The 2024 election is a wake-up call for NYS: a dangerous movement aims to push back our rights and control our lives; bodily autonomy is under attack; the gender and racial pay gap persists;  lack of affordable, quality child care sidelines careers; care work remains undervalued and underpaid. What can we do about it? 

Join the PowHer the Vote campaign to educate and inform voters and candidates about our issues and to promote Prop 1– NYS Equal Rights Amendment– which will protect equal rights for all New Yorkers. 

To protect and advance women’s rights and lives in New York, together we can:

+ Engage more citizens across New York to speak out and vote in November;

+ Educate candidates about our issues, and spotlight the need to pass laws to protect gender justice and racial justice; 

Enshrine equal rights, including abortion access, in the NYS Constitution with the passage of Prop. 1, the NYS Equal Rights Amendment.

In 1970, three years before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal nationwide, New York passed one of the first state laws to permit abortion. It was the only state to allow people who were not state residents to receive an abortion, making it a hub of reproductive freedom for people across the country. Without the efforts of the New York State Senators and Assemblymembers who passed the bill, and the New Yorkers who elected them to represent their interests, our state would not be the leader in reproductive freedoms it is today.

Over 50 years and after our national abortion rights were eroded by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we can proudly say that New York still leads the country on reproductive rights and health. Let’s keep it that way!

Our strong laws can still be subject to changing political winds. Let’s elect leaders who not only support abortion, but who understand and prioritize policies that will protect bodily autonomy for ALL New Yorkers by making reproductive health care more accessible and affordable.

As voters in New York, we also have the unique opportunity to take direct action for our rights by voting on Proposal 1: The New York Equal Rights Amendment. By voting “YES” on Prop. 1, we can ensure our state constitution protects us from discrimination based on sex, including pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, reproductive healthcare and autonomy, forever enshrining our freedoms into the constitution regardless of changing political winds.

Your vote matters to reproductive rights in New York.

Learn more:
Access to Abortion is Under Threat in NY – NYCLU
Issues | Planned Parenthood Empire State Acts

New York relies on a workforce largely made up of women, and especially women of color, to take care of our children and loved ones. Yet, these workers make a lower income than 96% of workers in our state. With such low wages for care workers, New York faces a workforce shortage that makes child care and home care even more difficult to access. 

The leaders we elect on November 5th, 2024, will have the power to decide how much of our state budget goes into making care accessible and affordable to all, through investing funds into the child care and home care workforce, and expanding the scope of government child care assistance.

Recent cuts to care worsen systemic inequality for women, especially Black, brown, immigrant and low income women, who make up a large share of care workers. To ensure all women in New York can make a fair wage, or can pursue careers while their loved ones are cared for, we need to VOTE for leaders who prioritize care workers!

Your vote matters to equitable and high-quality care in New York.

In New York, the housing crisis is acute. Rents, evictions, and homelessness are at record highs. While lack of housing affordability is a main concern and burden for New York residents across the board, the effects of our housing crisis are not felt equally among all New Yorkers. Women and people of color disproportionately face hurdles to secure, stable, and affordable housing opportunities, often due to the compounding effects of gender, racial, & economic injustice.

Longstanding wealth gaps and wage gaps mean that women, and especially women of color and single mothers, have more struggles affording rent and mortgages and are more likely to be seriously burdened by housing costs. Women also face eviction at higher rates and are more likely to rely on affordable housing assistance programs. 

Housing policies that leave tenants vulnerable to unfair eviction and that make housing inaccessible only make existing inequalities worse. A state like New York, with a deep history of fighting for gender and racial justice, should approach the future of housing as an opportunity to remedy inequality and injustice.

The leaders we elect in November can be strong allies to tenants and homeless New Yorkers and push back against the powerful real estate industry. To ensure housing justice for ALL New Yorkers, and combat gender and racial inequality, we need to VOTE for leaders who prioritize the housing stability that all New Yorkers deserve.

Your vote matters to housing policies that promote equitable access and security for all New Yorkers.

Advocacy for policies like Kyra’s Law and the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act have underlined the dangerous injustice that arises when key players in the New York judicial system fail to recognize domestic violence in their decisions. 

Judges play a crucial role in their courtroom and in their communities to help end violence against individuals. It is therefore critical for judges and court personnel to understand the dynamics of domestic violence, the needs of domestic violence survivors, and the harm courts may cause victims when domestic violence or child abuse is minimized.

Many voters in New York may not realize the impact they can make on the judicial system by voting. In certain districts across the state, races to select your district attorney, city court judge, family court judge, civil court judge, and supreme court judge are coming before voters in November.

Like in any election, voters can make a difference by pressuring their potential representatives to be transparent, especially about their knowledge of and stance on domestic violence. Learn more about the current state of these issues by reading about Kyra’s Law and the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act.

Your vote matters to justice and safety for domestic violence survivors in New York.