Women, Gender, and Sex History & Rights

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The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a lower court ruling allowing a transgender student to use a bathroom corresponding to his gender identity.

The U.S. Department of State currently allows people to select a binary gender marker (M or F) for their U.S. passports, “ even if the gender [they] select does not match the gender on [their| supporting documentation such as a birth certificate, previous passport, or state ID. ” In addition, p

Sex work was not a prominent public issue in the USA a generation ago. Law and law enforcement were fairly settled. Over the past two decades, however, a robust campaign has sought to intensify the stigmatization and criminalization of the participants involved in all types of sex work, which are now conflated with human trafficking. These efforts have been remarkably successful in reshaping government policy and legal norms and in enhancing penalties for existing offenses. The article analyzes these developments within the framework of a modernized version of moral crusade theory that includes both instrumental and expressive arguments against sex work.

Fighting for the human rights of people in the sex trades

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Welcome to the new and improved SWOP-USA website! We're going through many changes as an organization and a digital overhaul is part of that. You'll find an entirely new resource section, our Chapter Hub site has moved here, and we'll also

Through artwork and performances, this pop-up exhibit asks visitors to listen to the voices of sex workers, and reflect on how society defines work.

Human Rights Watch has conducted research on sex work around the world, including in Cambodia, China, Tanzania, the United States, and most recently, South Africa. The research, including extensive consultations with sex workers and organizations that work on the issue, has shaped the Human Rights Watch policy on sex work: Human Rights Watch supports the full decriminalization of consensual adult sex work.

The Young Women’s Empowerment Project (YWEP) is a member based social justice organizing project that is led by and for young people of color who have current or former experience in the sex trade …

Covid-19 presents a new problem for sex workers. In-person sex work is intimate by its very nature, and workers are at heightened risk of contracting the virus if they keep working. But without work, as strip clubs close and clients dwindle, sex workers struggle to survive.

Sex workers all over the world face a constant risk of abuse. This is not news. Nor is it news that they are an extremely marginalized group of people, frequently forced to live outside the law. But when word got out that Amnesty International had initiated a consultation to develop a policy to protect the human rights of sex workers, it was like lighting a touch paper. Journalists and celebrities climbed on the band wagon. Ever-more sensational headlines condemned Amnesty International for advocating for “prostitution as a human right”.

These leaders had to break both gender and racial barriers as they made history.

" For most of recorded history, men have held nearly all of the most powerful leadership positions. Today, although women occupy an increasing percentage of leadership positions, in America they hold less than a fifth of positions in both the public and private sectors. The United States ranks 78th in the world for women's representation in political office. In politics, although women constitute a majority of the electorate, they account for only 18 percent of Congress, 10 percent of governors, and 12 percent of mayors of the nation's 100 largest cities. In academia, women account for a majority of college graduates, but only about a quarter of full professors and university presidents. In law, women are almost half of law school graduates, but only 17 percent of the equity partners of major firms, and 22 percent of Fortune 500 general counsels. In business, women constitute a third of MBA graduates, but only 5 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs. In Women and Leadership, the eminent legal scholar Deborah L. Rhode focuses on women's underrepresentation in leadership roles and asks why it persists and what we can do about it. Although organizations generally stand to gain from increasing gender equity in leadership, women's underrepresentation is persistent and pervasive. Rhode explores the reasons, including women's family roles, unconscious gender bias, and exclusion from professional development networks. She stresses that we cannot address the problem at the individual level; instead, she argues that we need broad-based strategies that address the deep-seated structural and cultural conditions facing women. She surveys a range of professions-politics, management, law, and academia-and draws from a survey of prominent women to develop solutions that can successfully chip away at the imbalance. These include developing robust women-to-women networks, enacting laws and policies that address work/life imbalances, and training programs that start at an earlier age. Rhode's clear exploration of the leadership gap and her compelling policy prescriptions will make this an essential book for anyone interested in leveling the playing field for women leaders in America. "--;"Women and Leadership explores the causes and consequences of the underrepresentation of women in America's leadership roles. Drawing on comprehensive research and a survey of prominent women leaders, the book describes the reasons for gender inequity in leadership and identifies compelling solutions. It is essential reading for anyone interested in leveling the playing field for women"--

