We must hold our allies accountable, and demand that the leaders of our party do better.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos wants to dismantle protections for campus sexual assault survivors. Last week she met with rape-deniers and so-called "men's rights activists" to help her do it, and her top civil rights official, Candice Jackson, called campus sexual assault survivors liars. Jackson told the New York Times, "the accusations — 90 percent of them — fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.’" The next day DeVos sat down with groups like the National Coalition for Men, who are known for blaming rape survivors for their assaults and publishing personal information about them, so survivors are harassed and intimidated into dropping their cases. The Department’s true colors are showing. If Secretary DeVos faces a huge backlash after these meetings, we'll put her on notice that we won't stand by while she works with rape apologists to dismantle protections for sexual assault survivors. Will you add your name now to demand Secretary DeVos start listening to survivors, not rape apologists?

New York's Health + Hospitals (formerly referred to as HHC) is reducing the role of midwives in labor and birth for low income families across the 10 hospitals H+H operates. However, midwives are associated with excellent health outcomes for mothers and babies and higher patient satisfaction, as they give more hours of attention to each patient and family, and are more cost efficient than hiring additional doctors. [1] Cutting midwives would hurt New York’s low income and immigrant families.  As midwives who have worked in this system, we understand that H+H may be facing real problems--but midwives are a part of the solution. At a moment when our health care and our lower income and immigrant communities are under attack on the federal level, New York City can and must be a leader in pursuing thoughtful policy alternatives. We can't afford thoughtless measures that would hurt our communities and our health care. Source: 1. http://www.thelancet.com/series/midwifery

DPR rules state that a team must be made up of 7 men and 3 women, with no flexibility to increase the number of female players allowed in play at a time. My team was in a situation where we had six men and 4 women present and ready to play and the umpire made us bench a woman and ask a man watching in the stands to play in her place. I do not fault the umpire in this situation, as he was enforcing the set rules of this league, but I do fault the league for imposing discriminatory practices against female players. In co-ed sports teams, many times you have to have minimum ratios in place to ensure a fair game. The minimum ratios, however, are usually in place to ensure female players equal opportunity to participate. By imposing mandatory maximums for both male and female players--and one that is so un-even with women making up just 30% of a team--DPR is creating a culture of inequality and discrimination against women. In a response to my request to switch from a maximum number of female players to a minimum gender ratio rule, DPR doubled down saying that this discriminatory rule was necessary for a "competitive" league. Is DPR implying that women cannot be competitive in co-ed sports? Tell them girls are good at sports too.

To demand that DNC leadership immediately put leaders from the reproductive health, rights and justice field in positions of decision making authority at the DNC. We ask that this be more than one person and that women of color reproductive justice leaders be among these appointees. We also ask that the party recommit publicly to centralizing support of champions and candidates with stellar reproductive health voting records in the party priorities.

I am deeply concerned that we women will be pushed more and more to the end of the line when it comes to issues that should concern every female in this Country and in the entire world. We women must stay strong and fight against laws that will push us back centuries.

Former Gopher Football coach, Tracy Claeys, publicly supported the team's boycott against several players suspensions from team activities, after they were found responsible for committing sexual assault through University findings. He then stated in an interview with WCCO radio that he planned on donating $50,000 to victims of sexual assault. As of today, we have yet to see any funds be donated. We demand that he follows through with his promise, and that the funds be donated to the Aurora Center- an organization at the University of Minnesota that supports victim-survivors of sexual violence. Acts of sexual violence culminate as a betrayal of trust against victim-survivors. Tracy Claeys willingness to make such a promise and then to break it further exacerbates this act of betrayal that victim-survivors are forced to endure and exemplifies the issue of the lack of accountability for perpetrators. Survivors of sexual violence at the University of Minnesota have not forgotten Tracy Claeys promise. Demand that $50,000 be donated to the Aurora Center!

Many women rely on services, such as Planned Parenthood, due to the gender pay gap (78 cents to the male dollar) and the barriers they face to obtain affordable family planning and related preventive health services. This petition supports the protection of federally funded grants allotted to agencies in order to assist women in need.

