In Missouri, you can be fired for being Gay but not for owning a Gun

Free at Last, Free to Blast
The Daily Show with John Stewart
Aasif Mandvi talks to Missouri State Representative Wanda Brown about her Second Amendment crusade to release gun owners from the shackles of persecution.

BY AMBER MAC for Fast Company

While chatting with a business colleague yesterday, she made a statement that I hear all too often from my female friends. As an independent contractor, her client asked her to do a significant amount of additional work that was not part of their original deal. Instead of asking for more compensation, she said she would probably just put in the extra hours, because she felt uncomfortable launching into the money conversation. In fact, she even apologized to me about how she hesitated with her client and was worried there would be repercussions.

Just recently, I finished the New York Times best seller, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World by Lisa Bloom, an insightful read about how women are leading the charge in many areas, such as outperforming men for the first time ever in employment in urban areas, but still spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on the “wrong” things. While the book centers on our obsession with pop culture and beauty, what I took away from it was the need for women to start saying “no” more and to stop apologizing for doing so.

“Women need to stop apologizing for routine workplace events,” Bloom shared with me in an email. “Ladies, every time the word ‘sorry’ is about to fly out of your mouth, think: Have I actually done something wrong? Or has this just become a verbal tic?”

Here are three things that women often apologize for and what we can do to stop, today.
1. Our financial expectations. Ever since women entered the workforce en masse, there have been reports revealing that we make less on average than our male counterparts. Although this gap is lessening, there is still much progress to be made. Yes, talking about money can be an uncomfortable endeavor. However, if you’re armed with good ammunition to back up your demand, you’ll feel more confident and ready to engage in that dialogue. In other words, be clear what you want, and don’t leave until you get it (well, within reason). Moreover, when in contract negotiations for any job or project, engage an advisor so that you have a second set of eyes on the details and can work out what’s acceptable and what’s not with someone well-versed in the small print.
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2. Our physical appearance. Earlier this week I did a little tally of how long it took me to prepare for one of my other jobs, working as a national TV host on a business news network. The night before our shoot, I spent two hours with my clothing sponsor picking out my wardrobe for upcoming shoots. The next morning I spent two hours getting my hair done, two hours getting my nails done, and 30 minutes in makeup just before the show. Almost a full day, and I haven’t even started my job, compared with my co-host, who literally grabbed a clean shirt and was ready to go (yes, he’s male).

While I understand that the demands of the broadcast business insofar as appearance are significant, that same pressure does exist in the average workplace and requires added time for women (time most of us don’t have). I have heard women apologize countless times if they’re not looking runway-ready at work, due to everything from pulling all-nighters to get a job done or battling sleep deprivation due to taking care of a sick child. Sure, it’s important to look professional in the workplace, but it’s time to lessen the pressure we put on ourselves to look perfect. Oh, and while I’m on this subject, let’s try to band together a little more to support our female colleagues who might not always be in season with the latest fashion or who are not the perfect size 6 (or is it 4 now?). Instead, let’s focus on what’s important–what we achieve.

3. Our professional accomplishments. “Women are trained to be sensitive to everyone’s feelings, not to be selfish, and not to brag,” Bloom explains to me when I ask about this culture of saying sorry. “These are good traits to have. Be we also need to understand that sometimes it’s not appropriate to apologize–like when we haven’t done anything wrong.”

When I was starting my career as a television journalist in my 20s, I’ll never forget an experience I had with my male boss. I rushed into his office to share with him that I just got asked to be a national technology expert on a popular news program. He looked up at me and said, “Fantastic, it’s just a matter of time before you’ll be on the cover of Playboy!” I kid you not. Instead of standing up for myself, I shrunk into myself and tried to battle his sarcasm with a muted apology about how this was a big deal because I’m from a small town, worked really hard, and such an offer meant a lot to me. Ugh, if only I could turn back time and take Bloom’s advice, “In the workplace we need to take responsibility for our mistakes, sure, but also for our successes,” she says. “Many women can do the former but not the latter.”

Measure of American Study on Womens Well-Being –
Women’s Well-Being: Ranking America’s Top 25 Metro Areas explores where women are doing best, ranking the twenty-five most populous U.S. metropolitan areas by their score on the American Human Development Index.

