🌍This Week in the War On Women: around the country & world; & open thread

Go to sheshouldrun.org/..._________________________________________________h/t oscarsmomWhen women run for political office, girls are more likely to grow up to be voters. “This is powerful evidence for the enduring effect of women as role models,” authors of the new study wrote.__________________________________________________________h/t rebel ga“Combating Climate Change 101,” League of Women Voters’ ‘ event mobilizes residents for climate actionCatharine Schutzius said she joined Third Act Illinois, a nonprofit for elderly peoples for climate change action, after overhearing her son question whether he should have kids given the environmental decline of the planet. “I just felt like something has to improve,” Schutzius said. “It isn’t right that they should struggle.”This concern is what brought seven environmental groups together and around 30 attendees for “Combating Climate Change 101,” a panel hosted by the League of Women Voters of Evanston at the Evanston Public Library.The Monday night event was designed to educate Evanston and Skokie residents on making sustainable differences in the community. It also served as a means for collaboration between various environmental groups, which included Climate Action Evanston, Beyond Waste, Natural Habitat Evanston, Go Green Skokie, Evanston Grows, Third Act Illinois and Climate Change Coaches.__________________________________________________________h/t FeedingAmericanativenewsonline.net Standard Dx’c Ovarian Cancer Test Less Effective for Native, Black Women... according to [a University of Pennsylvania study recently published in JAMA Network Open].The test looks for elevated levels of CA-125 — a protein produced by ovarian tumors — in patients’ blood. Its development in the 1980s relied almost exclusively on clinical data from white women. For decades, it has been widely used without significant recalibration to account for biological variation across different racial and ethnic groups.... [The study of data from more than 200,000 women diagnosed between 2004 and 2020 found that] Native women and Black women are 23% less likely to exhibit elevated CA-125 at the time of diagnosis compared to White patients, potentially leading to delayed treatment and poor outcomes.Native American women have the highest incidence of ovarian cancer among all racial groups, and Black women experience lower survival rates compared to their white counterparts....____________________________________________________________A ‘decolonized approach’ to law: Molly Washington started her own law firm, N’dee Law LLC, in 2024 and hopes to use her practice to bring an Indigenized lens to law and inspire future generations of Indigenous law practitioners______________________________nativenewsonline.net Choctaw Women spotlighted at Choctaw Casino & Resort Gallery showcasing women artists[The gallery] has unveiled a refreshed exhibit ... for Choctaw Women’s Month. The new installation, titled Pakanli – To Bloom, honors the deep connection between Choctaw women and nature.Rooted in tradition, the exhibit highlights the vital roles Choctaw women have played throughout history — from nurturing crops to crafting baskets and pottery from natural materials. It draws inspiration from the traditional Choctaw story Ohoyo osh Chishba, in which a woman gifts corn to the Choctaw people for the first time.Pakanli – To Bloom showcases the work of four talented Choctaw artists: Kristin Gentry, Lauretta Newby Coker, Norma Howard, and Jane Semple Umsted. Each artist brings a unique voice and vision to the exhibit....____________________________________________________________.medscape from January 2025 More Women Entering Medical School Than Men for Sixth Straight Year: Why?.medscape UK Women Hold Only 14% of Top Leadership Roles in Medicine .TheGuardian ‘We are failing’: doctors and students in the US look to Mexico for basic abortion training___________________________________________________________MotherJones A Win for Repro Rights: Alabama Can’t Charge Activists Helping Patients Get Out-of-State AbortionsAND Alabama Passes Law to Expedite Medicaid Access for Pregnant Women...In support of the bill, the AP reported, Democratic lawmakers emphasized that addressing Alabama's health care delivery outcomes, which are currently lagging behind the rest of the country, is essential. The bill was also supported by many Republican lawmakers, who view the legislation as "pro-life."The bill now just requires the signature of Republican Gov. Kay Ivey._____________________________Arkansas Number of Women Holding Office Rises in ArkansasThe number of women leading Arkansas is growing, according to the Center for American Women and Politics — CAWP — at Rutgers University in New Jersey. The center’s 2025 study of women in municipal offices in cities and towns with populations greater than 10,000 found that nearly 30 percent of elected municipal offices in the state were filled by women, slightly lower than the national average of 32.4 percent.The current statistic of 29.9 percent is almost a full percentage point higher than in 2024, when the center reported the number of elected municipal offices in Arkansas filled by women was 29 percent. The state rose from No. 38 to No. 28 in the national rankings of women in such offices over the past year. The study includes members and officers of the municipal legislative branch of incorporated cities and towns with populations greater than 10,000 according to the U.S. Census. Offices include city councils, boards of aldermen and city commissioners, as well as mayors and those who perform mayoral functions....