Women and Gender (News)

By Sweta Vohra and Jordan Flaherty, Fault Lines

A version of this article originally appeared on the Al Jazeera website
http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/2012/03/race-gender-and-occupy-by-sweta-vohra.html

At a recent panel discussion on the Occupy movement, a left-leaning professor from New York University speculated that identity politics - the prioritizing of issues of race and gender in movements for justice - could be a plot funded by the CIA to undermine activism. While most commentators do not go this far, the idea that activists who focus on these issues are "undermining the struggle" has a long history within progressive organizing. And in Occupy Wall Street encampments around the country these debates have often exploded into public view.

For Immediate Release: April 12, 2011

Contact:
Stacy Malkan, stacy@safecosmetics.org, 202-321-6963
Sian Wu, sian@resource-media.org, 206-701-4734
Alexandra Gorman Scranton, alexs@womensvoices.org, 406-396-1639

Beauty Salon Workers in Danger: Toxic Brazilian Blowout
OSHA Issues Warning; National Academy of Sciences Confirms Formaldehyde-Cancer Link; California Attorney General Issues Injunction against Brazilian Blowout

WASHINGTON— The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), under the U.S. Department of Labor, issued a hazard alert Monday, warning that popular hair straightening products such as “Brazilian Blowout” can cause serious health problems, including increased risk of cancer.

By C. Nicole Mason

As the 100th day approaches, it is time to take stock of what the Obama Presidency has meant so far for women. Dating back to FDR, the first 100 days of a new Administration have been a kind of preview of what is to come over the next four years. In George W. Bush’s first 100 days, he blocked funding for international family planning clinics, signed an order stating that women receiving Medicaid benefits could not use funds to pay for the emergency contraceptive, RU-486 and shut down the White House Office on Women’s Issues -- a friend to progressive women’s issue he was not.