Related article by Emma Gray in the Huffington Post:

Where you live may determine a whole lot more than the view you wake up to. A new report released by Measure Of America indicates that a woman’s well-being is inextricably linked to where she resides.

The report focuses on the 25 most populated metropolitan areas in the United States and ranks each city based on the American Human Development Index (AHDI). This measure examines information for each region on women’s educational attainment, life expectancy and median earnings, converting this data into a score out of 10. Although women in the majority of these metropolitan areas are faring as well or better than average — the average American woman’s score on the AHDI is a five — six regions ranked below this national standard. (Scroll down to see the full rankings.)

The nation’s capital, which also came out on top for women’s pay in a survey released for Equal Pay Day on April 17th, topped the list. In D.C. women make an average of $16,000 more each year than women in the lowest-ranked urban area, Riverside-San Bernadino. There, according to the report, 1 in 5 women haven’t completed high school, and female workers earn an average of $22,300 — the same as the national average for both men and women in 1970, adjusted for inflation. When it comes to life expectancy, San Francisco wins. Women in the Bay area live to 84 and ½, compared the the national average of 81.3.

Measure of America also looked at how women’s marital status, race and ethnicity factored into overall well-being. One noteworthy finding was that a higher percentage of single women tended to mean higher overall earnings for women in a given metropolitan area. The report also found that African-American women have the shortest life expectancy and faced some specific health challenges, including higher rates of HIV infection. Asian and Latina women tend to outlive Caucasian and African-American women, even though Latina women fall behind when it comes to educational attainment.

Where does your hometown fall on this list?

More on Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/30/best-cities-for-women-metropolitan-areas-well-being-measure-of-america_n_1465731.html?1335822622&icid=maing-grid10%7Clegacy%7Cdl11%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D156735

In a way, the controversies surrounding Ashley Judd’s puffy face has done immense good. Not only have our media exposed themselves as sexist scavengers that perpetuate fascist beauty standards in evaluating women’s worth in our society, but this so-called news update has allowed for an emergence of a much needed dialogue on a much undermined feminist issue. And who better than Ashley Judd herself to confront the pernicious impacts of yellow journalism that comprise mass media selling points today?

Judd raises several critical questions that inform such innocent curiosities of bystanders on puffy faces. Such insulated have we become within ourselves against attacks on our collective human intelligence that we have ended up evaluating each other based on how we measure up against a strict yardstick of beauty that generates advertising money. Such depraved are we today as never before in terms of recognizing our unique selves that we crave to adulate a physical form that requires validation from outside before it can appeal to our inner selves.

Through her powerful, evocative and emancipatory writing in true feministic traditions, Ashley Judd also reminds us of our vulnerabilities of constantly being judged while we accept the assaults silently. If it requires courage, conviction and a public platform for a celebrity of her stature to register a protest, how ridiculously difficult it must be for young children and teenagers today who are constantly subjected to reminders of their less than ideal body image?

Judd compels us to interrogate our shoddy privileges when we denigrate the less ideal bodies and how it becomes more pathetic as women are asked to “better watch out” in fear of the philandering husband. She forces us to reexamine traditional components of patriarchal setups that conveniently blame the men exclusively and she reminds how grim the situation really is today when most women are falling for the sexist spells. That, she was first criticized by women for her looks is no mere coincidence. In fact, like gullible and willful agents of patriarchy – a system mirrored after dominant male perspectives – women unquestioningly look upto and emulate the male priorities and adapt to them as their own. Especially in the entertainment industry, where the male producers amass the wealth, it is the female performers that feel emancipated through approved looks. Ashley Judd minces no words, makes her personal political, and reflects upon her career of approvals that has received significant jolts along the way whenever she has failed to satisfy the conditions fulfilling beauty criterion.

She writes, “this abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women…..In fact, it’s about boys and men, too, who are equally objectified and ridiculed, according to heteronormative definitions of masculinity that deny the full and dynamic range of their personhood.”

Entire article can be found on The Daily Beast.

Travis Waldron of Think Progress comments on Gov. Scott Walker’s latest decision that will jeopardize the interests of wage discrimination victims.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) quietly repealed his state’s equal pay law last week, a decision that will make it harder for victims of wage discrimination to sue for lost earnings and back wages. The law was enacted primarily to address the massive pay gap that exists between male and female workers, which is even bigger in Wisconsin than in other states.

