ffWelcome to the Media Round Up! We’ve collected and shared our favorite gender + politics stories from this week.

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Ahead of Tuesday’s Texas election, the Democratic Senate primary is engaging both Republicans  & Democrats  

With four days to go, GOP spending on the Texas Senate primary, which includes television ads and text messaging mobilization, underscores Republicans’ hope that Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), defeats Texas state Rep. James Talarico in the Democratic primary Tuesday. The race between Crockett and Talarico has become one of the most closely watched Democratic primaries of the year, in part because incumbent Sen. John Cornyn faces a competitive Republican primary to unseat him.

Some Republican operatives and leaders believe Crockett would be easier to defeat in November. Both Talarico and Crockett have been casting themselves as fighters, tapping into the angst among Democratic voters and frustration with party leaders that drove record-low ratings for the Democratic Party following President Donald Trump’s victory in 2024.

Hillary Clinton Calls Out Inconsistencies in Epstein Files Investigation

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday denied ever meeting Jeffrey Epstein or knowing anything about his crimes during a more than six-hour, closed-door deposition in front of the House Oversight Committee, which briefly devolved into chaos after a Republican lawmaker leaked a photograph of the proceedings to a right-wing blogger.  Observing that the Committee “made little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files,” Clinton later noted that the questions from Republicans had veered far from anything having to do with Mr. Epstein. She said that she was asked about U.F.O.s and that one member posed a series of questions related to Pizzagate, a false story circulated by conspiracy theorists that Democratic operatives were running a child sex-trafficking ring out of a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C.  The high profile of Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who will testify before the Committee today, has the potential to backfire, given strenuous attempts by the Administration to quell the story.

In State of the Union address, Trump used women to prove his point
The 19th*, Marissa Martinez

President Trump highlighted women and girls as beneficiaries of his second administration’s policy successes during his State of the Union address on Tuesday. As Trump sought to boost his economic message and underscore effective programs that he has implemented since taking office again, “nearly every example” of his policy wins referenced women – either hypothetical, or women present in the chamber. He cited a mother with children who could qualify for additional money through his new “Trump accounts,” and named a woman who used TrumpRX to buy IVF drugs after struggling with infertility. Other shout-outs included women who have faced violence, including Erika Kirk, widow of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk, and Milly Cate, a survivor of the Camp Mystic flooding in Texas last year.

U.S. Women’s Hockey Team Declines Trump’s State of the Union Invitation
Washington Post, Mariana Alfaro

Following their Olympic gold medal victory, the U.S. women’s hockey team declined President Trump’s invitation to attend Tuesday’s State of the Union address. A spokesperson for the women’s hockey team stated that they were grateful for the invitation, however, previously scheduled academic and professional commitments did not allow athletes to participate. Last Sunday, President Trump spoke to the U.S. men’s hockey team, inviting them to the State of the Union, which they attended, in addition to telling the men that he had to invite the women’s team and that he would “probably be impeached” if he did not. The Democratic Women’s Caucus in the House of Representatives called the president’s comments “demeaning and unacceptable.”

The SAVE Act Isn’t Safe for Voting Rights

Democratic women lawmakers are again wearing white as a symbol of protest during this year’s State of the Union address. After expanding the dress code to include pink last year to call attention to President Donald Trump’s administration’s treatment of women and families, the lawmakers will return to white, the color of suffrage, partially in reference to the SAVE America Act. The bill, which could make it more difficult for married women and LGBTQ+ people to register to vote, recently passed the House and could be taken up soon by the Senate. The measure appears doomed in the Senate, though Trump has vowed to act unilaterally on the issue. Under the SAVE Act, people would have to show “proof of citizenship,” in the form of a passport or a birth certificate, in order to be allowed to register to vote. But 21.3 million people (more than 9 percent of Americans) don’t have these documents readily available, and at least 3.8 million don’t have them at all, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Just over half of Americans (51 percent) lack a passport, a document that is time-consuming and costly to acquire or replace. In mandating these documents, the government would be effectively instituting a “poll tax” similar to that used in Southern states before passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to deny Black citizens their right to vote. The SAVE Act will also disproportionately impact women who have changed or hyphenated their names—which is over 80 percent of women married to men. Likewise, elderly voters, young voters and voters without the financial means to acquire these documents will be overwhelmingly impacted.