"Comprised of historical texts spanning two centuries with commentary on each period by the editor, this book covers the major issues and figures involved in the women's suffrage movement with a special focus on diversity, incorporating race, class, and gender. The writings of such figures as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony are featured alongside accounts of Native American women and African American suffragists such as Sarah Mapps Douglas and Harriet Purvis"--

This concise and accessible book explores the history of gender in England between 1500 and 1700. Amidst the political and religious disruptions of the Reformation and the Civil War, sexual difference and gender were matters of public debate and private contention.Laura Gowing provides unique insight into gender relations in a time of flux, through sources ranging from the women who tried to vote in Ipswich in 1640, to the dreams of Archbishop Laud and a grandmother describing the first time her grandson wore breeches. Examining gender relations in the contexts of the body, the house, the neighbourhood and the political world, this comprehensive study analyses the tides of change and the power of custom in a pre-modern world.This book offers:Previously unpublished documents by women and men from all levels of society, ranging from private letters to court cases A critical examination of a new field, reflecting original research and the most recent scholarship In-depth analysis of historical evidence, allowing the reader to reconstruct the hidden histories of womenAlso including a chronology, who's who of key figures, guide to further reading and a full-colour plate section, Gender Relations in Early Modern England is ideal for students and interested readers at all levels, providing a diverse range of primary sources and the tools to unlock them.

"Nashville, August 1920. Thirty-five states have ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, twelve have rejected or refused to vote, and one last state is needed. It all comes down to Tennessee, the moment of truth for the suffragists, after a seven-decade crusade. The opposing forces include politicians with careers at stake, liquor companies, railroad magnates, and a lot of racists who don't want black women voting. And then there are the "Antis"--Women who oppose their own enfranchisement, fearing suffrage will bring about the moral collapse of the nation. They all converge in a boiling hot summer for a vicious face-off replete with dirty tricks, betrayals and bribes, bigotry, Jack Daniel's, and the Bible. Following a handful of remarkable women who led their respective forces into battle, along with appearances by Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Frederick Douglass, and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Woman's Hour is an inspiring story of activists winning their own freedom in one of the last campaigns forged in the shadow of the Civil War, and the beginning of the great twentieth-century battles for civil rights"--

For too long the history of how American women won the right to vote has been told as the visionary adventures of a few iconic leaders, all white and native-born, who spearheaded a national movement. In this essential reconsideration, Susan Ware uncovers a much broader and more diverse history waiting to be told. Why They Marched is the inspiring story of the dedicated women--and occasionally men--who carried the banner in communities across the nation, out of the spotlight, protesting, petitioning, and demonstrating for the right to become full citizens.--

Accountability protects public health and safety, facilitates law enforcement, and enhances national security, but it is much more than a bureaucratic concern for corporations, public administrators, and the criminal justice system. In Why Privacy Isn't Everything, Anita L. Allen provides a highly original treatment of neglected issues affecting the intimacies of everyday life, and freshly examines how a preeminent liberal society accommodates the competing demands of vital privacy and vital accountability for personal matters. Thus, 'None of your business ' is at times the wrong thing to say, as much of what appears to be self-regarding conduct has implications for others that should have some bearing on how a person chooses to act. The book addresses such questions as, What does it mean to be accountable for conduct? For what personal matters am I accountable, and to whom? Allen concludes that the sticky webs of accountability that encase ordinary life are flexible enough to accommodate egalitarian moral, legal and social practices that are highly consistent with contemporary feminist reconstructions of liberalism.

Tells how American women got from there to here, in politics, fashion, economics, sex, families and work in the past five decades.

"Women's March co-organizer Linda Sarsour shares how growing up Palestinian Muslim American, feminist, and empowered moved her to become a globally recognized and celebrated activist on behalf of marginalized communities across the country"--;As a young Muslim American woman unapologetic in her faith and her activism, Sarsour would discover her innate sense of justice in the aftermath of 9/11. Her experiences as a daughter of Palestinian immigrants provide a moving portrayal of what it means to find one's voice and use it for the good of others. Through decades of fighting for racial, economic, gender, and social justice she became one of the most recognized activists in the nation. Throughout, Sarsour inspires readers to take action as she reaffirms that we are not here to be bystanders. -- adapted from jacket

Mary Wollstonecraft's visionary treatise, originally published in 1792, was the first book to present women's rights as an issue of universal human rights. Ideal for coursework and classroom study, this comprehensive edition of Wollstonecraft's groundbreaking feminist argument includes illuminating essays by leading scholars that highlight the author's significant contributions to modern political philosophy, making a powerful case for her as one of the most substantive political thinkers of the Enlightenment era. No other scholarly work to date has examined as closely both the ideological moorings and the enduring legacy of Wollstonecraft's courageous discourse.

