The grief and anger are overwhelming this week, all across the country. In the midst of a raging pandemic, people are risking arrest and violence to protest an outrageous racist killing by police officers. White supremacists are using this as an opportunity to run wild, and have been greatly encouraged and abetted by an administration that’s progressed from racist dogwhistles to bullhorns. All of this could have been handled so differently...but her emails.
As always, this diary is a group effort. Thanks to mettle fatigue, elenacarlena, ramara, SandraLLAP, Angmar, and noweasels for links and discussion.
Reproductive Rights and Health:
Inside the Plan to End Legal Abortion.
Diminished, dismissed, misdiagnosed: When doctors don't trust women.
Abortion Clinic Protests Are Still Happening in the Pandemic: ‘They Accost Patients Face to Face’.
US states ‘manipulating’ COVID-19 pandemic to restrict abortion access, rights experts charge.
Medical experts and reproductive rights advocates sued federal agencies (May 27), asking to allow people to obtain abortion pills remotely during the pandemic. The suit accuses the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of endangering public safety by disallowing doctors from distributing abortion pills through telemedicine during the pandemic.
In El Salvador, a miscarriage can lead to getting jailed for abortion.
While men are having worse health outcomes from COVID-19, women are suffering the secondary effects of the pandemic: domestic violence, economic disaster, and more.
As of May 28 the CDC reported 294 healthcare workers are known to have died from Covid-19 after fighting it on the frontlines. The National Nurses Union says is a consequence of PPE shortages. As of May 28 60,000 health care workers are known to be infected.
Violence and Harassment:
In the wake of mass outcry and protest over George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis, the person who brought his story to light is already experiencing harassment. Darnella Frazier, the 17-year-old who took the video of George Floyd being suffocated and killed by police on Monday, now says that she's facing a series of concerning messages online.
Incidents of landlords coercing Sex for the Rent are on the rise during the coronavirus crisis.
An Afghan man cut off his wife's nose with a kitchen knife after she asked for a divorce The 24-year-old victim, mother of a seven-year-old boy, was trying leave the abusive marriage.
Last year, NJ judge John F. Russo Jr. was suspended for asking a sexual assault survivor if she “closed her legs.” He’s finally been removed for failing to close his mouth.
A horrifying story from Iran - father reportedly used a farming sickle to behead his 14-year-old daughter as she slept, a honor killing for her involvement with a 34-year-old-man.
An example of how feminism is good for men as well as women: Feminists have spent years fighting for sexual harassment to be taken seriously. CBS and Disney are now being sued over the behavior of George St. Johns, cinematographer on the hit show Criminal Minds, alleging a culture of “harassment, discrimination and retaliation.” The victims in this case were men. Feminism gave them the tools to take action.
Intersectionality:
Interview with Cheryl-Contee-co-founder-of-inclusive-tech-initiative-YesWeCode.
In Mexico, in the effort to prevent spread of covid19, women's justice non-profit Equis along with the Women United for Freedom collective of female former prisoners are pressuring states' legislatures to join the new federal amnesty law for release of nonviolent female offenders including women jailed on abortion charges and Indigenous women who never got interpreters for their cases.
Michelle Simpson Tuegel is the lawyer seeking justice for undocumented victims of sexual assault.
Workplace and Economic Issues:
The “women’s work” of the pandemic: still not equally valued or compensated.
The coming setbacks for women in the workplace, as businesses reopen but schools don’t.
As many are ineligible for relief funding, Sex Workers Outreach Project is raising money online and and distributing it to sex workers in need.
Free the Scrubs Hostile-workplace hospital where nurses have filed OSHA & patient safety complaints, has now fined, reprimanded and fired nurses for using hospital-issue onsite-laundered locker room scrubs reserved for doctors and physician assistants, which were in good spare supply due to suspension of elective surgeries. The nurses didn't want to risk bringing covid19 home to their families.
Media:
What’s Her Name podcast: Forgotten women in literature.
VSBRO, a new social media app “by and for bros,” already has a misogyny problem. Gee, who could’ve predicted?
Action Items:
Petition: Justice for Breonna Taylor, an EMT shot by cops who broke into the wrong apartment.