UPenn campus organizers getting out the vote!

The countdown to Election Day is underway! 

Vote for Equality, the political arm of the Feminist Majority, is a student-led project focused on ensuring college students in targeted states turn out in record numbers to vote. This year, Vote for Equality is organizing in two critical states: Virginia and Pennsylvania. Vote for Equality has hired over 140 student organizers on on 14 campuses in Virginia and 16 in Pennsylvania who are working tirelessly to get students to the poll! 

What happens on campuses in these states won't just decide local elections, it will shape the national landscape for reproductive rights and the future of our democracy. Young voters have the power to make all the difference in these races; we just need to get them to the polls. When we activate the student vote, we win.

If you are interested in volunteering on Election Day, email Madelyn Amos at [email protected]

This year, we're voting as if our lives depend on it.

Virginia Tech organizers tabling on campus!

Since 2025, the United States has witnessed an explosive surge in the number of people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In just 4 months of Trump’s second term, there has been a 17% increase compared to his first term. Since Biden’s presidency, the detention rates have skyrocketed by 46%. This extreme level of mass deportation is disproportionately affecting a population of minority women. The most vulnerable of these women are those who are pregnant or have recently given birth.

Under President Biden, ICE was barred from arresting or detaining immigrants who are pregnant, postpartum or nursing. Although Trump has not rescinded this policy, the numerous lawsuits and firsthand accounts from women reveal that it is not being followed. 

One such case is that of Antonia Aguilar Maldonado, a mother of two from El Salvador, who was arrested by ICE and detained for almost a month, despite still nursing her youngest son. The jail was not equipped to house someone who was nursing and did not have a breast pump. Maldonano was forced to use her hands to massage milk out until the facility was able to buy a pump.

Angie Rodriguez, a Colombian immigrant, was also detained after a routine ICE check. While detained, she struggled to eat meals due to the inedible options, and unfortunately, would later miscarry while in custody. Failure to see immigration and mass deportation through a gendered lens continues to silence the lived experiences of women like Maldonano and Rodriguez, and these are only two instances. 

A report by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) documented at least 14 cases of pregnant women being mistreated in detention facilities between January 2025 and July 2025. Pregnant detainees were reported to be sleeping on cell floors, denied medical support, and miscarrying alone. It has been reported that women are being shackled while being transported and experiencing miscarriages. They are denied access to medical translators, prenatal vitamins and care, and forced to undergo medical care without consent. They are also experiencing a lack of food and nutrition.  

The ACLU reported that, although ICE has the statutory mandate to release those who have been certified as pregnant on parole, they have failed to do so since January 2025. Instead, ICE has issued detainers, arrested, and taken pregnant individuals into custody even after being made aware of their conditions, and has taken to detaining many women during reports of domestic abuse. Not only is this illegal, but it also sets an unsafe precedent for women and pregnant people suffering through continued abuse because of fear of being detained or deported. 

This widespread neglect and abuse within ICE detention centers highlight the urgent need to hold the agency accountable and to adopt immigration policies that prioritize the safety, dignity, and human rights of women and pregnant people.

Students from the GLI Charlottesville High School chapter in Virginia!

There are plenty of reasons to be discouraged and disheartened in these times. Yet for every attempt to roll back the hard-won progress toward equality and justice, there are activists fighting to defend our fundamental freedoms.

From Virginia to California, from New Jersey to Texas, FMF’s Girls Learn International (GLI) clubs are proving that young people are not waiting for permission to create change. As students return to school this fall, GLI is mobilizing middle and high school students around the issues that matter most to their communities: reproductive healthcare, voting rights, educational equity, justice for immigrants, and more.

In San Antonio, TX, a GLI club hosted an educational event connecting the history of women's suffrage in the U.S. with contemporary threats to voting rights. Students educated their peers about the SAVE Act, legislation that would require documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote, potentially affecting up to 69 million American women whose current names don't match their birth certificates. 

One of GLI's longest-running clubs, with nearly a decade of sustained work, the Columbia Power Club held its annual district-wide consent education presentation, reaching middle school students. By making this an annual event, they've created a sustainable model for peer-to-peer education that addresses a critical gap in many school curricula, providing age-appropriate education on consent and healthy relationships to hundreds of younger students each year.

Despite being one of GLI's newest clubs, students in Livingston, New Jersey have already launched multiple high-impact initiatives. After hosting a Women in STEM webinar that attracted over 100 attendees, members identified gender disparities in AP Math and Science enrollment at their school. They led a letter-writing campaign to their school board demanding equitable access to advanced coursework.

Young feminist leaders at Charlottesville High School in Virginia led a coalition Week of Action last April, focusing on immigration rights. By partnering with Sin Barreras, a Central Virginia organization that empowers immigrants and their families through education, advocacy, and support services, they organized "Know Your Rights" training for area high school students. 

From letter-writing campaigns to school board advocacy, from voter registration drives to UN interventions, GLI demonstrates a comprehensive approach to feminist leadership development. GLI's network shares a commitment to intersectional feminist activism and youth leadership development. These young people are not preparing to lead, they are leading now, and their work is shaping the feminist movement for generations to come.

