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The word “feminism” has worn the hat of many titles and tones, from heavy to light, from positive to negative, clichéd and slightly misunderstood. Before people even truly understood what the word meant, which today rightfully stands for equitable human rights for all people; the lack of knowledge within American pop culture has influenced people’s real life perceptions of feminism. Arguably, this has defined what “the American dream” has been over the years, first being seen on the television
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When originally prompted to work on a piece around “electoral feminism,” I thought surely I was just out of the lingo loop and that I must know what the phrase meant…I mean it’s right there, those two words are self-explanatory, right? But of the 4,050,000 Google search results that take 0.32 seconds to populate when looking for the term “electoral feminism” not a single link on the entire first page finds this exact phrase. Instead, the highlights include electoral and feminist geography,
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There is a long history of female political activism in the United States, from earning the right to vote to running for political office. The anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment offers the opportunity to acknowledge that history and at the same time, to fight for an equitable and inclusive women’s political movement.Women have voted at higher percentage than men have in every presidential election since 1980, according to a Rutgers University study. And this trend exists even though women
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Casey Regan spent her 2018 summer off from Bryant University with us at the Women's Fund of Rhode Island (WFRI). She wrote about what she learned here:Women say sorry too much. Myself included.From the time I was a kid until now, I’ve been saying sorry. Not just when I forget to load the dishwasher at home before my mom comes home from work, or when I cut someone off Route 295 on my way to college every morning. I’ve been saying sorry for everything - and I mean everything. Everything includes
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Equal Pay Day is typically recognized in April as symbolizing how far into the following year women must work to catch up to what men make in a year. Though this day serves as an important reminder of the persistent gendered wage gap, the date ignores the even harsher pay disparity Black women face. While women overall earn 79 cents per male dollar, Black women make – their equal pay day falls on August 7, over three months after the April date. For Latina and Asian women, the disparities can be
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Every day, the endless news cycle gives us a few more things to be against. It’s exhausting. So let’s talk about what might happen if we did more to support what we’re for.It’s time to join the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island (WFRI) in supporting the work of the RI Senators Goldin, Sosnowski, Miller, Calkin, and Nesselbush who’ve introduced S:274, Relating to Health & Safety- Reproductive Health Care Act. They’ve given me, and gave all of Rhode Island, something to stand up for.WFRI’s work focuses
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When Title IX was passed in 1972, American educational institutions were required to recognize that women have the right to participate in sports on an equal plane with men. In the past 46 years, women in sports have proven time and time again that tenacity, passion, excellence, and the drive to overcome physical and social limitations know no gender.However, there are still battles to be won in the fight for gender equity in sports. Sexual objectification and harassment, unequal media coverage,
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A millennial woman’s view of the widening gender pay gapIn 1869, a woman working as a government employee in Washington, D.C. wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times. By lodging a complaint that her male colleagues were paid double her $900 salary for the same work, she set off a discussion that continues even now. In the nearly 150 years since her letter, protests, legislation, pledges, non-profit work, advocacy, and much more have been attempted to address the gender wage gap. But
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In the cultural climate of #MeToo and #TimesUp, an event hosted by the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island titled Cocktails and Conversations: Feminism is a Male Issue might justifiably raise a few eyebrows. It’s a topic that’s become a favorite quip of late-night comedians -- that men don’t know what they’re even allowed to say to women nowadays, for fear of being accused of sexual harassment.Beneath the stale one-liners, however, lies a legitimate dilemma: How do we engage men as allies against
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We’ve been hearing a lot about sexual harassment in the news lately. Powerful people, mainly white men, have been forcibly removed from their positions. The community at large is engaged in a conversation about how often harassment actually takes place, whether the level of harassment should result in being fired or removed from power and what this says about women’s place in our community overall.We’ve been here before. The passage of Title VII in 1964 prohibited sex discrimination in the
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