Affairs and Assault in D.C.

Swirling allegations of affairs and sexual assault have made headlines this week in the nation’s capital. Prominent conservative Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Nancy Mace (R-SC), and Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) called on GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) to resign on Monday, applying major pressure on the lawmaker to address accusations that he had an affair with his staffer who later committed suicide. Gonzales – who is in his third term in a potentially competitive south Texas district – previously denied having an improper relationship with the staffer, but the allegations have come under public scrutiny in recent weeks as he faces a heated primary election. In the cabinet, the husband of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has been barred from the department’s headquarters after two female staff members told officials that he sexually assaulted them. The women claimed that Chavez-DeRemer’s husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, touched them inappropriately at the Labor Department’s building, according to a police report obtained by The New York Times. These revelations add to a widening misconduct scandal at the Labor Department, which has forced several aides into “administrative and investigative leave.”

States Attempt to Outlaw Remaining Options for Abortion Care 

Across the country, abortion has remained a prevalent topic throughout state legislatures and courts. Notably, red states have taken to challenging abortion pills in court. While a Louisiana case has challenged the legality of abortion pills in the state, a Texas house bill is working to grant private citizens broad new powers to sue out-of-state abortion pill providers. In Tennessee, lawmakers are set to consider a bill that would allow abortion to be prosecuted as assault or homicide, opening women to the possibility of capital murder charges. Abortion has been illegal in Tennessee since 2022, following the Dobbs decision, however, lawmakers are eager to close what they view as a loophole that “allows mothers to willfully murder their preborn babies.” State law has designated distribution of abortion medication through telehealth or mail as a felony, punishable by a fine of up to $50,000, even though the Department of Justice has indicated that mailing abortion medication remains legal. In wake of serious challenges to abortion care, community groups across the country are working hard to provide abortion pills by mail, free of charge, to those who need them. There are five community providers that are now verified and listed by Plan C and INeedAnA, allowing community providers to expand their reach. Although groups originally focused on states with bans and severe restrictions, they are now accessible to states where abortion is legal, but may not be affordable or accessible.

For years the Taliban told women to cover up in public. Now they’re cracking down
NPR, Fariba Akbari

In stop-start efforts since November, Taliban officials have cracked down on women and girls in the western city of Herat who have been ignoring the hardline group’s rules by showing their faces. Initially, women and girls were punished for not wearing a burka. The Afghan burka is typically blue, has a netted opening for the eyes and drapes down around the body, largely constraining the woman wearing it. Later, after what residents described as pushback, officials enforcing the rules relented and allowed women to wear the typical conservative dress in this part of Afghanistan, a voluminous cloak known as a chaddar, along with a face mask. Forcing women to don burkas, to cover their faces or even to wear a hijab, or head covering, “is part of the Taliban’s policy of controlling women’s bodies to make women invisible,” said Sahar Fetrat, a researcher in the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch. She said in a statement: “Afghan women and United Nations human rights experts have called this “gender apartheid.”

In interviews conducted since November, more than a dozen Herat residents described different incidents to NPR. The crackdown was run by officials of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which is tasked with the implementation of the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic law. In one example, a male health worker who spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity said agents of the vice and virtue ministry set up checkpoints to flag down vehicles to check what women inside were wearing.

Women Are Just As Likely As Men To Hold Christian Nationalist Views
The 19th*, Mariel Padilla

According to the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)  three in ten Americans qualify as Christian nationalism adherents or sympathizers. Notably, American women are just as likely as American men to hold Christian nationalist beliefs. Despite this, Christian nationalist women tend to have differing views on gender than men. For instance, 89 percent of men identified as Christian nationalist adherents think society is “too soft and feminine,” compared with just 61 percent of women. Christian nationalist women are also 21 points less likely than men to think that women’s gains have come at men’s expense. And women are nearly 30 points less likely to support policies that encourage Americans to have more children. Melissa Deckman, the chief executive of PRRI, said the percentage of Americans who adhere to Christian nationalist views has remained steady since they began collecting data in 2022, however, the movement’s influence has grown in politics and culture. For more discussion on voter beliefs and trends, you can read Melissa Deckman’s GOTB Blog on Gen Z Voters.