Women's Movements & the Law

In the #MeToo era and with more women entering Congress, activists are hopeful another state could ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. But is it too late?

Female attorneys like Loretta Lynch and Jeannie Rhee of Paul Weiss and Beth Brinkmann with Covington & Burling are filing amicus briefs in a Democratic lawsuit seeking to force the addition of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

The bulletin moved just after 1 p.m. on Aug. 18, 1920, conveying the breaking news that the 19th Amendment had been ratified giving women the constitutional right to vote...

As a senator, President Biden played a key role in passing the landmark 1994 law, which he called "one of my proudest legislative achievements." It wasn't reauthorized in 2018 over partisan disputes.

What supporters and opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment say the amendment would do if enacted.

Three Democrats – Bush, Barbara Lee and Pramila Jayapal – spoke before House oversight committee hearing on reproductive rights

Text for S.3165 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): SAFE SEX Workers Study Act

Text for H.R.2694 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

Text for H.R.1865 - 115th Congress (2017-2018): Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017

Summary of H.R.1581 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Reproductive Rights are Human Rights Act of 2019

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Kate D’Adamo is witnessing a shift. For years, the Reframe Health and Justice activist has worked alongside organizations like the Sex Workers Outreach Project-USA, HIPS, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights to uplift sex workers’ voices and protect their access to the tools that would help them build community and ensure their own safety. On a federal level, that often meant engaging with congressional staffers in Washington, D.C., in introductory conversations about sex workers’ rights.

Sex and reproductive health-related bills in the U.S. Congress.

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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.

More than 50 Women’s Rights Organizations Argue for Adoption Following Ratification by 38 States as Required in U.S. Constitution CHICAGO – July 1, 2020 – Winston & Strawn filed today an amicus brief ...

The Center for Reproductive Rights uses the power of law to advance reproductive rights as fundamental human rights around the world.

Good reproductive health policy starts with credible research

BREAKING: The Supreme Court has taken away our right to abortion and overturned Roe v. Wade, opening the floodgates for states across the country to ban abortion.

Women's Congressional Policy Institute (WCPI) brings women policymakers together across party lines to advance issues of importance to women and their families...

Reproductive rights—having the ability to decide whether and when to have children—are important to women’s socioeconomic well-being and overall health. Research suggests that being able to make decisions about one’s own reproductive life and the timing of one’s entry into parenthood is associated with greater relationship stability and satisfaction (National Campaign to Prevent Teen and […]

Even with the pandemic wreaking havoc on the U.S. and global health care systems and economies, reproductive health care needs and decisions cannot be put on hold during the COVID-19 crisis.

As attacks to women’s health and rights ramp up on the federal level, states have an opportunity to advance progressive policies to protect women and their families.

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has spent a lifetime defying notions about "the way women are" and, in the process, has become a cultural icon as well as a profoundly influential jurist. This collection of some of her most significant opinions and dissents illuminates the intellect, humor, and toughness that have made "the Notorious R.B.G." a hero to many. Included are Justice Ginsburg's majority opinions in United States v. Virginia (1996), Olmstead v. L. C. (1999), and Sessions v. Morales-Santana (2017); her concurrence in Whole Women's Health v. Hellerstedt (2016); a selection from the Court's 2018-2019 term; and some of the justice's most famous dissents, such as those in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire (2007), Gonzales v. Carhart (2007), and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014). Also included are an introduction and explanatory notes that help make these writings accessible to a nonlegal audience.

Offers an illustrated unofficial pictorial retrospective celebrating Justice Ginsburg's inspirational life and barrier-breaking, history-making achievements. Ginsburg's narrative of strength, independence, and inspiring others is told primarily through commentary and curated images. It covers her formative years growing up in Brooklyn; her family bonds; her early academic and professional life; her marriage and partnership with Martin Ginsburg; her landmark cases; and the prejudice she overcame to reach the pinnacle of her field as the second woman to ascend to the country's highest court. It also highlights her many firsts--including her becoming the first female tenured professor at Columbia Law School and cofounding the first Women's Rights Project for the ACLU. With 130 photographs, highlights from notable speeches and judicial opinions, and a foreword by filmmaker Mimi Leder--director of the RBG biographical feature film On the Basis of Sex--this book pays tribute to Ginsburg, whose work on behalf of gender equality--and whose unprecedented career itself--indelibly changed American society. --From publisher description.

Since the publication of the first edition of Supreme Court Decisions and Women's Rights in 2000, there have been significant developments both in the make up of the Court and the rulings it has issued. The past decade saw the departure of highly revered Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the historic appointment of the first Latina woman, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Over that same time period, there have been several important decisions affecting gender law, including: Gonzales v. Carhart (2007), which upheld the federal ban on partial-birth abortion signed by President Bush in 2003 Ledbetter v. Goodyear Rubber & Tire Co. (2007) found that too much time had lapsed for former-Goodyear employee Lilly Ledbetter to seek back wages for the years she received discriminatory lower pay AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen (2009) held that companies that discriminated against pregnant women employees prior to passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, could carry that discrimination over into calculating pension pay. Featuring more than 100 cases and updated biographies, Supreme Court Decisions and Women's Rights provides a complete study of all the important issues and movements involving the Supreme Court and the role it plays in shaping women's rights.

The definitive biography of the first Latina and third woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court from the biographer of Condoleeza Rice and Laura Bush. The author delves behind the headlines to tell the compelling story of how the daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants living in the South Bronx became one of the greatest legal minds in the country. With insight and thoughtful analysis, she explores the tenacity that makes Sotomayor a sharp, fearless judge; the sense of compassion that drives her to seek justice for the underprivileged; and her strong community ties, which never let her forget where she came from. Drawing on candid interviews with figures from Sotomayor's personal and professional life as well as speeches, interviews with Sotomayor, and published papers, the author paints a revealing portrait of the woman who would come to meet President Obama's rigorous criteria for a Supreme Court justice and whose appointment would make history.

Like Abigail Adams, Malvina Shanklin Harlan witnessed--and gently influenced--national history from the unique perspective of a political leader's wife. Her husband, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911), played a central role in some of the most significant civil rights decisions of his era, including his lone dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson, the infamous case that endorsed separate but equal segregation. And for fifty-seven years he was married to a woman who was busy making a mental record of their eventful lives. After Justice Harlan's death in 1911, Malvina wrote Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911, as a testament to her husband's accomplishments and to her own. The memoir begins with Malvina, the daughter of passionate abolitionists, becoming the teenage bride of John Marshall Harlan, whose family owned more than a dozen slaves. Malvina depicts her life in antebellum Kentucky, and her courageous defense of the Harlan homestead during the Civil War. She writes of her husband's ascent in legal circles and his eventual appointment to the Supreme Court in 1877, where he was the author of opinions that continued to influence American race relations deep into the twentieth century. Yet Some Memories is more than a wife's account of a famous and powerful man. It chronicles the remarkable evolution of a young woman from Indiana who became a keen observer of both her family's life and that of her nation. When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg began researching the history of the women associated with the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress sent her Malvina Harlan's unpublished manuscript. Recalling Abigail Adams's order to "remember the ladies," Justice Ginsburg has guided its long journey from forgotten document to published book. Some Memories of a Long Life includes a Foreword by Justice Ginsburg, as well as an Afterword by historian Linda Przybyszewski and an Epilogue of the Harlan legacy by Amelia Newcomb. According to Library Journal, "This is the sort of book you call a publishing event." From the Hardcover edition.

An account of the intertwined lives of the first two women to be appointed to the Supreme Court examines their respective religious and political beliefs while sharing insights into how they have influenced interpretations of the Constitution to promote equal rights for women