Feature Archives

Free Battered Women held its third annual Our Voices Within benefit on Sunday, October 24th, celebrating the lives, struggles, victories, hopes, and dreams of incarcerated survivors of domestic violence. The event took place at the San Francisco Women's Building. A silent auction items of artwork by incarcerated survivors was held in the afternoon, and the program was from 1:30 - 4:30pm. The event included testimony from survivors who were recently released from prison, poetry by Youth Speaks, and music from Samsara. Flyer Free Battered Women is a project of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners

Free Battered Women is still celebrating the fact that on September 17th, 2004, Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 1385 into law. It will go into effect on January 1, 2005. The bill expands the class of domestic violence survivors who are eligible for habeas relief. It also changes language about "Battered Women's Syndrome" to the more favored term "battering and its effects" (see below for more details about the bill). Read More

An International Caravan for Justice left 5 cities on October 18th, and planned for each group to visit 11 cities in voyages across the United States, from Canada to Mexico. The caravan plans to bring awareness the horrific murders and disappearances along the US-Mexico border, by holding consciousness-raising events in several cities in North America. Violence against women is ongoing, as young women who work in the maquiladora factories continue to disappear. As organizers say, "Murder is rampant as long as impunity prevails." The Caravan is demanding action by authorities on both sides of the border.
The International Caravan for Justice was in San Francisco on October 24th, at the New College of California's Cultural Center. The event included testimony from Ramona Morales, the mother of Silvia Elena Rivera Morales, who was a victim of the Juarez femicides. Jessica Marques, a representative of the Mexico Solidarity Network, discussed the influence of globalization and neoliberal economic policies on the femicides. More information on the Mexico Solidarity Network website. Past Indybay Coverage of V-Day events to commemorate Juarez deaths

The Oakland-based Welfare Radio Collaborative asks: "The Bush Administration's Healthy Marriage Initiative: a solution to poverty or a paternalistic policy aimed at regulating the sexual and reproductive lives of low income women, especially women of color?" They produced this audio documentary, which reminds people about Bush's policies that target poor women. This legislation, which has wide bi-partisan support, was introduced as part of the Welfare reauthorization legislation which is currently two years overdue, and now extended until after the election.

The Bush administration is promoting marriage to low income women as a solution to poverty. The 2002 Healthy Marriage Initiative seeks to spend 1.5 billion dollars promoting marriage through welfare, by offering marriage "education" classes, targetting low income neighborhood schools, funding faith-based organizations to provide counseling, putting up billboards in poorer neighborhoods, and funding research about marriage. Although there are no laws that fund marriage, the current Health and Human Services Department is funding marriage anyway, with money earmarked for other programs. The government insists on moving forward with these activities in spite of protests from women on welfare, feminist economists, social policy experts, domestic violence counselors, and others who say the government has no business telling low income women to get married. Read more, and listen to the documentary

CUNextTuesday is a new radical womyn's media collective in the Bay Area. It has been hosting monthly film screenings to benefit a host of projects, specifically a documentary on radical womyn in the 21st century and the evolution of the feminist movement in the U.S. For the month of August, CUNextTuesday will be screening "LIVE NUDE GIRLS UNITE! at the Artists' Television Access on Valencia Street in the Mission. Director Julia Query will be on hand to discuss the film that launched a movement. The story follows a group of women at the local Bay Area peep show, the Lusty Lady, as they attempt to overcome union-busting and engrained stereotypes, becoming the first and only unionized exotic dancer's establishment in the U.S. There will be discussion after the film, so bring some popcorn and a friend!
ATA Schedule | Exotic Dancers' Alliance | Shaping San Francisco: Exotic Dancers | Sex Workers Outreach Project

The screening comes on the heels of Ladyfest Bay Area 2004, a non profit, feminist, community-based collaborative festival of empowering workshops, forums, art showings, and events held by and for self-identified women and transfolk organized by pro-women volunteers. This year's panels and DIY workshops included topics as wide-ranging as female ejaculation, micro-radio broadcasting, trans-activism, cycling and indie publishing. CUNextTuesday hosted a workshop on Sunday, August 1st. Ladeez were encouraged to come out and make their very own video retorts to the corporate image manipulators-- organizers planned to send those videos to the men and women who control the female body propaganda machine. Indybay's Sarah Olson presented a workshop about feminist micro-radio on Saturday, July 30th.

6/1/04 The Partial Birth Abortion Act, which President Bush signed into law in November of 2003, was overturned today by Justice Phyllis J. Hamilton in the Federal 9th District Court of Appeals in San Francisco today. Doctors have interpreted the Supreme Court's decision in Roe. v. Wade to mean they can perform abortions usually until the 24th to 28th week after conception, or until the "point of viability," when a healthy fetus is thought to be able to survive outside the womb. Generally, abortions after the "point of viability" are performed only to preserve the woman's health. The U.S. Supreme Court had overturned a Nebraska partial-birth abortion law because it did not allow the banned procedure in cases in which the doctor believes the method is the best way to preserve the woman's health. Doctors call the procedure "intact dilation and extraction," but opponents refer to it as "partial-birth abortion."
Today's ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Ashcroft prohibits Attorney General Ashcroft and his successors from enforcing the law against doctors who provide abortion services for Planned Parenthood, whether they are working at Planned Parenthood or elsewhere, as well as doctors to whom Planned Parenthood makes referrals. It also prohibits enforcement against the city of San Francisco and its medical facilities. Two other challenges to the Partial Birth Abortion Ban are still in the courts: they were brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and Wilmer Cutler Pickering LLP on behalf of the National Abortion Federation and other doctors; and the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of Dr. LeRoy Carhart and other doctors. Closing arguments in the other two cases are scheduled for June.
Due to the fact that there are two pending federal cases, Judge Hamilton did not extend the injunction to all abortion providers.

Gloria Anzaldúa, who was a lesbian feminist Chicana/Xicana theorist and creative writer, succumbed to an illness that was apparently related to diabetes on May 15, 2004. She left this world at the age of 61, just weeks before completing her dissertation and earning her doctorate from UC Santa Cruz. A public memorial was held at the San Francisco Women's Building on Sunday, June 13th. Read more about Gloria Anzaldúa on the Web Altar for Gloria and on Indybay's Race Page