____________________________________________________________U.S. Rep. Mia Love First Black Republican woman in Congress honored in Utah after her death from brain cancer____________________________________________________________Dr. Caitlin Gustafson My mark on history is fighting for women in Idaho, and nationwide, living under abortion bans____________________________________________________________h/t officebssfrom Guttmacher email: Withheld Funds Could Impact 30% of Title X Patients — over 830 thousand Read full analysis hereIn a new analysis, Guttmacher experts estimate that if the withholding of Title X funds becomes permanent, at least 834,000 people would lose access to Title X-funded care over the course of a year. This represents 30% of patients served annually by the Title X program.......Currently, seven states have lost all Title X funding and another 15 have lost partial Title X funding....____________________________________________________________h/t Passage2TruthChild sexual exploitation and abuse is a multibillion-dollar industry – new report shows who benefitsDeborah Fry, University of EdinburghThe world’s financial and tech infrastructure has become complicit in sustaining these crimes....________________________________________________________________CouncilOnForeignRelations 5 Mar 2025 Roundtable: Status of Women Thirty Years After the Beijing Declaration_____________________Malala Yousafzai, Gender Apartheidt.... Efforts by not only Malala but also Afghan and Iranian women have brought into stark relief the need to powerfully conceptualize the Taliban’s brutal separation and subjugation of Afghan women as a new form of apartheid—gender apartheid —under international law. While these efforts began locally by Afghan women as far back as the 1980s, they are now getting international uptake. Gender apartheid as a term [arose in the 1980s among female scholars and advocates in Muslim-majority countries regarding systemic gender discrimination under conservative interpretations of sharia-based law. The term draws upon] the definition of racial apartheid ... as a crime against humanity in the 1974 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and under the 2002 Rome Statute. [As yet], gender apartheid has no formal definition and is not covered by that Convention. The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, has sought to define [it] as “the commission of an inhumane act in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one gender group over another gender group or groups, with the intention of maintaining that regime.”For the most part, Afghan women [have led] the charge ... to codify [this] crime. A delegation of Afghan women and other experts went to South Africa to [study] the legal and political strategies that framed that country’s anti-apartheid movement [and] how that ... movement went global, and the intersectional dimensions of race and gender in apartheid. Afghan women are also tapping the expertise and support of [allies globally advocating for codification] via international human rights and criminal law. The End Gender Apartheid campaign, established by human rights defenders, activists, and civil society—and which includes Nobel Peace Prize Laureates—aims to target international and national laws to expand the interpretation and definition of apartheid to encompass gender-based discrimination. ... __________________The Value of Saving Women's & Girls' Lives (USAID cancellation)Women and girls are losing their lives are due to the abrupt and sweeping cancellation of congressionally approved U.S. foreign assistance. Congress and the courts should insist on reinstating those programs while a deliberate reform is undertaken.____________________________________________________________HornObserver Widespread Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in SudanThe Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have committed extensive sexual violence against women and girls during Sudan's two-year civil war, using rape, gang-rape, and sexual slavery as tools to humiliate, control, and displace communities across the country.Amnesty International’s latest report outlines how these atrocities amount to war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity.The report, titled They Raped All of Us: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Sudan, details horrific incidents of sexual violence, including the rape or gang-rape of 36 women and girls as young as 15, across four Sudanese states between April 2023 and October 2024.The victims suffered brutal assaults such as a mother being raped after her breastfeeding child was forcibly removed, and a woman held in sexual slavery for 30 days in Khartoum.In addition to sexual violence, survivors were subjected to severe beatings, torture with hot liquids and sharp objects, and even murder....READ HERE for more on the ways that political conflict has increasingly adopted the methods and goal$ of gang warfare._________________________________________________________________ForeignPolicy.com — Nov 2018 Women Are the Key to Peace “Cease-fire negotiations that exclude women are more likely to fall apart....” 