USA Abortion Laws- 60s Women Remember
CNN has featured a Long Read article about a group of women who ran an underground abortion network in the USA in the 1960s. Here’s what they fear might happen today.
“This is about the most intimate decision of our lives — when, whether and with whom we have a child. Everyone should have the ability to make decisions about our own lives, bodies, and futures without political interference, We need to organize, raise our voices and our votes, and overturn this attack on our freedom and our lives. I have seen that when we take action and organize we can change the world.”
Heather Booth, who has spent her life after leaving Jane fighting for civil and women’s rights.
Women in the 1960s endured restrictions relatively unknown to women today. Women could not serve on juries and often could not get an Ivy League education. Women earned about half as much as a man doing the same job and were seldom promoted.
Women could not get a credit card unless they were married — and then only if their husband co-signed. The same applied to birth control — only the married need apply. Abortion didn’t start to be legal in the USA till 1970. In the UK it was legalised by the Abortion Act 1967.
Sweden: Old Ladies Need More Money!
“Old ladies need more money!” a group of grey-haired women chants in front of Sweden’s parliament. It’s part of their recurring protest against the country’s pension system.
During the warmer months, members of the red-hatted Tantpatrullen (The Old Lady Patrol) gather every Thursday, right across from Sweden’s parliament. They have just begun their 2023 protest season.
In a country that prides itself on being a champion of feminism and gender equality, the association of retired women is calling for an increase in pensions for women. Women, they say, are penalised by a system that favours people with high salaries who work well into their sixties.
Brit Rundberg, co-founder of the Tantpatrullen, told Agence France-Presse (AFP):
The pension system is supposedly neutral but men’s and women’s lives are not neutral.
In Sweden, the average gap between men’s and women’s pensions is 28%. This is the largest among the Nordic countries, according to a recent study by the inter-parliamentary Nordic Council.
Women pensioners on average receive 17,000 kronor (£1,321) before tax a month. Meanwhile, men get an average of 24,200, according to the Swedish Pensions Agency.
Centre for Ageing Better is Campaigning Against Ageist Images in the Media
The media undoubtedly reflects and affects our views. It has both the power to encourage and reinforce existing stereotypes.
Centre for Ageing Better
There are no standards that the press must adhere to when reporting on age. Why not?
Centre for Ageing Better is calling for IPSO – the independent body that regulates most of the UK’s newspapers and magazines – to act now and add age to their Editors’ code of practice.
Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist Recognises Works by Older Debut Novelists
Half of the 2023 shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction is made up of debut novels from older women – with the youngest among them aged 49.
Louise Minchin, chairwoman of the judging panel, said the life experience of each first-time novelist is evident in their “exquisitely written” works.
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