California NOW

Monday's Action Checklist

Take the FREE "One4One" Pledge and help raise cervical cancer awareness. Today is the last day to take the pledge! For every pledge made, Merck will make a $5 donation from the One4One Campaign. You can choose one of five organizations to receive the whole $5 pledge, or divide the money equally among them.

Sign the "Recapture the Flag" petition before July 4th:
We The People believe in the Constitution, the rule of law and justice for all. We will not stand by as our democracy suffers at home and our nation's reputation is tarnished abroad.

The U.S. flag has long stood as a symbol of liberty, justice and freedom – a beacon of hope in a troubled world. We pledge to work to Recapture the Flag by demanding a government that respects human rights, leadership that rejects all forms of corruption, and elected officials who fiercely challenge anyone who seeks to undermine the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Help protect the increase for family planning! Congress is proposing an increase in funding for Title X, the nation's only federal family-planning program! This program is the only source of health care for millions of Americans who lack health insurance. Increasing funding for Title X is crucial to ensuring women's access to basic reproductive-health services.

FDA Denies Older Women HPV Vaccine

This is seriously ticking me off.

The FDA has refused to approve the use of Gardasil for women ages 26 - 45. Gardasil is the vaccine that prevents against four different strains of HPV (human papilloma virus), which is directly linked to cervical cancer.

Tips From MomsRising on Work/Life Balance

The Commission on the Status of Women is holding hearings around the state to hear from women about what issues are important to them. I think they've heard an overwhelming amount from mothers dealing with the after affects of domestic violence. One woman in San Diego spoke out about how she was essentially fired from her job with the city after her daughter was assaulted by her father and needed her mother's support to report it to the police and heal from her wounds. This is a glaring hole in paid family leave policy, and her representative in the state legislature vowed to work to close that hole.

Balancing our work and our family lives is the ultimate struggle. Our friends at MomsRising offer this:

Look Out for Prop. 4 & Prop. 8

Get ready to see a lot of "No on 4" and "No on 8" signs and banners around here, because California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has assigned numbers for the November ballot initiatives.

Title IX Is 36 Years (and four days) Old!

Ok, I have July 21st in my calendar as the anniversary of Title IX. In fact, though, that's the day it was enacted. It was passed by congress June 23rd, 1972, which I knew, but sometimes my brain tries to out-think itself. I was almost one year old at the time. The next year Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in a tennis match, called the "Battle of the Sexes," which my own parents bet on, leaving my father on diaper duty for one year. The year after that a lawsuit opened up little league baseball for girls. By the time I was of age to play sports, there were many opportunities. Now, for my own daughter, there are even more.

Happy (Belated) Birthday Title IX! 36 years later we're still trying to help you realize your full potential, but we're sure grateful for what you've done.

Read Courtney's Feministing.com post about Title IX, along with all the great comments that follow.

Pic from the ACLU.