"According to conventional wisdom, American women's campaign for the vote began with the Seneca Falls convention of 1848 and ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. The movement was led by storied figures such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. But this women's movement was an overwhelmingly white one, and it secured the constitutional right to vote for white women, not for all women. In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha Jones offers a sweeping history of African American women's political lives in America, recounting how they fought for, won, and used the right to the ballot and how they fought against both racism and sexism. From 1830s Boston to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and beyond to Shirley Chisholm, Stacey Abrams, and Kamala Harris, Jones excavates the lives and work of Black women who, although in many cases suffragists, were never single-issue activists. She recounts the lives of Maria Stewart, the first American woman to speak about politics before a mixed audience of men and women; African Methodist Episcopal preacher Jarena Lee; Reconstruction-era advocate for female suffrage Frances Ellen Watkins Harper; Boston abolitionist, religious leader, and women's club organizer Eliza Ann Gardner; and other hidden figures who were pioneers for both gender and racial equality. Revealing the ways Black women remained independent in their ideas and their organization, Jones shows how Black women were again and again the American vanguard of women's rights, setting the pace in the quest for justice and collective liberation. In the twenty-first century, Black women's power at the polls and in politics is evident. Vanguard reveals that this power is not at all new, but is instead the culmination of two centuries of dramatic struggle"--

"The international sensation, "a compelling rhapsody of the female essence" (Chicago Tribune), relaunched with new material for its 20th anniversary. This expanded edition of the bestseller that changed the way women think about their bodies features a diverse set of new monologues in addition to those previously included, as well as a new introduction by a leader in feminist thought and a new afterword about the global influence of The Vagina Monologues. A celebration of female sexuality in all its complexity and mystery, The Vagina Monologues was adapted from the award-winning one-woman show that has rocked audiences around the world. This groundbreaking book gives voice to a chorus of lusty, outrageous, poignant, and thoroughly human stories, guaranteeing that no one who reads it will ever look at a woman's body, or think of sex, in quite the same way again. Features seven new monologues by Eve Ensler"--

Updated and expanded edition of the foundational text of women of color feminism.

Explores how the thoughts of early American feminists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage were influenced by the women of the Iroquois tribes in upstate New York.

The leader of contemporary feminist theory discusses such issues as racism, self-acceptance, and mother- and woman-hood.

Women now receive more college degrees than men, and enter the workforce with better job opportunities than ever before. Indeed, the wage gap between men and women has never been smaller. So why does the typical woman have only 36 cents for every dollar of wealth owned by the typical man? How is it that never-married women working full-time have only 16% as much wealth as similarly situated men? And why do single mothers have only 8% of the wealth of single fathers? The first book to focus on the differences in wealth between women and men, this is an accessible examination of why women struggle to accumulate assets, who has what, and why it matters. The book draws on the most comprehensive national data on wealth and on in-depth interviews to show how differences in earnings, in saving and investing, and, most important, the demands of care-giving all contribute to the gender-wealth gap. It argues that the current focus on equal pay and family-friendly workplace policies, although important, will not ultimately change or eliminate wealth inequalities. What the book calls the wealth escalator comprised of fringe benefits, the tax code, and government benefits and the debt anchor must be the targets of policies aimed at strengthening women's financial resources. The book proposes a number of practical suggestions to address the unequal burdens and consequences of care-giving, so that women who work just as hard as men will not be left standing in financial quicksand.

A sensation upon its publication in 1970, Sexual Politics documents the subjugation of women in great literature and art. Kate Millett's analysis targets four revered authors? D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, and Jean Genet?and builds a damning profile of literature's patriarchal myths and their extension into psychology, philosophy, and politics. Her eloquence and popular examples taught a generation to recognize inequities masquerading as nature and proved the value of feminist critique in all facets of life. This new edition features the scholar Catharine A. MacKinnon and the New Yorker correspondent Rebecca Mead on the importance of Millett's work to challenging the complacency that sidelines feminism.