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2023-03-01
Prison Policy Initiative;
With growing public attention to the problem of mass incarceration, people want to know about women's experiences with incarceration. How many women are held in prisons, jails, and other correctional facilities in the United States? Why are they there? How are their experiences different from men's? Further, how has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the number of women behind bars? These are important questions, but finding those answers requires not only disentangling the country's decentralized and overlapping criminal legal systems, but also unearthing the frustratingly limited data that's broken down by gender.This report provides a detailed view of the 172,700 women and girls incarcerated in the United States, and how they fit into the even broader picture of correctional control. We pull together data from a number of government agencies and break down the number of women and girls held by each correctional system by specific offense. In this updated report, we've also gone beyond the numbers, using rare self-reported data from a national survey of people in prison, to offer new insights about incarcerated women's backgrounds, families, health, and experiences in prison. This report, produced in collaboration with the ACLU's Campaign for Smart Justice, answers the questions of why and where women are locked up — and so much more.
2023-03-04
Elsevier;
In public discourses in the United States adoption is often suggested as a less objectionable, equal substitute for abortion, despite this pregnancy outcome occurring much less frequently than the outcomes of abortion and parenting. This qualitative study explores whether and how abortion patients weighed adoption as part of their pregnancy decisions and, for those who did, identifies factors that contributed to their ultimate decision against adoption.
2023-02-14
Human Rights Watch;
According to interviews Human Rights Watch conducted with 66 lesbian, bisexual, and queer (LBQ+) activists, researchers, lawyers, and movement leaders in 26 countries between March and September 2022, forced marriage is one of ten key areas of human rights abuses most affecting LBQ+ women's lives. Human Rights Watch identified the following areas of LBQ+ rights as those in need of immediate investigation, advocacy, and policy reform. This report explores how the denial of LBQ+ people's rights in these ten areas impacts their lives and harms their ability to exercise and enjoy the advancement of more traditionally recognized LGBT rights and women's rights:the right to free and full consent to marriage;land, housing, and property rights;freedom from violence based on gender expression;freedom from violence and discrimination at work;freedom of movement and the right to appear in public without fear of violence;parental rights and the right to create a family;the right to asylum;the right to health, including services for sexual, reproductive, and mental health;protection and recognition as human rights defenders; andaccess to justice.This investigation sought to analyze how and in what circumstances the rights of LBQ+ people are violated, centering LBQ+ identity as the primary modality for inclusion in the report. Gender-nonconforming, non-binary, and transgender people who identify as LBQ+ were naturally included. At the same time, a key finding of the report is that the fixed categories "cisgender" and "transgender" are ill-suited for documenting LBQ+ rights violations, movements, and struggles for justice. As will be seen in this report, people assigned female at birth bear the weight of highly gendered expectations which include marrying and having children with cisgender men, and are punished in a wide range of ways for failing or refusing to meet these expectations. Many LBQ+ people intentionally decenter cisgender men from their personal, romantic, sexual, and economic lives. In this way, the identity LBQ+ itself is a transgression of gendered norms. Whether or not an LBQ+ person identifies as transgender as it is popularly conceptualized, the rigidly binary (and often violently enforced) gender boundaries outside of which LBQ+ people already live, regardless of their gender identity, may help to explain why the allegedly clear division between "cisgender" and "transgender" categories simply does not work for many LBQ+ communities. This report aims to explore and uplift, rather than deny, that reality.
2023-02-22
National WIC Association;
The 2023 State of WIC Report: Building the Bridge to a Healthier Future, supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, outlines progress on WIC modernization efforts; growing participation due to remote services; WIC's swift responses to the infant formula crisis; USDA proposed food package changes to improve nutrition security; and WIC's role in advancing health equity. The report brings together existing research and data to describe how the WIC program works and its positive impact on low-resourced families. The many useful facts and figures of the report are supplemented by quotes sharing the lived experiences of WIC participants and testimonials from WIC providers.
2023-01-31
Urban Institute;
Increasing Black women's earnings is not enough to amend their economic vulnerabilities. The difficulty of balancing one's work life and personal or family life complicates the challenge of wealth disparities facing Black women. Using the mixed-methods approach of an online questionnaire, individual interviews, and data analysis, Taylor and colleagues find that Black women stand to benefit when they, their partners/spouses, and their extended family members all have access to three core areas of fringe benefits and policies: (1) universal work-life balance supports, such as flexible work schedules, remote work options, paid time off, mental health days, and family medical leave; (2) holistic dependent care resources and family discounts; and (3) legacy benefits such as employee-share ownership, tuition reimbursement, pension, credit union access, financial/retirement counseling, and legal counseling. They conclude employers could play a progressive role in supporting Black women's efforts to strike a balance between work and home life and close the racial wealth gap.
2023-01-01
Kaiser Family Foundation;
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the federal constitutional standard that had protected the right to abortion. Without any federal standard regarding abortion access, states will set their own policies to ban or protect abortion. The Abortion in the United States Dashboard is an ongoing research project tracking state abortion policies and litigation following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Be sure to click on the buttons or scroll down to see all the content. It will be updated as new information is available.
2023-01-20
Power to Decide;
More than 19 million women of reproductive age living in the US are in need of publicly funded contraception and live in contraceptive deserts. Living in a contraceptive desert means that they lack reasonable access in their county to a health center that offers the full range of contraceptive methods. Around 1.2 million of these women live in a county without a single health center offering the full range of methods. For all of these women getting contraception means having to do more than showing up to an appointment. They must find a babysitter, take time off work, or travel long distances to access their preferred birth control method. And they're not alone. We know that there are women across the US who aren't eligible for publicly funded contraception but still rely on the same health centers. Whether for convenience, privacy reasons, or instances of reproductive coercion, women who have insurance may still seek contraception at health centers that primarily serve low income women. It only tells part of the story to say that 19 million women live in contraceptive deserts.This resource provides a visual description of where women in need can access birth control—and where they can't—across the country. As the map moves from dark purple to yellow to dark pink, access declines.
