area Women in Black will host an event entitled "Palestinian Lesbians Speak Out from the Occupation." The event will take place at 7:00pm at the Berkeley Friends Church at 1600 Saramento Street at Cedar, in Berkeley. The event will be a fundraiser for ASWAT.

Two Palestinian human rights activists from Israel will be speaking that evening. Rauda Morcos is the co-founder of ASWAT, an organization that broke the silence for Palestinian lesbians and the first Palestinian woman to publicly come out of the closet. She will address the work of ASWAT and the everyday conflicts she experiences between her national and gendered identity. Nisreen Mazzawi is an environmentalist and feminist and is the Political Coordinator of Bat Shalom of the Jerusalem Link and Coordinator of the Women Empowerment Project in the Palestinian unrecognized villages in the north of Israel. She will speak about organizing Palestinian women under occupation.

ASWAT | Bay Area Women in Black | Kersplebedeb article about Rauda Morcos | International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission | Advocate Interview | Indybay's Palestine News Page

Lakota Elder Madonna Thunder Hawk will speak in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 30th at 6:30pm, at New College of California. Flyer She is a veteran of every modern Native American struggle, from the occupation of Alcatraz to the siege of Wounded Knee. She is a long-time community organizer with a range of experience in Indian rights protection, cultural preservation, economic development and environmental justice. Audio interview with Madonna Thunder Hawk and Elizabeth Creely of BACORR

She will speak about ongoing efforts in South Dakota to secure women's reproductive rights. Her work serves as an inspiring model for committed reproductive rights,justice activists in the aftermath of South Dakota's disastrous decision to ban abortion and in the face of ongoing attacks on ourselves, our rights, and our bodies.

Event sponsors: New College of California's Activism and Social Change MA Program | Bay Area Coalition on Reproductive Rights

On Sunday, May 14th, from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., No New Jails will take a huge Mother’s Day card to the Century Regional Jail in Los Angeles and ask people waiting in line to visit loved ones in the jail to sign the card. People can sign the card online if they will not be able to go to LA.

The card, which will be addressed to the governor, will demand that 4,500 women be released from state prison, rather than creating 4,500 new prison and jail beds. The card is in response to a bill in Sacramento that has proposed moving 4,500 women from state prison into smaller privately-run prisons, many of which will be located in Los Angeles County. The bills AB 2066 and AB 2917 target women who the system has determined do not "need" to be in prison. These measures would put the women in new “community” prisons, called “Community Corrections Facilities.” These are simply privatized prisons: new name, new cell, same cage. No New Jails' demand would reduce the women's prison population by 40%.

No New Jails wants the state to put prison funds into more programming and services for paroled women. It says that putting women into locked “treatment centers” is not really releasing them, sending them home, or helping them to re-enter society.

Read more on Indybay's California and Police and Prisons News Pages

In many states, moms can be denied a job or given less pay for the same work, just because they're mothers. In a country where the government talks about family values, families are not protected. MoveOn is part of a new campaign called Moms Rising, which aims to collect 50,000 signatures and comments supporting mothers and American families by Mother's Day. MomsRising plans to deliver these comments to people in Congress and begin to build an anchor of support for real family issues. They want to protect mothers from discrimination in hiring, promote the work flexibility that all parents need, demand universal health care, and get a living wage for all Americans so they can support their families. A Motherhood Manifesto has been written to highlight the common needs of America’s mothers and spell out concrete solutions that will provide families—whether rich, poor, or middle class—with real relief. Moms Rising sees itself as an "important next step in building a progressive movement that connects deeply with the needs of American families. And mothers." Info about joining the MomsRising campaign

Moms Rising | MoveOn.org

Sunday, May 14th is Mother's Day. Mother’s Day was started in 1870 by peace activist Julia Ward Howe, who was horrified by the carnage and suffering of the Civil War and wrote a proclamation calling on women to unite and oppose war. Families of soldiers who were killed in war, Iraqis, and many others will join together on Mother's Day to oppose the war. CODEPINK and others are holding a number of actions all over the US to honor women. There will be events in California and nationally to observe the effects of war and of immigration on mothers. Code Pink National will be holding a continuous 24 hour vigil in Washington, DC from May 13th to 14th outside the White House.

On Wednesday, May 10th, a vigil was held to honor undocumented immigrant women. The Coalition Against Unjust Immigration Laws (CAUIL) will hold its vigil from 6-8 pm at Southside Park across from the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, at 7th & T Streets in Sacramento.

Friday, May 12th, people will observe the CODEPINK Mother's Day for Peace with a rally at the Military Recruitment Center on 41st Avenue in Capitola. In addition to the rally, some people are planning to go inside the plaza to blockade and/or risk arrest at the recruitment center. Read more from Santa Cruz Indymedia

On Sunday, May 14th, there will be a free Mothers Day Event at the Parkway Theater in Oakland to reclaim the anti-war history of the day. From 2-4pm, there will be speakers, short films and performances by youth groups. On Monday, May 15th, the resistance will continue with an International Conscientious Objectors Day protest in Oakland

Women Say Enough | CodePink's List of Mothers' Day Events | Women Say No to War