Repealing the law was a no-brainer for state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R), who led the effort because of his belief that pay discrimination is a myth driven by liberal women’s groups. Ignoring multiple studies showing that the pay gap exists, Grothman blamed females for prioritizing childrearing and homemaking instead of money, saying, “Money is more important for men,” The Daily Beast reports:

Whatever gaps exist, he insists, stem from women’s decision to prioritize childrearing over their careers. “Take a hypothetical husband and wife who are both lawyers,” he says. “But the husband is working 50 or 60 hours a week, going all out, making 200 grand a year. The woman takes time off, raises kids, is not go go go. Now they’re 50 years old. The husband is making 200 grand a year, the woman is making 40 grand a year. It wasn’t discrimination. There was a different sense of urgency in each person.” [...]
Grothman doesn’t accept these studies. When I ran the numbers by him, he replied, “The American Association of University Women is a pretty liberal group.” Nor, he argued, does its conclusion take into account other factors, like “goals in life. You could argue that money is more important for men. I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious. To attribute everything to a so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.”

Among Grothman’s inaccuracies is the idea that only males “expect to be a breadwinner someday.” In two-thirds of American families, women are either primary or co-breadwinners, and yet they still earn less than their male counterparts in all 50 states.

In 2011, the Wisconsin GOP carried out an extensive war on workers that led to recall efforts for state representatives, senators, and Walker himself. In 2012, Grothman and his colleagues have expanded that war to one on women, meaning a group of workers that was already struggling to keep pace with their male counterparts is only going to fall further behind.

A new report from the National Women’s Law Center reveals that health insurance companies are charging women an extra billion dollars annually. Why? Straight up gender discrimination, of course. The report finds a widespread practice of for-profit health insurers charging women more than men for the identical coverage. and states are doing very little to stop the thievery. In the states that don’t ban health insurance gender discrimination, 92% of the best-selling plans charge women more than men. President Obama’s Affordable Care Act would ban this practice nationally – saving women a billion dollars a year. Too bad for women that Republicans are working as hard as they can to repeal the law, commonly called Obamacare. Is the war against women affecting you yet?

92% of best-selling insurance plans gender rate
- By Common Dreams staff
According to a report from the non-profit National Women’s Law Center, the practice of health insurance companies charging women more than men for the same coverage is rampant, and costs women one billion dollars a year.
The report, Turning to Fairness: Insurance discrimination against women today and the Affordable Care Act (pdf), states that although insurance companies are aware of this discrimination, they have not taken steps to eliminate the widespread practice.
Some states have banned the practice, the group reports, but it won’t end nationally until the full enactment of the Affordable Care Act in 2014.
From the report:
Gender rating, the practice of charging women different premiums than men, results in significantly higher rates charged to women throughout the country. In states that have not banned the practice, the vast majority, 92%, of best-selling plans gender rate, for example, charging 40-year-old women more than 40-year-old men for coverage. Only 3% of these plans cover maternity services.? 
Based on an average of currently advertised premiums and the most recent data on the number of women in the individual health insurance market, the practice of gender rating costs women approximately $1 billion a year.? 
Even with maternity coverage excluded, nearly a third of plans examined charge 25- and 40-year-old women at least 30% more than men for the same coverage and in some cases, the difference is far greater. For example, one company charged 25-year-old women 85% more than men for the same coverage, again excluding maternity coverage altogether. These differences result in women paying significantly more for health insurance every year than their male counterparts. For example, one plan in South Dakota charges a 40-year-old woman $1252.80 more a year than a 40-year-old man for the same coverage.? 
The Affordable Care Act applies nationally and eliminates gender rating in the individual market, requires all plans on the individual market to provide maternity coverage, and prohibits sex discrimination in health plans from insurance companies that receive federal funds or are conducted by the federal government.

Jack Tuckner is the featured expert in this incisive Lawyers.com analysis of pregnancy discrimination at the workplace.

