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Melinda French Gates to Spend $1 Billion on Improving Women’s Lives

What: In an op-ed in the New York Times, Melinda French Gates announced she would spend $1 billion “over the next two years for people and organizations working on behalf of women and families around the world, including on reproductive rights in the United States.”

Why it matters: As French Gates writes: “Despite the pressing need, only about 2 percent of charitable giving in the United States goes to organizations focused on women and girls, and only about half a percentage point goes to organizations focused on women of color specifically.”

Source: New York Times

The Long Fight for Women’s Economic Equality

What: An interview with author Josie Cox, who chronicles the history of women fighting for economic equality in her book, Women Money Power.

Why it matters: Cox reminds us of how far we’ve come (the “Women’s Business Ownership Act, which allowed women to obtain business financing without a male co-signer, didn’t pass until 1988”), but also how far we have to go: “As I write in my book, the age at which women tend to enter menopause — about 45 to 55 — is typically also the age at which they’ve gained enough professional and life experience to enter the most senior and lucrative jobs. The economic firepower of these people is enormous. But in many ways, the parameters of the workday and workplace just don’t work for them.”

Source: CNBC

PREGNANCY + POSTPARTUM

The ‘Grand Slam Success’ of a Postpartum Drug

What: NBC News collects anecdotes from physicians who say patients have responded extremely well to the first pill specifically approved for postpartum depression (zuranolone).

Why it matters: Not only is the pill alleviating symptoms, in these examples it is doing it quickly—within three to four days. As one perinatal psychiatrist put it: “Just a major, grand slam success story — which, by the way, we don’t tend to see in psychiatry.”

Source: NBC News

BIRTH CONTROL

Approach Birth Control Complaints with Curiosity, Not Contempt

What: Christine Emba argues that the world needs to listen to women who have problems with the birth control pill, instead treating them “not with curiosity, but with contempt. Those airing dissatisfaction, or simply describing potential side effects, have been called antifeminist or accused of threatening other women’s birth-control access.”

Why it matters: As Emba puts it: “…many people online are recounting real stories of real symptoms, and expressing legitimate qualms about the options they’ve been given. Their distrust is not unfounded. Kate Clancy, a biological anthropologist and professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the author of Period: The Real Story of Menstruation, told me that women ‘are very often subject to medical betrayal—to having really awful experiences in a medical context.’”

Source: The Atlantic

ABORTION ACCESS

Texas GOP Backs Death Penalty for Abortion

What: Jessica Valenti reports the Texas GOP’s recently-adopted platform “calls for abortion patients to be punished as murderers. In Texas, that could mean the death penalty.” The language isn’t that explicit, as Valenti explains, instead calling for “equal protection” for the fetus. But that is essentially legalese for abortion “to be treated as homicide, and for abortion patients to be prosecuted as murders.”

Why it matters: Where Texas goes, other states are sure to try and follow. And while party platforms aren’t law, in states with one-party rule, it doesn’t take long to go from platform to legislation.

Source: Abortion, Every Day