On behalf of girls everywhere, enough is enough. This week, a young woman in New York named Lauren Todd started a petition on Change.org urging JC Penney to stop selling a girl’s shirt with the statement: "I'm too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me." This is just one shirt in a series that display slogans that characterize a girl's worth by her looks and makes being smart somehow not "pretty". Seemingly harmless? Just a joke? Not funny. Girls get messages from all aspects of media that show a woman's value in relation to her looks – well, we say enough – time to tell retailers, "we're not buying it!" The shirt, which was marketed to girls ages 7-16, imparts the message that boys are smart while girls are only meant to be pretty. Valuing looks over knowledge and hard work, and stereotyping female images is a dangerous message to send to young girls, one that females are already bombarded with in today’s media. We at Girls For A Change believe that girl empowerment is essential in helping girls to realize their full potential and helps them speak up and out about issues they care about – that they are more than looks, lyrics, and objects. Girls need to know that they are valued for who they are, and not the style of their hair or the way they look. Clothing that blatantly diminishes the value of girls is harmful to a girl's perception of her worth. We know everyone wants girls to reach beyond their potential and let them know they're valued for who they are. Let's start by removing messages that put any girl (or boy!) down. JC Penney rightfully discontinued the sale of the shirt in response to the massive support of Lauren’s petition, but the presence of sexist messages on children’s clothing is an ongoing problem that must be addressed. Tell major clothing retailers to stop designing clothes with sexist and damaging slogans that perpetuate gender stereotypes and devalue the role of young girls in society. Let them know your money will not support their company unless they take a stand against sexist, destructive slogans and imagery. Tell them, "you're not buying it!"

Thanks to legislation passed by anti-choice lawmakers, the Virginia Board of Health is currently drafting regulations that would limit women's access to reproductive health care. These regulations force health clinics to meet burdensome and unnecessary regulations. The result? Some health centers may be forced to close, limiting the continued availability of safe, legal, first-trimester abortion throughout the state. Virginia's women's health centers provide vital health care services like STD screenings, cancer screenings and family planning services, in addition to providing legal and safe abortions. Burdening their operations with unnecessary regulations would restrict access to these essential services and detrimentally affect young, low-income, uninsured, and minority women by furth reducing their health care options. Tell Virginia regulators you don’t support medically unecessary and burdensome regulations that would restrict women’s access to comprehensive health care services.

Currently, the statute of limitations for domestic violence crimes in Washington State is 4 years less than the statute of limitations on credit card debt! Abusers use many tactics to control, manipulate, and threaten their victims to keep them from reporting the abuse to the authorities in a timely fashion. This petition will help bring these criminal abusers to justice.

In the first six months of 2011, the Pennsylvania legislature made it a top priority to attack women's right to access safe, legal abortion care. Over 30% of legislative days were spent on reproductive rights attacks. The most egregious of the dozens of bills is one nearly identical to the Kansas law that will close two-thirds of the centers in the state. It requires major construction overhauls that are completely unrelated to patient safety and so onerous that it is unclear if any of the 20 free-standing abortion providers will be able to stay open, leaving women with few safe and legal options. Join us in telling our elected officials that WE'VE HAD ENOUGH of the attacks on women's healthcare, and it is imperative that they vote against these dangerous bills! Find out more about the attacks and watch a video of why other Pennsylvanians have HAD ENOUGH at www.wevehadenoughpa.org!

Join us to DEMAND AN EXPLANATION FROM DEMOCRACY NOW ABOUT THEIR IGNORING OF CYNTHIA MCKINNEY'S FIRST HAND REPORTS OF LIBYA. Former U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney is one of the many progressives of color who is rendered invisible not only by mainstream media, but now by the "progressive media" programs like Democracy Now! Join me in asking Amy Goodman for an explanation.

Women are in danger of losing the grounds we have gained over the years and are in danger of having our hard won rights stripped away

More midwives with the right skills, equipment and support would save 1.3 million newborn babies and 350,000 mothers every year around the world. We are calling on global leaders to invest more in midwives and health workers with midwifery skills in the right places, at the right time, with the right education, the right support and the right pay.

Our State and National Legislators are attempting to roll back women's rights from cradle to grave. They were sent to office in the 2010 elections to work on jobs, jobs, jobs. But yet, they have spent the past months writing legislation that takes healthcare away from women, infant formula away from babies, early education away from children, daycare away from working women, the most extreme anti-abortion legislation in the history of our country, the possiblilty of banning any forms of birth control, redefining rape. Are you kidding me? Must we women really go back to the horrors of the days when I, as a young woman in the workplace was "sexually harassed", but had to put up with it because it didn't even have a name? Back to a time when a woman was blamed for her own rape because of what she was wearing? Really?

Women's Equality and the Right to Vote

Proctor & Gamble recently put on a Mr. Clean coupon in the mother's day supplement a picture of a woman and child with the caption "This Mother's Day Get Back to the Job That Really Matters", and all their ads portray women as the only ones who clean, serve, wait on men and boys, etc. Underlining message- You women need to get pregnant and back in the kitchen where you belong.

Only 3 more states are needed to make the Equal Rights Amendment part of the U.S. Constitution, and HJR 47, recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, will clarify that the 1982 deadline is eliminated. Let's urge Congress to cosponsor HJR 47. To start over on ERA would require 38 states to ratify and take another lifetime.

For several years now, single mothers who receive child support through Support Collection Unit (SCU) are being charged an annual fee of $25. This fee, for which there has never been an explanation given, is literally skimmed off the top of a child's support money. Where are these many millions of dollars—garnered at the expense of children—going? And further, if a fee must be installed, please charge the offending party: the one who would not pay voluntarily in the first place!