Written by Ada Kulesza for Lawyers.com

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has found a sharp increase in pregnancy discrimination complaints over the past 10 years. Women complained of violations that ranged from getting fired during pregnancy or immediately after, to being assigned lower-paying positions because of their condition.
• In Pennsylvania, a chiropractor notified her employer when she found out she was pregnant. She was hospitalized for nearly two weeks with severe morning sickness that nearly led to dehydration. The company fired the mother-to-be and terminated her health care within days of her notice, and hired a replacement. She’s suing under the EEOC for an undisclosed amount, and the company counter-sued her for $50,000, claiming that she left her job and neglected to fulfill her contract obligations. 
• In another case, a judge ordered a Wisconsin medical staffing company to pay $148,000 to a woman, Roxy Leger, who was fired when she took maternity leave following the birth of her son. The settlement resulted from a default judgment, when the company failed to retain an attorney after a court order. According to the EEOC, the company owner “referred to Leger’s pregnancy as a joke; insisted that maternity leave should last no more than a couple of days; suggested that Leger’s pre-natal appointments were a ruse for additional time off or for money; and gave Leger an offensive diagram of a machine which would allow Leger to return from her maternity leave sooner … HCS terminated Leger’s employment and health insurance while she was still in the hospital recovering from a Cesarean section … Leger learned of her termination days later by certified mail,” reports the human resources company Workforce.
• A part-time UPS employee needed to avoid lifting more than 20 pounds during her pregnancy. “Given that UPS had a policy of giving light duty to various other employees who were physically unable to do their usual job,” she assumed the company would accommodate her temporary condition, writes Emily Martin, Vice President of the Women’s Law Center. Instead, they forced her to take unpaid maternity leave, and she lost her medical coverage “months prior to the birth of her child.” She wound up losing her pregnancy discrimination case.
 
Labor Pains

“I’m a businessman. I understand what it’s like to have a pain in the butt employee,” says Jack Tuckner, an attorney specializing in women’s rights and father of two daughters. “Pick a master, you can’t pick two. You have a corporate master. It’s so competitive, with ‘unemployed need not apply’ and jobs leaving the country. The fact is, you’re pregnant, and you’re going to be compromised.”
Tuckner says sex, pregnancy and disability constitute the “Holy Trinity” of discrimination. And he says where sexual harassment and gender bias have leveled off in recent years, pregnancy discrimination is on the rise. Especially because employers deliberately deceive women about their rights to maternity leave.
“You have an employee who’s out of the game for three months, and they aren’t necessarily looking at you as a human being who’s looking for compassion – you’re at home watching HBO!”
He says lying has become more brazen to cheat women out of their lawful rights, which are paltry compared to other developed countries where women get paid maternity leave, such as Germany and the Netherlands. Even a corporation that sells products to women, with mostly female employees, lies to their employees, using the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to get them to resign, so they cannot demand maternity leave or accommodation. “Those calls don’t stop coming in,” the attorney says. It’s especially easy to dupe lower-income women who have less education – women who are more likely to be single mothers, who need the employment more desperately.
If they fire the pregnant woman, it would constitute a violation of the FMLA, so they’ll coax a resignation instead. “Pregnancy is a disability, legally. If you have medical challenges, it’s deserving of a reasonable accommodation,” Tuckner says. A woman on maternity leave will be “out of the game,” and companies see her “as damaged goods.”
The attorney says a few questions will tell a woman if she might have a pregnancy discrimination case. Tuckner says, “You said, ‘Hello employer, I’m pregnant, I need to know what my status is.’ Now, the terms and conditions of my employment with this company, have they changed? Have they been degraded? Have they been altered as a result of my status? After you notified them, or they noticed your pregnancy. If something about my pregnancy is causing a change in my work status that I feel uncomfortable about, it’s the first sign of (discrimination).”
Women can file a complaint with the EEOC, and can seek a consultation with a good women’s rights lawyer. You can find more information and steps you can take to protect yourself here.

Little is known about the Abortion Provider Appreciation Day. March 10 is observed to celebrate abortion providers because it is essential to recognize that Crisis Pregnancy Centers are fake “clinics” driven by anti-abortion agenda. They often have no clinical staff, spread lies, guilt-trip women and enormously delay and complicate women’s ability to access abortion.

New York City today witnessed a protest and march against sites of women’s oppression. The march started from the St. Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue because the Catholic Church’s approach to women, gender, science and sexuality is a Dark Ages disaster! The Pope has condemned condoms (causing millions of HIV/AIDS deaths). The Church condemns homosexuality and insists that “divorce is a sin” (contributing to women staying in abusive marriages). Recently, Catholic Bishops urged “non-compliance with new regulations requiring health insurance to cover birth control!