2018 Research from Melanne Verveer —executive director of the Institute for Women, Peace, and Security at Georgetown University; U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues, 2009-2013 — and Anjali Dayal —an assistant professor of international politics at Fordham University, and research fellow at she Georgetowns IWPS — confirmed that talks lead to better outcomes with women at the negotiating talbe. re more effective with women involved....when civil society groups and women’s groups are included ... resulting peace agreements are 35 percent more likely to last at least 15 years. That is huge, considering that settlements break down more often than not. A more gender-balanced process enhances local trust and buy-in, injects legitimacy into the process, and increases the chances that problematic social norms and power imbalances that contributed to the conflict will be rectified.[But although women are largely excluded from formal negotiations, they are not] passive observers of men’s efforts to resolve conflict. Rather, they’ve actively engaged in what negotiators call Track II processes ...In Liberia in the early 2000s, for example, formal [Track I] negotiations were bolstered by Track II efforts by women, who launched mass campaigns and sit-ins to demand peace; organized consultations among warring parties, negotiators, and regional actors; and legitimized formal negotiations by calling for rebels and the government to sit down together....[This is] not unique. In the first systematic study of women’s involvement in informal peace processes, the [GIWPS] recently found that, of 63 such negotiations in the post-Cold War era, 38 involved informal initiatives. In a majority of those, women’s groups were actively involved...._______________________________________________________Waging NonViolence.org Feb 2025 These Palestinian and Israeli women show how to stand up for peace together ....The January ceasefire agreement [was] a glimmer of hope for Israelis and Palestinians. Yet, the ink was barely dry when Hamas fighters emerged from hiding in full uniform and with assault rifles to remind Gazans who’s in charge [as] Palestinian prisoners [return] home to destruction, chaos and a dire humanitarian crisis, [and] the Israeli government [continues deadly military operations in the West Bank and Gaza, while the U.S. President talks about ethnically cleansing the GS to make way for] a “Riviera in the Middle East...”[Absent leadership] bold enough to perform a radical overhaul of the status quo ... [it remains upon diverse] civil society to end the cycle of violence and ... foster alternative solutions...[after decades of shared peacework, on] Oct. 4, 2023, thousands of women from the Israeli peace movement, Women Wage Peace, and the Palestinian counterpart, Women of the Sun, came together in Jerusalem to demand a seat at their governments’ negotiation tables... “We, Palestinian and Israeli mothers, are determined to stop the vicious cycle of bloodshed and to change the reality of the difficult conflict between both nations, for the benefit of our children.” ...Three days later, Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel, carrying out gender-based atrocities and sexual assaults [and murder, followed by Israeli forces entering Gaza] kickstarting one of the deadliest wars for Palestinians in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and women and children have made up a majority of the victims. In [this year and half, 3 members of Women Wage Peace including co-founder Vivian Silver and], almost 40 Women of The Sun members have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank.[And yet] “Don’t be pro-Palestine or pro-Israel. Be pro-peace, because this is what we need,” said Fatima [nom de guerre], a mother of four and member of Women of the Sun... “We don’t want to fuel hatred and revenge between each other. We lost a lot of people, and violence only brings more violence. It’s time to stop it. It’s time to have more dialogue and, at least, to hear each other out and to stop killing each other.”...______________________________________h/t Yosef 52France24 The brave women of UkraineWith the war with Russia now in its fourth year, the number of women joining the Ukrainian army continues to soar to some 70,000 up from 56,000 at the start of the Russian invasion. Our colleagues at France 2 went to meet the female fighters of Bucha. Also the number of indigenous women murdered in the US is 10 times higher than any other ethnic group. Annette Young talks to French-American director, Sabrina Van Tassel, whose latest documentary focuses on the plight of one such woman. ___________________________________________________________h/t Associated PressAdvocate From Afghanistan to Malaysia, these are the 61 countries that still criminalize homosexualityThis Week in the War on Women provides a weekly summary of news on women's issues and information on current political actions. We welcome all who are interested to join, to write for us, and to provide relevant links and stories.Go to sheshouldrun.org/...If you hit a paywall on articles linked in diaries or comments, try pasting the link in at https://archive.is/ to see if you can get free reads.Keep in Touch with the War on Women!Our Daily Kos group homepage is HERE. Click the FOLLOW button on that page for delivery of all our posts to your Activity Stream. OR click at our series tags: ThisWeekInTheWarOnWomen & wow1, and topic tag WarOnWomen. Archive of Trailblazing & Activist Women in History/wow2 HERE. Everything blogged & reblogged to our group here. This Week In The War On Women is a team effort. Thank you to everyone bringing links and comments to the discussion. The Thread Is Now Openh/t WolverineForTJatAWh/t Aleurophile