Women’s Rights
Afghan Women Are Devastated by Suspension of Aid Under New Taliban Law
For years before the Taliban seized power and the economy collapsed, Jamila and her four children had clung to the edge of survival. After her husband died trying to cross the Iranian border, she and her children moved to a camp for displaced people in northwestern Afghanistan and relied on aid organizations. One group brought […]
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India’s Top Court Says ‘Family’ Includes Same-Sex Couples and Others
NEW DELHI — India’s Supreme Court has ruled that family benefits under the law must be extended to blended families, same-sex couples and other households the court considers “atypical,” widening its definition of family. It is the latest in a series of court decisions to challenge the country’s conservative mores, and it could have major […]
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States With Abortion Bans Risk Losing Their Economic Edge
As a group of conservative states enacted severe abortion restrictions last year, Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois sent letters to a handful of corporate executives with close ties to Texas. Mr. Pritzker, a Democrat, urged executives to rethink basing their companies in “a state that strips its residents of their dignity.” Most workers, he wrote, […]
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China Offers Women Perks for Having Babies, if They’re Married
When Chan Zhang heard about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, she was baffled that Americans were still arguing over abortion rights. “Here, overall, the society does not encourage abortion,” said Ms. Zhang, a 37-year-old junior faculty member at a prestigious university on China’s east coast, “but I feel like women […]
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The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count
Perhaps it makes sense that women — those supposedly compliant and agreeable, self-sacrificing and everything-nice creatures — were the ones to finally bring our polarized country together. Because the far right and the far left have found the one thing they can agree on: Women don’t count. The right’s position here is the better known, […]
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When an Abortion Story Is Told as a Caper, Thriller or Farce
In 1969, when abortion was illegal in Illinois, an underground operation arose in Chicago. Officially called the Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation, it became known as the Jane network, because women seeking abortions were told to call a number and “ask for Jane.” As I watched “The Janes,” an HBO documentary about the service, […]
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The Radical Reign of Clarence Thomas
WASHINGTON — “What is happening here?” a distraught Nancy Pelosi said on Friday. It’s a good question and I can answer it, because I was there at the start of the corrosive chain of events that led to women losing control of their own bodies. I saw how America went from a beacon of modernity […]
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The Day the Supreme Court Crashed the Title IX Party
But Friday hummed with sadness. By taking an ax to Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that nearly 50 years ago guaranteed women the right to abortion, the Supreme Court demolished a signal of freedom in the battle for gender equality — freedom that helped female athletes achieve glory that many now take for granted. […]
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Attack on Women in China Stirs Outrage, and Competing Narratives
BEIJING — The man walked into a barbecue restaurant in northern China and approached a table of three women. He put his hand on the back of one, who shook him off. In response, he slapped her — then, with several other men, savagely beat her and the other women, hitting them with chairs, kicking […]
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