Registering the protest at St. Patrick's Cathedral

The March to Times Square was aimed at protesting the objectification of women. Women’s near naked and rail-thin bodies are used to sell everything from clothes to cars to “American culture” to the entire world. Protesters also targeted the US Military Recruiting Center because US military’s quasi-official reliance on brothels as a “perk” to make soldiers and the role of military forces in trafficking women and girls and the epidemic of rape, harassment and violence against female soldiers are core issues that needs addressing.

International Women’s Day celebrations in New York also witnessed a march to and protest strip clubs. American men spend an estimated $15 billion a year on strip clubs, as compared to $4 billion on baseball. Strip clubs have always objectified and degraded women. But as women have entered – and fought for increasing respect in – the public sphere, strip clubs have become an enclave for sexism and male entitlement towards women’s bodies. Further, strip clubs prey upon the desperation, abuse and addiction of many women, including trafficked women.

As one of the organizers, Sunsara Taylor from Stop Patriarchy points out, “Our protest is not symbolic. It is a beginning. It is a declaration. From now, until we win the full liberation of women, this war on women will be resisted with conscience, anger, imagination, massive mobilization, and relentless determination to turn the tide.”

Media Coordinator for this report:
Saswat Pattanayak – spattanayak@womensrightsny.com

Kathryn Pereda was fired because her employer said she did not qualify for FMLA leave. She sued and the court found on her behalf.

Appellate judges noted that neither they nor apparently any other circuit court had considered this issue. They had dodged the question in a ruling involving an employee who wanted leave before she was eligible. But believing that FMLA actually requires employees to give their employers as much notice as possible of their impending need for leave, they ruled for Perry on her interference claim and sent the retaliation claim back to the district court for reconsideration.

The intent of the law was to set up protection for pregnant women though employers continue to use it to instead fire them. Or worse, tell them they have to quit further aggravating their situation.

Brief Summary -
Appellant Kathryn Pereda (“Pereda”) appealed the district court’s dismissal of  her complaint alleging violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (“FMLA”), 29 U.S.C. § 2601, et seq., by Appellee Brookdale Senior Living Communities, Inc. (“Brookdale”).  The district court held that because Pereda was not an “eligible employee” at the time she was terminated, she could not bring her claims under the FMLA.  The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded, holding Pereda stated sufficient facts to establish prima facie claims for both FMLA interference and retaliation.

Extended Summary –
Pereda filed suit against her employer, Brookdale, alleging claims for interference (Count I) and retaliation (Count II) under the FMLA.  Her complaint asserted that Brookdale interfered with her FMLA rights by denying her benefits to which she was entitled, and by terminating her for attempting to exercise those rights.  Brookdale moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.  The district court dismissed Pereda’s complaint, reasoning that Brookdale could not have interfered with Pereda’s FMLA rights, because she was not entitled to FMLA leave at the time that she requested it.  The district court also held that since Pereda was not eligible for FMLA leave, she could not have engaged in protected activity; thus, Brookdale could not have retaliated against her.  Pereda appealed, presenting the Eleventh Circuit with an issue of first impression.

After examining the various elements of the FMLA regulatory scheme, the Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded.  With respect to Pereda’s interference claim, the court held that it must construe Pereda as “eligible” for FMLA protection.  In so holding, the court noted that because the FMLA requires notice in advance of future leave, employees are protected from interference prior to the occurrence of a triggering event, such as the birth of a child; otherwise, “a loophole is created whereby an employer has total freedom to terminate an employee before she can ever become eligible.”  The court further held that Pereda alleged a valid cause of action for retaliation under the FMLA, because a pre-eligible discussion of post-eligible FMLA leave is protected activity.

By Saswat Pattanayak

International Women’s Day is possibly the most progressive annual observation in human history. It is a celebration that is deeply rooted in women’s rights movement, as the foremost catalyst in diversifying Marxist applications, as the primary precursor to the greatest peoples’ revolution of 1917, and as the epic reminder of the most visible inequality in our world today.

More importantly, International Women’s Day (IWD) also marks the first organized anti-war movement in recorded history.

