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womens history



  • "If they were White and Insured, Would they have Died?"

    by Udodiri R. Okwandu

    Texas's new maternal mortality report shows that historical patterns of medical racism are continuing, and the state plans to do little but blame Black women for the inadequate care they receive. 



  • Texas's Abortion Ban Can Never be Made Humane

    by Mary Ziegler

    When abortion access depends on establishing that a pregnant woman deserves an exception to a ban, the law will inevitably prevent doctors from serving patients with problem pregnancies. 



  • Former US Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-CO) Dies at 82

    Elected as a Vietnam war opponent in 1972, Schroeder's service on the Armed Services Commitee helped to change the status of women in the military. She also was a reliable source of a biting political quip and a fierce advocate for women in elected office. 


  • The Defiant Woman at the Center of New York's First Abortion Battle

    by Alan J. Singer

    Carolyn Ann Trow Lohman, better known as Madame Restell, defied the authority of the medical establishment and moral crusaders to help women obtain abortions. Justice Alito's misuse of history to justify the Dobbs decision shows the need to remember her. 



  • Ignorance of Its Achievements Contributes to Feminism's Bad Rap

    by Elizabeth Cobbs

    Slanders of American feminism as disruptive and disloyal go back to John Adams. But advances in freedom from education to abolition, suffrage to labor rights, have reflected the work of feminists to claim a public role for women as citizens. 



  • Linda King Newell, 82, Pioneering Feminist Mormon Historian

    Newell was briefly blacklisted by the leadership of the LDS Church for her work on Emma Smith, the first wife of founder Joseph Smith, which portrayed women as influential in the early church before being sidelined by an increasingly patriarchal institution.



  • Margaret Atwood: Go Ahead and Ban My Book

    The novelist responds to the recent banning of "The Handmaid's Tale" by a Virginia county with assurances that forbidden knowledge has never been suppressible. 



  • Originalism Will Kill Women

    by Madiba K. Dennie

    "Originalist ideology glorifies an era of blatant oppression along racial, gender, and class lines, transforming that era’s lowest shortcomings into our highest standards."



  • Femicides are Increasing in America; History Says we Shouldn't be Surprised

    by Kimberly A. Hamlin

    The term "femicide" is rarely used to describe the killing of women by men (often intimate partners), but it's an apt description for the way that gendered and sexual violence have been part of the fabric of the nation's history and constitute a systemic, not a personal, danger to women.


  • Reflecting on Netflix's "Women at War"

    by Walter G. Moss

    The Netflix series focuses on the relationship of several French women to the mass carnage of the opening months of the First World War. 



  • How Private Equity Cashed in on Medical Abortion

    The American effort to bring the French RU-486 medication to the domestic market made medical abortion much more widely accessible. But, in true American fashion, the involvement of private investors looking for profit also made it much more expensive—even more so after Dobbs.