Happy New Year from your Global Women’s Caucus team! This election year is already off to a fast start, and we’ve got all the info you need to get involved in the fight for women’s equality right here. Learn how to host your own event supporting reproductive rights, join GWC members in advocating for climate action, AND find a special treat to keep you motivated for the work ahead -- all in our latest newsletter. 

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Reproductive Rights are Human Rights: A GWC Event Toolkit

The official women’s marches may be over, but in this crucial election year, we must continue “marching for our human rights” all the way to the ballot box in November!

We would like to encourage our members to host their own events around the theme of reproductive rights any time throughout the year.

To make it easy for members to host their own small-scale get-togethers, we have assembled a “do-it-yourself” event toolkit containing guidelines, an agenda and suggested timeline, a slide presentation with video options, discussion questions and more.

All members are invited to choose elements from this collection of ideas to build their own unique events around our theme.

Click here to get inspired!

For help, more suggestions and to share your event info and photos, please contact us at: womenscaucus@democratsabroad.org. 

Ohio Voters: Lobby your Legislators!

The Reproductive Justice Action Team is urging all DA Ohio voters to lobby their legislators to vote against Ohio House Bill 413, which makes abortion a felony crime for both pregnant women and medical professionals who assist. It can be punishable by death and there are essentially no exceptions. The Ohio legislature opened on January 14, so act NOW!!

Email and letter templates to send to Ohio legislators are available HERE. 

VA to be the 38th (and Last Needed) State to Ratify the ERA! 

On January 15, the Virginia House passed the ERA Bill HJ1 59-41, and the Virginia Senate passed the ERA Bill SJ1 28-12 in a bi-partisan vote. Now either the House needs to pass the Senate bill or the Senate needs to pass the House bill for the ERA to be fully ratified by Virginia. The tentative date for that final vote is January 27, and the support is there, so the official final vote should be a technicality.

DA’s Role in This Historic Amendment

• 19 – videos created by DA members and sent to the VA Delegates
• 312 – petitions signed and sent to the VA Delegates
• 3,816 – DA Virginia voters sent emails about the 2019 primary and general election
• 7,189 – Callhub calls made last spring to VA voters about the primary
• 5,429 – Callhub calls made last fall to the VA voters about the general election
• 5,000 – postcards written and sent to VA voters in Virginia
• And more – lots of social media posts, calls and emails to promote ERA passage in VA

What’s Next? 

Virginia will fill out the certification that the state ratified the ERA and send it to the U.S. Archivist. Once logged, it will be added to the U.S. Constitution and go into effect two years later. These two years are designed to allow all states and the U.S. Congress to ensure all laws are in compliance with the amended Constitution. Note that there are already court cases filed that might delay things. 

Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who has helped with the ERA ratification. We are on the verge of women in the U.S. having equality in our Constitution!!

Participate in the Democrats Abroad Global Presidential Primary 

The Democrats Abroad Global Presidential Primary runs from March 3 to March 10, 2020 at hundreds of voting centers around the world. Click here for more information on how to vote, criteria and registration.  

DA will also send 21 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, WI this July, and one of them could be you! To learn how to run as a delegate, click here. 

Get Involved: New GWC ‘Women and Climate Action Team’

The GWC is launching a new Women and Climate Action Team. Its overarching goal for 2020 will be to raise awareness around climate-friendly candidates, policies, lifestyles and the special role women can play, and to connect this heightened awareness with the crucial need for Americans living abroad to vote. 

Photo by Jasmin Sessler on Unsplash

All Women’s Caucus members are invited to join our action team and help propel a “blue-green wave” of new leaders into power on election day!

Join us on WebEx for our first online organizational meeting, Saturday February 1 at 9:00 a.m. EST. JOIN HERE. 

Read Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’ With Books Abroad 

Together with the Global Black Caucus, the Books Abroad organizers warmly invite you to join us in reading and discussing Toni Morrison’s revolutionary novel “The Bluest Eye.” During our discussion, we will tackle issues of cultural aesthetics, intersections of race and gender, and the ongoing struggle for black female voices to be heard.

We look forward to celebrating both the incredible work and woman with you on Sunday, February 9 at 7:30 a.m. EST/1:30 p.m. CET on WebEx.

RSVP HERE.

Start the Year off with the GWC ‘We Can Do It’  Playlist

Smashing the patriarchy is not an easy task, but with women working together and sharing our strongest tunes, WE CAN DO IT!

As we head into the new year and prepare ourselves battles that lay ahead, GWC team leaders have put together a playlist of our most motivating songs to pick us up when we’re feeling down — our personal favorites! 

Access the playlist on Spotify here. 

Flipping the conversation: From why she can’t to why she can

The he-said-she-said debate between Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders surrounding the last Democratic debate has put the question of whether a woman can be elected president of the United States on the national stage.

In a presidential primary that has been hyper-focused on the question of electability, it is not altogether surprising that this question would come up – though it is surely disappointing for those who dare hope that votes today get cast based on a candidate’s policy proposals rather than his or her gender.

Read more . . .

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Thank you for reading, and as always, stay tuned on our Facebook page for all the latest news.

In solidarity,

Your GWC Team

http://www.democratsabroad.org/wc

womenscaucus@democratsabroad.org

Ann Hesse, Chair, Global Women's Caucus
Laura Depta, GWC Newsletter Editor-in-Chief

The Reproductive Rights Action Team has changed its name to Reproductive Justice Action Team which is defined as "the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities," (SisterSong Women of Color reproductive collective). It thus encompasses a larger agenda including all health issues surrounding reproductive rights and in particular rights of minority women.