IWD started as the culmination of Russian women’s pacifist stance against the First World War. The very first peace movement led by (Russian) women in 1913 began to make impacts on this important day and spread to several European countries. Subsequently, the four-day women’s strike against the Czar’s militarism and demand for “Bread and Peace” resulted in abdication of the Czar, and the provisional government granting women the right to vote for the first time. And this historic occasion, the last Sunday of February 1917 in Russia (March 8 on Gregorian Calendar) has since been celebrated as the International Women’s Day.

Owing to Soviet Union’s contributions to women’s movements and progressive workers movements world over, March 8 was observed first by several communist countries and subsequently by most of the world. Due to resistance towards the communist bloc, and also owing to disenfranchised women in the western society, March 8 has never really been adopted with enthusiasm in much of the capitalist world, but ignoring such a milestone has never been really possible.

Tremendous pressure on United Nations to recognize such a special day exclusively to celebrate working women of the world finally resulted in the day being thus designated, only in 1975. March 8 used to be observed as the national holiday of only the erstwhile Soviet Union. Today, IWD is an official holiday in Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China (for women only), Cuba, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar (for women only), Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal (for women only), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia.

Predictably enough, most countries even today which enthusiastically observe IWD are either communist nations or formerly were members of the communist bloc. However in the western world, feminists have also joined voices with their comrades abroad to formulate IWD’s agendas. On International Women’s Day in 1970, the Berkeley Women’s Liberation Front circulated a pamphlet “Vietnamese Women: Three Portraits” to stand in solidarity with the communist women of Vietnam. The pamphlet asked “What does the Vietnamese war have to do with women’s liberation?” It is an important question considering many western white feminists were either being rejected as racists or irrelevant by women of color in the United States. In the true spirit of an International Women’s Day as envisaged by revolutionary feminists associated with Bolshevik Revolution, the Berkeley front replied:

“Everything! Women in the movement here are talking about the essential right of people to live full and meaningful lives, demanding an end to the way women, throughout history, have been objectified and dehumanized. How then can we not recognize these same claims that are being made not only by the oppressed in our own country, but by those who are oppressed by this country abroad?”

Ruth Rosen in “The World Split Open” mentions that although IWD used to be celebrated only in the communist countries, on International Women’s Day in 1969, about fifty women marched through Berkeley. On March 8, 1970, thirty other towns and cities of America celebrated the day. By the end of the seventies, nearly all schools and cities in the United States commemorated it.

Philip Foner in “Women and the American Labor Movement” describes how the lesser known history of this communist celebration is, in fact, deeply rooted in the labor movement of the United States as well. This is possibly the biggest coincidence that could have cemented the friendship between working peoples of the USA and the USSR, had the western history textbooks and institutional censorships not prevented generations of people from realizing the common causes between women world over. If March 8, 1917 was the day when Russian women started their revolution to acquire right to vote, it was a historic coincidence that on March 8, 1908, women workers in the needle trades had led a massive demonstration in New York demanding democratic unionism. 15,000 women marched through New York City to demand for shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. Such was their impact that, only two years later, on March 8, 2010, German communist Clara Zetkin moved a resolution to honor these American working women and demanded that March 8 be dedicated to fighting for equal rights for all women in all countries.

Coalitions of Labor Union Women in America also found resonance on March 8. In 1975, more than a hundred women unionists from over 55 international AFL-CIO unions, the UAW, and the Teamsters’ Union urged CLUW chapters to participate in observances on March 8, aimed at combating unemployment and to deal with “faltering economy”. Inspired by socialist experiments abroad, women unionists demanded “jobs for all” on this day.

International Women’s Day is losing its relevance due to the anticommunist culture that refuses to acknowledge the role, class conscious women have historically played. On the contrary, with the gradual demise of labor movements in this country, and with growing capitalistic takeover in much of the remaining socialist societies, women are increasingly being silenced via mass media coverages and their demands for unique rights remain at the mercy of handfuls of powerful legislators.

This is a day that is not only historically relevant to understand how March 8 could have very well united women from America and Soviet Union in common cause, but it is also a magnificent reminder of what lies ahead :: the pressing need to recognize unique civil and human rights of women. It is not just a day to celebrate women, but more importantly, a day to recognize tremendous struggles and resistance registered thus far by women’s movements worldwide.