It's twenty years since the US Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act which right-wing conservatives targeted as subversive, but which helped ignite a global movement against all kinds of violence against women and girls.

Thousands of soldiers, mostly women, have been the victims of rape and sexual assault in the American military. Politicians and the Pentagon are worried about the growing epidemic of this behaviour. All twenty women Senators decided “enough was enough”

Every generation of little girls and women needs to learn its past so that it can imagine a future in which gender equality is the norm and not the exception. As part of openDemocracy's International Women's Day series, Ruth Rosen argues that it is still necessary to have a token month every year devoted to women's lives

As the 2014 midterm elections loom on the horizon, American Republicans fear they may lose a sizable female vote because they have spent the last eight years vilifying women and voting against their major concerns.

Americans have grown more supportive of same-sex marriages, gun control, immigration reform and even taxes on the wealthiest individuals.  Why, then, have the cultural and political wars over abortion accelerated?

The recent cultural wars between the Orthodox Jewish Hasidim in Brooklyn, New York and their neighbours are really about women’s appropriate role in their families and communities, as well as youthful rebellion among the Hasidim,says Ruth Rosen

What would a real national security look like? This debate on foreign policy never really took place last night. For starters, we would protect human rights and civil liberties, here and abroad. The gradual evisceration of our civil liberties makes America less safe, not more secure, says Ruth Rosen

In round two of the presidential debates, Biden might have done a better job than Obama of exposing the salesmanship of the Romney-Ryan campaign, but he did little to regain lost ground with respect to women voters.

Republicans across the United States have passed a spate of voter suppression laws aimed at those most likely to vote for Obama. They are specifically targeting African American women who, in the past, created a gender gap that decisively elected Democratic presidents. America needs immediate international monitoring of its presidential election, says Ruth Rosen

Why don't Americans want universal health care ? And what is it about American political culture that causes the uninsured, the poor and the ill, to accept the status quo? Ruth Rosen reports

The war over contraception in America during the last bizarre month was never about religious freedom or women’s health care. It was about controlling women’s right to control their own bodies and to make their own sexual and reproductive choices, says Ruth Rosen