Gender Equity
Take action with JCJ
Demand a world that is safer and more just for people of all genders
Join us as we mobilize Jewish communities and pro-democracy people of faith in support of gender equity.
What’s the injustice?
From the workplace to the doctor’s office, women are subject to unequal and unjust treatment.
Women in the United States live and work at a systemic disadvantage, navigating a daily labyrinth of challenges and injustices — namely, a pay gap, restrictions to reproductive freedoms, and endemic exposure to sexual violence and gender discrimination. While American society has seen progress, women in this country continue to earn 84 cents to the man’s dollar. In more and more American states, legislatures have passed laws to restrict access to reproductive care — pushing abortion services out of reach for millions. Women disproportionately face sexual harassment and assault in nearly every dimension of their lives.
None of these realities exists in a vacuum; each is corrosive to American society and leads to other harmful outcomes in health, wealth, education, careers, and beyond. For black women, women of color, immigrants, trans women, and others with marginalized identities, the barriers to stability and prosperity are even more difficult to scale. COVID-19 shined a light on these disparities, often forcing mothers to assume disproportionate caregiving responsibilities, school-age girls to sacrifice their studies to take on additional work in the home, and many women to put their careers on indefinite hold.
What we believe
People of all genders deserve equal opportunity.
Women have played a central and vital role in the story and tradition of the Jewish people. We support efforts to dismantle the institutional barriers that women face on a daily basis. This includes advocating for policies and legislation that close the gender pay gap, expand reproductive rights and root out harassment, assault, and discrimination.
We are engaged with our coalition partners in the fight to pass two pieces of transformative legislation:
- The Women’s Health Protection Act — a federal bill — would permit health care providers to deliver abortion services in a way that is comparable to other medical procedures, rather than being more restrictive; promote access to abortion services; and prohibit bans on abortion and restrictions such as mandatory ultrasounds, biased counseling, mandatory waiting periods, and two-trip requirements.
- California Senate Bill 320 — a state bill — would establish a judicial process to ensure firearms are relinquished when a person becomes the subject of a domestic violence restraining order and strengthen requirements to ensure violations in these cases are communicated to local law enforcement.
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Connections: Jewish Sources
And Devorah, wife of Lappidoth, was a prophetess; she led Israel at that time. — Judges 4:4
Devorah served as a prophet, leader, and warrior in Israel with the same power and influence of the male counterparts of her era.
“And there drew near the daughters of Tzelofchad” (Number 27:1): When the daughters of Tzelofchad heard that the land was to be apportioned to the tribes and not to females they gathered together to take counsel. — Sifre b’midbar 133:1
In ancient times land was passed down from father to son. In the story of Tzelofchad, he had five daughters but did not have a son and when he passed away, his land was to be given to the community. But his daughters stood up in protest and won the will of God and received their father’s land.