Imagine this. You just visited the doctor, and received a 3-month prescription for birth control. At Bartell's the next day, the pharmacist hands you the packet, then asks you to slide your card. Your eyes move down to the screen, and you jump at what you see. $150! “What? That’s way too high!” you exclaim. The pharmacist pulls up your information. “It appears your health insurance doesn’t cover birth control. Employers don’t have to include reproductive care if it goes against their religion now,” she explains, shaking her head. You slide the pills back across the counter with a sigh, as you can’t afford that.
Earlier this month, I interviewed David Ward about how the fight for gender equality and LGBT equality overlaps. After covering the main concepts, our conversation shifted to where we should work together.
If you’re a supporter of gender equality, I bet you also support LGBTQ rights.
This is true for me, but I’ve never been quite able to articulate why.
It just seemed right. It just seemed to make sense.
As the first post in the “It’s All Connected” series, I explored this topic with David Ward, an attorney at Legal Voice, who has worked to pass laws in Washington State addressing both the fight for LGBT equality and gender equality.
What a couple of weeks it's been! Last week (as I'm sure you're aware of, if only by the fact that rainbows took over social media) the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
And now, another victory, this time closer to home. Earlier I wrote about how Legal Voice, a local nonprofit that fights for women's rights by changing laws, was working to pass bills to fight non-consensual pornography, often referred to as 'revenge porn.'
What do you think of when it comes to politics and gender equality?
You might think of the back and forth arguments about abortion. Maybe you consider the fact that women hold less than 20% of the seats in congress at the federal level. Or perhaps you’d think of the many women that Obama has appointed to high-level political positions, such as Janet Yellen.
But what about in Washington State? What’s happening here?