As an activist, community organizer, and executive, Tarana Burke has made quite an impact.

If/When/How recognizes that most law school courses are not applying an intersectional, reproductive justice lens to complex issues. To address this gap, our issue briefs and primers are designed to illustrate how law and policies disparately impact individuals and communities. If/When/How is committed to transforming legal education by providing students, instructors, and practitioners with the tools and support they need to utilize an intersectional approach.

While our country remains bitterly divided over the issue of abortion, many women struggle to exercise their right to abortion in a political climate that is increasingly hostile toward reproductive rights. For women of color, however, abortion access is only one battle in a much larger fight for reproductive justice.

The Reproductive Rights Movement has, throughout its history, been heavily affected by public perception. Both its proponents and opponents have therefore taken to using language in order to frame the controversial issues in ways that best achieve their respective objectives. This paper explores the terminology used to discuss such issues as birth control, sterilization, and abortion since 1914, when the term ‘birth control’ was first used.

The idea that abortion rights are central to protecting women’s health will hardly come as a surprise to most reproductive rights advocates. For example, much of the recent litigation challenging states’ legal restrictions on abortion has centered around the requirement of a health exception—that is, around the question of whether legislation regulating abortion must contain an exception for cases where the regulated procedure is necessary to protect the woman’s health.

The pro-choice movement is supportive of a woman's right to terminate pregnancy. The term was coined in the years after the Roe vs. Wade ruling in 1973, in which the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of largely unrestricted abortion. Advocates adopted the phrase to emphasize the woman's choice and to counter the opposing ‘pro-life' movement. The pro-choice lobby believes that mothers-to-be should have control over their reproductive systems as a fundamental human right.

This annotated bibliography seeks to update the knowledge base on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of children, adolescents and young people through exploring recent additions to literature on this important topic.

The purpose of this Handbook is to provide NHRIs [national human rights institutions] with tools and guidance on how to integrate reproductive rights into their work. Each NHRI is as unique as the country in which it has been established but that does not mean that many of the challenges, including within the field of reproductive rights, are not the same or similar for many NHRIs. This Handbook is intended to give an introduction to reproductive rights, both what they mean in practice and their normative background, and how NHRIs can work within this field. Naturally, many NHRIs already work within the reproductive rights field, and a number of experiences from NHRIs have been gathered and are mentioned in the Handbook.

The UN Women policy brief series synthesizes research findings, analysis and policy recommendations on key policy areas around gender equality and women’s rights in an accessible format. The series aims to bridge the research and policy divide by identifying issues that require urgent policy attention and propose a set of suitable measures to address them. The series is a joint effort of UN Women’s Policy Division, coordinated by the Research and Data Section. To ensure the quality and relevance of the content, each brief undergoes a rigorous internal and external peer review process. These concise and relevant policy-oriented documents are useful resources for gender equality advocates, civil society and other policy actors working to achieve gender equality and women’s rights.

Browse the list of issues and latest articles from Women's History Review

The story of the global struggle for women's rights since 1945 is just beginning to be told. For a proper understanding of the continuities and changes in the struggle for women's rights during this period, we need to go back to the League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations. In addition, we need to consider more fully the important role of what are now often called traditional women's organizations in advancing women's rights on the international level, at least until 1975.

The Asian presence in North America predates the 13 colonies declaration of independence from Great Britain. However, since the beginning, Asian Americans have faced racism, exclusion, xenophobia or they have been upheld as a model minority. In either circumstance, prevailing racist and sexist stereotypes have created the perception of the Asian American as the other, and, as a result, their lives and issues are practically invisible to mainstream America.

This paper divides the move for women's rights in the U.S. into three historical phases: (1) the early women's rights movement (1848-1875); (2) the suffrage movement (1890-1920); and, (3) the two ...

"This publication provides an introduction to women’s human rights, beginning with the main provisions in international human rights law and going on to explain particularly relevant concepts for fully understanding women’s human rights. Finally, selected areas of women’s human rights are examined together with information on the main work of United Nations human rights mechanisms and others pertaining to these topics. The aim of the publication is to offer a basic understanding of the human rights of women as a whole, but because of the wide variety of issues relevant to women’s human rights, it should not be considered exhaustive.

Last week, Women’s March announced the fifth action of their Ten Actions in 100 Days campaign — a direct response to the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency, which began with the march in Washington D.C. (and marches all over the world) on…

Here's my list, what books are on yours? Send us your favorite, your top five or top 10. Let’s build the nonfiction canon of women’s history! Take a break over the holidays and email us at editors@womensenews.org.

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment by reading some of these 20 books about women's suffrage. Books for all ages are included.

The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 (“FOSTA”) rescinded legal immunity for websites that intentionally host user-generated advertisements for sex trafficking. However, Congress’s mechanism of choice to protect sex-trafficking victims has faced critique and backlash from advocates for those involved in commercial sex, who argue that FOSTA’s broad legislative language does far more to harm sex workers—a group distinct from sex-trafficking victims—than it does to end sex trafficking, chilling significant protected speech in the process.

Title IX Oral History, Women and Sports Oral History, Women and the Law Oral History

Since 1917, when Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman to serve in Congress, a total of #WIC#Total# women have served as U.S. Representatives, Delegates, Resident Commissioners, or Senators. This website, based on the publication Women in Congress, contains biographical profiles of former women Members of Congress, links to information about current women Members, essays on the institutional and national events that shaped successive generations of Congresswomen, and images of each woman Member, including rare photos.

Nancy Gertner (Harvard Law School)

This guide will mainly focus on the traditional “women’s rights” areas, and discuss the variety of opportunities, issue areas, and practice settings to advocate for women’s rights. However, there are an infinite number of women’s issues to fight for, and an equally large number of avenues in which to advocate for equal justice. Be creative in your thinking, spread wide your research, and find the issue and practice area in which you can most effectively achieve your goals.

The UCLA Journal of Gender and Law is an academic legal journal that uses the power of language to educate people and make women's voices heard.

Rolando T. Acosta, Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division, First Department, discusses the Equal Rights Amendment, which has yet to be incorporated into the U.S. Constitution. New York was one of the first states to ratify the proposed federal ERA in 1972, but has yet to pass a state ERA. He writes: Given the uncertain future of the ERA as an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, women’s rights need to be protected under the New York Constitution.