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

In South Carolina, the state legislature is currently considering a bill that poses an immediate threat to the reproductive rights of millions. The Unborn Child Protection Act is aimed at creating and regulating stricter access to abortions and contraceptives at large. 

The bill aims to define stricter limits on reproductive rights language, as well as significantly amend the state code on the issue of abortion. Emphasizing Section 44-41-615 of the S.C. Code, the bill makes it a felony to administer, prescribe, sell, and or deliver any form of medication that will cause an abortion. People convicted can face imprisonment for up to 30 years.

It would also make it illegal to know of or knowingly distribute, sell, possess, and advertise what this state legislature refers to as “abortifacient” (mifepristone, misoprostol, or any other chemical drug that is used with the intent of causing an abortion). 

This bill moves beyond restricting access for those who are pregnant to criminalizing anyone who works, helps, or supplies any abortion care. Additionally, with these radical shifts and these stipulations, the state would have the strictest abortion ban in the country. It actively removes the exceptions for being able to have an abortion, particularly in instances of rape, incest, and fetal anomaly. 

This bill also aims to redefine access to contraceptives. The revision states that so long as a contraceptive is not used to cause or induce an abortion it is allowed, but in so many cases, this language does not clearly set out the language for Plan B and other emergency contraceptives. 

In South Carolina, a pro-life group, South Carolina Citizens For Life, has surprisingly spoken up against the bill, arguing that "pro-lifers understand better than anyone else the desire to punish the purveyors of abortion who act callously and without regard to the dignity of human life. But turning women who have abortions into criminals, as S323 does, is not the way." 

When one person loses the right to make decisions about their own body, it impacts us all. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, restrictions on reproductive healthcare have multiplied across the country, leaving millions without access to essential care. It is our right to fight for a more just future.

Afghan woman holding a sign saying "Why is the world watching us so silently and cruelly?"

Photo by Getty Images

The United Nations Human Rights Council has recently approved the creation of an independent investigative mechanism to document, consolidate, and preserve evidence of international crimes and human rights violations committed in Afghanistan. The resolution, which was adopted by consensus on October 6, 2025, marks a turning point in the global response to Afghanistan’s deepening crisis of impunity.

Led by the European Union, the resolution tasks the new mechanism with investigating grave abuses by all actors, including the Taliban, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP), former government and security forces, and international military actors. Its purpose is to ensure that evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and gender persecution is preserved for future prosecution.

This mechanism is the result of years of advocacy by Afghan civil society and human rights organizations, including the now-disbanded Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). Calls for such an initiative date back to the early 2000s, gaining new urgency after the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.

Richard Bennett, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, called it “a vital tool.“

Unlike the International Criminal Court (ICC), this new investigative mechanism does not have prosecutorial powers. Instead, it will collect and preserve evidence to support future prosecutions at both national and international levels. The UN resolution explicitly calls for cooperation between the mechanism and the ICC, which has already issued arrest warrants for senior Taliban officials on charges of gender persecution as a crime against humanity.

The mechanism is also expected to investigate officials responsible for enforcing Taliban edicts, including bans on education, employment, and freedom of movement for women and girls, restrictions that constitute gender persecution under international law. 

Though it cannot deliver justice on its own, the new mechanism’s establishment signals that the world is no longer willing to ignore Afghanistan’s descent into total impunity. For Afghan women, who have been systematically erased from public life since the Taliban’s takeover, this development offers a measure of recognition that has been long denied. It affirms that the crimes committed against them are not cultural or political issues, but violations of international law.

Accountability will not come overnight. However, with this mechanism, the international community has taken a long-awaited concrete step toward ensuring that Afghanistan’s crimes are not forgotten and that the Taliban’s war on women is recorded and ultimately punished under international law.

Sign below to add your name to this urgent call — we're delivering this petition directly to the United Nations Secretary-General and to the President of the General Assembly to make sure our voices are heard at the highest level. Every signature shows the growing public demand for action. The more names we gather, the stronger our message will be.

António Guterres, Secretary-General,

Annalena Baerbock, President, General Assembly,

I, the undersigned, urge the United Nations to take immediate and historic action to stand with the women and girls of Afghanistan, who are living under a system of gender apartheid instituted by the Taliban regime.

Specifically, I call on the United Nations to:

1. Formally recognize gender apartheid as a crime against humanity in international law and include it in the new Crimes Against Humanity Convention.

2. Refuse recognition and prevent the Taliban from occupying Afghanistan's UN seat, as this would confer legitimacy on a regime engaged in crimes against humanity.

3. Increase humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, with priority given to women and girls as both distributors and recipients of aid.

4. Ensure Afghan women are meaningfully included in all international discussions on Afghanistan's future—political, economic, social, and humanitarian.

The Taliban has issued nearly 150 edicts systematically erasing women and girls from public life. And preventing girls and women from education, work, and taking away their freedom of movement is not only unjust—it violates their fundamental human rights under international law. 

These actions constitute systematic oppression and domination of women and girls, committed with the intention of maintaining the dominant regime, and therefore amounting to apartheid and persecution under international law.

The United Nations must act with moral clarity and legal resolve.

The eyes of the world—and the hopes of Afghan women—are upon you.

Sincerely,

Follow us on Instagram @femmajority