O'Reilly has used his position of power on the network to prey on vulnerable women and attempt to force himself sexually on them--harassing subordinates with disgusting phone calls and threatening to fire them for not giving in to his lewd and misogynistic advances. Enough is enough. Tell "The O'Reilly Factor" advertisers to #DropOReilly now!

Following a report from The New York Times that five women have received more than $13 million in settlements for sexual harassment claims against Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, more than 20 companies and several car manufacturers—including Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Mitsubishi, Lexus, and Hyundai—have dropped advertising from "The O'Reilly Factor" program. But Volkswagen—which owns the Audi car company that promoted women's equality in an uplifting Super Bowl ad on Fox in February—has not joined in the advertising boycott. This is no surprise about O'Reilly, whose misconduct has been known for years. But finally, companies are standing up against supporting serial abusers like O'Reilly. And It makes Volkswagen and Audi's advertising on Fox all the more egregious, as they just recently tried to score points for an equality-themed advertising campaign. Tell Volkswagen and Audi to cancel all current and future advertising on "The O'Reilly Factor" and Fox News until Bill O'Reilly is held accountable for his despicable history of sexual harassment.

Fox News and Bill O'Reilly have paid $13 million to settle with five women who accused the host of repeated sexual harassment or verbal abuse -- including two lawsuits that came in after the network's former chairman, Roger Ailes, was dismissed during a harassment scandal last summer -- according to a bombshell New York Times report published this weekend. [1] Enough is enough. Fox's leadership has protected O'Reilly for years, letting him get away with racism, sexism, and outright lies. [2] In the wake of the accusations against Ailes, Fox News executives declared that the network wouldn't tolerate behavior that "disrespects women or contributes to an uncomfortable work environment" -- but they just signed Bill O'Reilly’s new contract. [3] His ratings shouldn't protect him from the consequences of his behavior. A culture of sexism, misogyny, and harassment has thrived at Fox News for more than a decade. [4] Last year, Fox executives' swift decision to launch an internal investigation into reports about Ailes, managed by the well-regarded law firm Paul, Weiss, suggested that Fox was determined to change. [5] But O'Reilly proves that sexual harassment is still a serious problem at the network. More than 50 advertisers -- including Allstate, BMW of North America, and Jenny Craig -- have already pulled their ads from O'Reilly's program, and other sponsors are publicly considering dropping it now. [6] If Fox doesn't take action soon, more advertisers that don't want to associate their brands with O'Reilly's behavior will soon follow, and the network will face growing financial fallout. It's time for Fox News to stop paying lip service to fixing its toxic atmosphere. Fox executives need to be transparent about the findings of their internal investigations and the steps they're taking to improve, especially now that the spotlight is on their star host. Fox's own CEO had to resign due to reports of sexual harassment; Fox executives need to hold Bill O’Reilly to the same standard. Let's pressure them to do what they said they’d do: create a work environment that doesn’t tolerate harassment, no matter who's doing it. Fox News must take the reports about Bill O'Reilly seriously and hold him accountable. Help us take a stand against the culture of sexual harassment at Fox News by adding your voice now. Footnotes: [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/01/business/media/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment-fox-news.html [2] https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/03/29/what-would-it-take-bill-o-reilly-get-fired/215862 [3] http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/01/media/bill-oreilly-settlements/ [4] https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2016/08/01/roger-ailes-and-rampant-misogyny-fuels-fox-news/212059 [5] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/fox-news-settles-with-gretchen-carlson-for-20-million [6] https://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/04/04/these-are-bill-o-reilly-s-advertisers-oreilly-factor/215912

The mission statement of the LPGA Foundation states that they seek "to empower, inspire, and transform the lives of girls and young women through the game of golf." LPGA - inspire and empower girls and young women right now by standing up for their rights - send a message to Trump today that his hateful speech and deplorable record on women's issues has consequences.