New & Noteworthy

Tressie McMillan Cottom (Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina’s School of Information and Library Science) wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times in the aftermath of the presidential election. “[T]his election was about enthusiasm and diagnoses. The long-term trajectory of our country has not changed. Millions of middle-class people feel working-class. These Americans have no way to describe what is happening to them,” Cottom described. “Nature abhors a vacuum. But political opportunists thrive in vacuums. This election was about who told a better story about the fundamentals without promising anything to fix those fundamentals. That is the sweet spot for an opportunist like Trump and his party. Sell everything, promise nothing. Keep them coming back for more.” Cottom was also recently on The Daily Show.

From the Archives

The 2024 election has left women’s health in an even more uncertain place, as seen with the failure of pro-abortion ballot measures in three states and Trump’s remark that vaccine skeptic RFK Jr. would “work on women’s health” in his administration. The root of poor health outcomes for U.S. women isn’t just medical—it’s systemic. Inequities shape everything from research that sidelines women’s needs to restrictive laws that worsen health outcomes for all. Check out this post from the Council on Contemporary Families to learn more about the deep-rooted issues impacting women’s health in the U.S. and what is required for real change.

On Wednesday afternoon two people started a demonstration at Texas State University, holding signs and wearing shirts that said “women are property” and “homo sex is sin”. The demonstration sparked a counter-protest of hundreds of students, and images and videos of the demonstration quickly went viral. This 2017 Contexts piece talks about the importance of the media in increasing the reach and impact of protests.

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Contexts:

  • paying attention. period. by Sophie X. Liu on research by Rita Jalali on menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) and how it has been largely neglected in global health agendas due to challenges in measurability and enduring social stigmas, highlighting how inequality within social movements has sidelined issues affecting economically disadvantaged communities.

Council on Contemporary Families