queen of connection | Shelby L. Phillips

Top 5 Laws That Changed the Lives of Women in 2014

December 29, 2014 at 6:38 pm Leave a comment

The Women’s Foundation of California is an organization working toward a just and equitable California, in which all people and communities, in every region of the state, thrive. As 2014 draws to a close, here are the Foundation’s top five laws they helped pass.

FIVE: Our Women’s Policy Institute fellows helped pass the Healthy Baby Act, which will help over 3,000 pregnant women every year have healthier pregnancies and births. Importantly, it will benefit women facing domestic violence because abuse often starts or escalates during pregnancy.

FOUR: We joined the movement to pass a groundbreaking civil rights law: Now, thousands of women and men who had served their sentences will qualify for food stamps and basic cash assistance. Instead of turning its back to their suffering, our social services system will now help them rebuild their lives.

THREE: Our Women’s Policy Institute fellows helped pass an important law that limits the number of students who are suspended or expelled for the so-called willful defiance. This offense was used disproportionately to discipline and expel minority students.

TWO: We helped pass Proposition 47, which will improve the lives of thousands of women who had been incarcerated for non-violent, low-level offenses. After serving their misdemeanor sentences, the women will be better poised to apply for work and housing and mother their children with dignity and pride.

ONE: The Domestic Worker Bill of Rights went into effect on January 1, 2014. Now 100,000 domestic workers, a majority of them women, will finally start earning overtime pay. Our grant partner Mujeres Unidas y Activas worked for seven years and through two vetoes to pass this bill. We take pride in knowing that our Women’s Policy Institute trained these women and gave them the skills and the resources they needed to make this great victory possible.

Help them keep up the good work and make a gift of any size today. All donations will be pooled together and will go to the same place—toward changing the lives of low-income women in California. They are only $12,000 short of making their 2014 goal, and we have until midnight, December 31st  to help them achieve it. Give what you can today.

Entry filed under: Education, Parenting, Politics. Tags: Domestic Worker Bill of Rights, Healthy Baby Act, Prop 47, Women's Foundation of California, Women's Policy Institute.