Posts Tagged: california
Finding Reproductive Justice: “No Más Bebés” & The Limitations Of “Pro-Choice”
I’m proud to be a Latina, but I wasn’t always. Growing up in a predominantly white community in Georgia, my family and I were often targets of incredibly ignorant and hurtful microaggressions. I’ve lost count of how many times someone has made assumptions about how my parents arrived to the United States, or where I’m really from. Even as a kid, I was hyper-aware of how different I looked from my white peers and begged my parents to speak to me in English in front of my friends. The microaggressions I experienced as a child, questioning my belonging and citizenship, were not just incidents of routine childhood teasing, but were a part of a larger system of xenophobia. These seemingly innocuous and juvenile expressions of contempt can better be understood… Read more »
Why the Fight for Abortion Rights Still Matters in California
The day Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24th, I felt what many people felt: angry, sad, lost, disillusioned. And I did what many people did: checked in on friends, donated to abortion funds, reposted articles I didn’t fully read, and looked to politicians and activists for guidance on how we go from here. One that particularly stuck with me was Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s remark that everyone needs to be completely “strapped in” to this fight, advocating that we shouldn’t take big historical moments like these for granted – we need collective power for the long haul now more than ever. When I heard this, I was nodding alongside the clapping emojis on her IG live, feeling invigorated to put myself into action and show up differently. After hearing… Read more »
A Triple Threat: My Thoughts on Three California Bills That Champion for Reproductive Justice
On October 8th, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 453, AB 367, and AB 1171 into law. What does this mean for the fight against sexual violence and the battle for increased access to reproductive healthcare? California is currently at the forefront of protecting reproductive rights for all of its citizens. With the passing of three major bills — AB 453, AB 367, and AB 1171 — comes a major promise of ensuring that voices of victims of sexual assault and period poverty are being heard and listened to. By making stealthing illegal, ending the “spousal rape exception”, and requiring period products to be put in public school bathrooms across California, these radical new laws will close many gaps in ensuring equity that existed previously. These bills could easily be the… Read more »
Condoms Are Great. Prop 60 Is Not.
One of the measures on California’s massive ballot this election cycle is Proposition 60, an initiative that would mandate the use of condoms by performers in adult films. At first glance, the measure sounds great; condoms are an important harm reduction intervention within and outside of sex work and have been proven to reduce STI and HIV transmission. Prop. 60, however, would allow any California resident to sue producers of films that don’t visibly use condoms, something that a variety of prevalent players within sexual and reproductive healthcare systems don’t support including (and perhaps most especially) adult film actors themselves. The controversial president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) Michael Weinstein proposed Prop. 60 as a measure to reduce transmission of STIs by putting into law the Safer Sex in… Read more »
California Thinks Prisoners Are Expendable Labor
On Friday February 26th, Shawna Lynn Jones, 22, became the third inmate to die while working alongside firefighters as a part of the California Conservation Corps. Shawna was struck by a falling boulder while putting her life on the line to battle a brush fire in Malibu, California. The Conservation Corps, instituted in 1976 by then Governor Brown, is a government-funded program that pays prisoners like Shawna $1 an hour to endanger her own life while working to keep residents and natural habitats safe from the State’s increasing risk of fire. Shawna’s death spurred media responses that applauded her service to the state of California and framed her death as a tragedy because she died while working to protect one of the most affluent cities in California. Let’s all be… Read more »
Beyond Equal Pay
Earlier this week, California Governor Jerry Brown made two decisions about women in the workplace that, at first glance, seem contradictory at best and incomprehensible at worst. The Governor signed an equal pay for equal work bill which helps ensure that women who do substantially similar work as their male counterparts be paid comparable wages. But, amid the positive press, Brown quietly vetoed a bill that sought to revise workers compensation laws. The bill sought to close loopholes which categorized pregnancy and menopause as legitimate pre-existing conditions in determining employer’s liability. Put simply, the veto was a victory for insurance companies and employers, who can continue to legally reduce the amount of workers compensation Californians are entitled to by law, simply because they live in bodies that experience these natural… Read more »
California’s Cruel Policy that Keeps Families in Poverty
At the end of last month SB 23 passed its first committee in the California Legislature. For those of you who don’t know, SB 23 is a bill that seeks to repeal the CalWORKs Maximum Family Grant Rule (MFG) which bars families from receiving additional aid for any child born during the time that family is already receiving CalWORKs aid. A family receiving CalWORKs is a family who is struggling. How can a state say that they are not willing to provide assistance to any additional children knowing that children who grow up in poverty end up with poorer health, have behavioral and emotional problems, and are at higher risk of unintended pregnancy in their teen years? This is inhumane. What’s worse is that the rule applies to every member of… Read more »
The Flaws of Parental Notification Measures
California has a reputation for being an incredibly liberal state filled with hippies and surfer dudes, but as a California native, I can tell you that such stereotypes are far from the truth. A good deal of the state is actually very conservative. How else do you make sense of a same-sex marriage ban successfully passing when left to the voters back in 2008, in this, one of the most liberal states in the nation? It’s because of this knowledge that I wasn’t all too shocked when I found out that there’s an abortion initiative gathering signatures to mandate parental notification for teenagers. It’s important to realize that California already has a law on parental notification, but it’s not really enforced. What this measure would do is force a pregnant… Read more »
The Battle for Consent Culture is Not Over
This article was also published in the Claremont Port Side I have had the honor to write quite a bit about sexual assault and consent during my year as a Choice USA blogger. I am, unfortunately, quite invested in the issue. Not only have I had experiences with assault and harassment, I have watched many of my friends and classmates suffer from the effects of assault as well. Chances are, since one in four college-aged women are assaulted, you probably have too. At the very least, we all, knowingly or unknowingly, know at least one person who has been assaulted. The implication of this is somewhat frightening. The prevalence of sexual assault implies that we all, knowingly or unknowingly, know at least one person who has assaulted someone else. Think about it. Assault is… Read more »
18 And Clueless: How California’s Proposed Affirmative Consent Law Could Have Helped Me
I remember my very first week of college, my first real night at a college party. Newly independent and recently single, I was determined to have a night I’d never forget. I pulled myself together in an outfit I’m sure I was very proud of at the time (though, in retrospect, #fashionmistakecentral), downed some shots, and set off to dance and try to meet boys. I had a nice time but didn’t meet anyone, so around 1am I decided to head back to my dorm room by myself. When I was almost there, I heard a voice calling at me from a car driving next to me. It was a boy, a cute boy, and he asked where I was headed. He told me that he was an RA at… Read more »
