Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) led the push for the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act that recently passed the Senate with bipartisan support. The bill is aimed at addressing a surge in attacks on Asian Americans amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Hirono joined Washington Post reporter David Nakamura to discuss the legislation and personal reflections from her new memoir, “Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter’s Story.” Hirono is the first in a series of conversations on Washington Post Live to mark Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May.

In 2019, the European Union made headlines when it selected Ursula von der Leyen, the first woman in the institution’s history, to serve as President of the European Commission. The Commission, a 27-member group with one commissioner appointed by each EU member state, serves as the European Union’s executive branch, responsible for proposing legislation and managing diplomatic relationships between the nations of the EU and its allies. Concurrent with von der Leyen’s election, the Commission neared gender parity, with a total of 13 women appointed to the executive body.

Dear Friends,

It’s time to celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Month! But first, let’s take a look at what it means to be “Asian American”.

“Asian-American” is an expansive term, one that groups a variety of ethnicities into a single grouping. Unfortunately, many have come to associate this term only with people of East Asian descent (eg. Chinese, Korean, Japanese). In reality, the community also includes those who hail from places like India, Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan, and Cambodia. That is why when Asian-American Pacific Islander month is celebrated, we are celebrating an incredibly diverse group of people.

For the first time in history, two women sat behind a president during an address to a joint session of Congress.

The historic image during Joe Biden's speech Wednesday is 245 years in the making since the nation's founding.

"Madam Speaker, Madam Vice President," Biden said as he took the podium. "No president has ever said those words from this podium and it's about time."

For the first time, both of those positions are now held by women: Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

American presidents are flanked by the speaker of the House and the vice president during such high-profile speeches, each sitting behind and on either side of the commander in chief during the prime time address.

"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth."   Rachel Carson

As a part of our mission at RepresentWomen, we want to actively break down barriers that prevent all women from running, winning, serving, and leading. Through our research, we have found that language barriers are in place, preventing women who want to serve from accessing pertinent voting information, as well as connections to organizations like us who can help them run. Lack of access to this information is a significant issue in getting women to start their political careers. This type of structural barrier affects women for whom English is not their first language. Language accessibility is also an issue at the voting booths for non-native English speakers who wish to cast their ballots easily and accurately but are faced with language barriers and difficulties.

My name is Karen Stout and I am a sixth-generation Californian from Los Angeles. I am a senior at U.C. Santa Cruz pursuing a B.A. in Legal Studies and I am excited to be a RepresentWomen intern this spring!

By Fatma Tawfik 

On International Women’s Day, President Sisi ordered the Ministry of Justice to hire women in the Egyptian council of state and the public prosecution for the first time in history.

The minister of justice Omar Marawan responded to the presidential initiative, stating: “President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi's directions for the work of women in the State Council and the Public Prosecution came as a gift to women and complete their constitutional rights in the judicial authorities, explaining that the woman works across all judicial bodies and only those two positions were the exception until now”