2023-01-18
Economic Policy Institute;
Abortion has long been framed as a cultural, religious, or personal issue rather than a material "bread and butter" economic concern. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, more economic policymakers have been emphasizing the issue as a pressing economic concern. In perhaps the first public comment on the issue by a major political figure, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen noted: "eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades" (Guida 2022). This direct connection between abortion and reproductive access and economic rights is critical (Banerjee 2022). This report argues that abortion access is fundamentally intertwined with economic progress and mobility. Specifically, in states where abortion has been banned or restricted, abortion restrictions constitute an additional piece in a sustained project of economic subjugation and disempowerment.The states banning abortion rights have, over decades, intentionally constructed an economic policy architecture defined by weak labor standards, underfunded and purposefully dysfunctional public services, and high levels of incarceration. Through a cross-sectional quantitative analysis of state level abortion access status and five indicators of economic security—the minimum wage, unionization, unemployment insurance, Medicaid expansion, and incarceration—we find that, generally, the states enacting abortion bans are the same ones that are economically disempowering workers through other channels.The results of the analysis underscore that abortion restrictions and bans do have economic effects, given the strong correlation between abortion status and various economic wellbeing metrics. Further, the consistent pattern of state abortion bans and negative economic outcomes shows how abortion fits into an economics and politics of control. Abortion restrictions are planks in a policy regime of disempowerment and control over workers' autonomy and livelihoods, just like deliberately low wage standards, underfunded social services, or restricted collective bargaining power. Economic policymakers must prioritize this issue as widespread abortion bans will contribute to a loss in economic security and independence for millions in the current and future generations.
2023-01-02
Mindful Philanthropy;
Improving the lives of women and girls yields better long-term outcomes for families, communities, and global economies. Mental health in particular is a crucial determinant of those positive outcomes and broader societal benefits. This primer highlights key opportunities to support women and girls' mental health and how they intersect with other issues that funders care about, including education, health, and economic empowerment.
2023-05-15
Urgent Action Fund;
"How Can We Ground Ourselves in Care and Dance Our Revolution?" contains interviews with 141 activists in 63 countries speaking on how they integrate care into their activism and work. The report also calls on funders to provide more resources to fund collective care practices among feminist movements, directly providing recommendations, and next steps from activists on the frontlines. The perspectives shared in our report offer a unique and diverse understanding of collective care, highlighting the experiences of women, trans, and non-binary feminist activists who have been historically marginalized within social justice movements worldwide.
2023-06-15
Foundation For A Just Society;
This resource is one step in a participatory research journey that began in 2019. Led by Jeannette Tineo Durán, a team of Black feminist researchers from Latin America and the Caribbean explored Black women's activism and organizing across their regions – also termed Abya Yala. Between November 2019 and August 2020, they charted activism across 17 countries and five sub-regions they grouped as follows: the Andes, Brazil, the Caribbean, Mesoamerica, and the Southern Cone.To put our commitments to self-determination and community leadership in practice, it was important that the research team reflect the communities we sought to learn from. To that end, Tineo Durán assembled a powerful cadre of 16 Black women academics, artists, and activists from the regions to collectively produce it. Using participatory methodology from decolonial and intersectional perspectives that brought together Black feminist perspectives across borders, the researchers did not approach participants as subjects but rather as collaborators in the production of knowledge. Both the researchers and the participants' knowledge and experience were integral to the analysis. Most work was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, with research disrupted by public health responses across the 17 countries. Participants were heavily impacted, not only by the virus but also its economic consequences and state policing of quarantine measures. Some planned in-person research activities such as workshops, forums, and meetings were conducted virtually.The original Spanish-language research – Mapeo de Feminismos Negros en Abya Yala (2021) – is a rich and deep resource, including detailed reports on each of the mapped countries/sub-regions. It is a contribution to the Black feminist call for documentation, translation, and sharing of Black feminist knowledge. As FJS and Wellspring disseminate the research to a philanthropic audience, the researchers are sharing it with a wide audience of activists in the regions and publishing their own book for movements.This microsite draws from translated summaries of the Mapeo developed by consultants Carla Murphy and Chriss Sneed. As we concluded the analysis, we saw an opportunity to include perspectives from a wider range of philanthropic actors so we conducted a small survey of seven private foundations in May and June 2022 and five follow-up interviews in December 2022 and January 2023.
2023-03-14
International Rescue Committee;
Targeted violence against health care has impacted the availability of and access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care, including basic and specialized services. This has resulted in:SRH services are insufficient due to limited staff, facilities, equipment, supplies, and medication across northwest Syria.SRH care provision is limited, among other things, by the fact that many health care facilities have been built in, or relocated to, geographic areas far from the front lines, limiting access to SRH services for communities close to conflict zones. Because of the large population and demand in safer areas, these facilities experience significant overcrowding.In areas where SRH services are largely unavailable, respondents reported harmful coping practices, including postponing essential SRH visits and forgoing medication.When required SRH services are not available or practically inaccessible, there are far-reaching, negative consequences for women's health, including for both their psychosocial well-being and that of their children.The most marginalized people, including women residing in camps, those with a disability, those with limited income, and those married at a young age, are most adversely impacted by the paucity of SRH care.