Press
Civil society groups demand action against ‘sexist’ AI disinformation
Pence charged with sorting out Trump-centered chaos at VP debate
Women’s rights and advocacy organizations on the left have been working together to promote Harris’s candidacy. This week they are gearing up too against what they fear will be sexist or otherwise biased attacks during the vice presidential debate Wednesday.
The long list of organizations, including BlackPAC, Color of Change PAC, EMILY’s LIST WOMEN VOTE!, Planned Parenthood Votes! and UltraViolet say they are working in tandem on messaging and outreach. On the phone with ABC News, Shaunna Thomas, the head of UltraViolet, argued that female politicians are still more likely to face attacks — subtle as they may be — about their qualifications, trustworthiness and character. She said the coalition was planning to release content on social media and around neighborhoods Wednesday with an eye toward women of color in battleground states.
Volunteers Are Coming Out In Droves To Support Planned Parenthood After Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death
“It makes sense. It’s natural that people would immediately be concerned about their access to basic health care like IUDs and birth control, and that would motivate them to act,” Sonja Spoo, director of reproductive rights campaigns at UltraViolet, told BuzzFeed News Sunday. “This is the fever dream of the anti-choice movement, to have the pick at the Supreme Court that Trump promised to deliver for them.”
Republican convention speakers share dark vision of Democrats and praise Trump’s character
A coalition of left-leaning groups is asking television executives for a one-minute delay in the Republican National Convention prime-time broadcast to provide time for journalists to fact-check the speeches and presentations in real time.
“We have already seen Americans die due to disinformation around the covid-19 pandemic and the search for a treatment. We have also seen an increase in hate crimes, police brutality, and racial injustice due to inflammatory and racist disinformation on the news,” according to the letter, sent by UltraViolet, Higher Heights Political Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Emily’s List Women Vote!, BlackPAC and other groups.
The letter was addressed to executives at CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS. The groups noted that in the past, cable networks have cut away from live events such as the White House briefing to provide quick fact-checking of inaccurate comments and said they hope a similar arrangement will be made for the convention, which starts tonight and airs through Thursday evening.
Louisville’s largest employers target of national petition related to Breonna Taylor’s death
The petition, which has amassed 40,000 signatures, calls for corporate support in demanding the firing, arrest and charging of the three LMPD officers involved in Breonna Taylor’s shooting death.
Dan Snyder Must Go, Says Women’s Group. And Take Goodell With You
Shaunna Thomas, co-founder and executive director of UltraViolet, released this statement:
Daniel Snyder has enabled, encouraged and fostered a hostile workplace and toxic culture for women. He must go. If the NFL is serious about cleaning up its act, they will force Snyder to sell the team.
The NFL has repeatedly failed women by putting our safety and wellbeing in jeopardy. Yesterday’s report by the Washington Post that more than fifteen women were routinely subject to sexual harassment and abuse by people in positions of power at Washington state’s NFL Team shows that the league is continuing to fail women.
Unfortunately these allegations are not surprising. Dan Snyder’s long refusal to abandon the football franchise’s racist namesake and logo speaks volumes. As we have continued to see over and over again, misogyny and racism seem to go hand-in-hand.
There is no place in any workforce for harassment and assault. The NFL must act now, and fast.
Social media platforms face a reckoning over hate speech
“We are cautiously optimistic that Reddit is finally working with groups like ours to dismantle the systems that enable hateful rhetoric on their platform,” Bridget Todd, a spokeswoman for the women’s advocacy organization UltraViolet, said in an emailed statement.
The group said its members met with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman via Zoom last week, encouraging him to address racism and hate speech on the platform.
Women’s Group UltraViolet Cheers Andy Lack’s Exit as NBC News Chairman
UltraViolet, a national women’s group, cheered the exit of longtime NBC News Chairman Andy Lack on Monday as a “positive development” that “suggests NBC is beginning to take issues regarding its workplace culture seriously.”
“After a career of enabling sexual abusers, preying on women in the workplace and silencing stories from survivors, Andy Lack’s name is synonymous with NBCUniversal’s toxic workplace culture. Lack should have been forced to step down after Ronan Farrow’s reporting exposed his role covering up sexual abuse at the network,” UltraViolet co-founder Shaunna Thomas said in a statement, citing previous accusations about Lack’s behavior as chairman of NBC News and MSNBC since 2015. (Lack has denied retaliating against the two women who spoke with Farrow about his behavior.)
“While no single decision or individual can eliminate the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and harassment in the workplace, these are positive developments,” she continued. “Still, NBC has a long way to go before it takes the steps necessary to address their toxic workplace culture, which has been cultivated by men like Andy Lack for decades.”
Senate’s $2 trillion stimulus fails women on frontlines of coronavirus pandemic
As the coronavirus pandemic dramatically changes lives across the United States, it is women who are on the frontlines of the outbreak at work and at home.
Women make up more than 80% of America’s health care workers, and are on the front lines of this epidemic, often without personal protective equipment.
Women make up the majority of grocery store workers who are keeping America fed and are working overtime to reduce the risk of infection when people need to leave their homes to buy supplies.
Women make up the majority of educators who have been forced to radically shift the 2020 academic year and make sure that their students do not fall behind while they are out of school.
As American’s social distance, and schools and daycare facilities close — women who are working from home are doing double-duty — serving as caretakers and home educators in addition to their regular lives.
Women are on the frontlines of this pandemic, and women are the heroes helping us get through it.
“Someone You Love Had an Abortion”: New Digital Ad Campaign Targets Moderate Swing Voters
Late last week, in partnership with MomsRising and We Testify, UltraViolet—a leading women’s advocacy group—launched a major six-figure new digital persuasion and storytelling campaign targeting progressive younger voters and moderate swing voters on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube in Virginia, Georgia, Missouri and Ohio.
The ads have a simple message for these voters: “Someone they love had an abortion.”
View the 30-second spot here:
Reports: Harvey Weinstein close to $25M settlement with some accusers but won’t have to pay
“We support survivors, and that includes supporting survivors to make their own decisions to make deals with their abusers,” added Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of the anti-rape group UltraViolet, in a statement emailed to USA TODAY. “But it’s hardly lost on us that these brave women made the only choice that was available to them under our flawed and disempowering judicial system. Survivors of sexual abuse deserve better.”
This is not the potential end to all civil lawsuits against Weinstein: It doesn’t include one famous accuser of Weinstein, Ashley Judd, who’s filed a separate sexual harassment and retaliation suit against him in California. She has said she wants a trial in her case.