Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/author/alison-bowen/)
In New York City, a food vendor celebrates her 20th Christmas without the documentation she needs to visit family back in Mexico. To her, the warm rice and hot tamales that she cooks and sells preserve the cultural connection every day.
An Obama-era Congress will have at least two chances to act against wage discrimination next year. That raises the hopes of some New York activists, but they say they’ll continue to lobby for similar state legislation, just in case.
Election Night nudged up the female composition of the next U.S. House of Representatives by three lawmakers, to a record 74. But the political gender gap remains wide, with women’s share of the House staying at 16 percent.
Women could reach 20 percent of the House of Representatives this election. It all depends on the 133 women running as major-party nominees. A Democratic tide could help four of them win upsets in Ohio, South Carolina and Florida.
Latina groups are calling voters and knocking on doors for both Obama and McCain. Members of pro-Obama Latina PAC adored Hillary Clinton, but spent the summer getting over it. Latinas for McCain like their candidate’s anti-abortion stance.
Plenty of women are whistleblowers. And plenty lose custody unjustly. But a case in Florida is a rare double whammy, Michele Egan-Byron says. She lost custody of her son after she exposed wrongdoing at work.
The woes of mega banks and U.N. proceedings dominated headlines this week while social-justice activists gathered in the nation’s financial capital to discuss the intensifying pressures on low-income women struggling for survival.
Laura Flanders just took GRITtv–her new TV show about politics and art–to the Democratic convention and as usual women got plenty of air time. “We integrate women with a feminist perspective into all of our discussions,” Flanders says.
The back-to-back political conventions offer female anti-war protesters in Code Pink a chance to showcase their particular brand of daring and endurance. This week two members tried to upstage Sarah Palin and two more disrupted John McCain’s speech.
Women in both chambers of Congress issued political checklists and set their agendas during the Democratic convention. Equal pay is a top concern for female lawmakers but they also promoted party issues with an eye to the election.