Martha Burk

Martha Burk is a political psychologist, women's issues expert, and director of the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women's Organizations (NCWO) and the author of the book Your Voice, Your Vote. Follow Martha on Twitter @MarthaBurk.
Articles by this author
![]() |
Views Thursday, May 16, 2019 The Most Dangerous Time for Women’s Rights in Decades This op-ed was originally published on April 24. It was updated on May 15 to include more recent developments. We’re living in the most perilous time for abortion rights and reproductive freedom since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. While some erosion of abortion rights has occurred over the... Read more |
![]() |
Views Wednesday, April 24, 2019 The Most Dangerous Time for Women’s Rights in Decades We’re living in the most perilous time for abortion rights and reproductive freedom since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. While some erosion of abortion rights has occurred over the decades — parental consent laws, waiting periods, procedure curtailment — the fundamental right has largely been by... Read more |
![]() |
Views Wednesday, October 03, 2018 The Mean Drunk and the Mendacity If you’d never seen a mean drunk and you were anywhere near a TV on September 27, you’ve seen one now. Judge Brett Kavanaugh displayed all the characteristics: belligerence, bullying, shouting, and boo-hooing in out-of-control anger. He said he hadn’t watched the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford... Read more |
![]() |
Views Wednesday, July 25, 2018 An Unhappy Birthday for Medicare and Medicaid July 30 marks a very important anniversary in our modern political history. Fifty-three years ago in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law, creating two programs that would disproportionately improve the lives of older and low-income Americans — especially women. Fast... Read more |
![]() |
Views Wednesday, October 11, 2017 Your Boss Shouldn’t Get to Have ‘Religious’ Objections to Your Health Care When Obamacare — aka, the Affordable Care Act — became law in 2010, it mandated coverage of birth control without co-payments. Some employers didn’t like the rule, and Hobby Lobby hated it so much that the company filed a lawsuit to stop it. Company owners said they didn’t believe in contraception... Read more |
![]() |
Views Wednesday, June 21, 2017 The Tax Plan Moms Need During his speech announcing that the U.S. is ditching the Paris climate accords, President Trump took a strange detour to declare “our tax bill is moving along in Congress, and I believe it’s doing very well. I think a lot of people will be very pleasantly surprised.” He was right about the... Read more |
![]() |
Views Wednesday, March 29, 2017 A New Way to Close the Gender Pay Gap Once again, Equal Pay Day is approaching. Never heard of it? If you’re a working woman or someone who cares about the working women in your life, you need to study up. Equal Pay Day is the day in any given year when women working full-time, year-round catch up to men’s earnings from the previous... Read more |
![]() |
Views Wednesday, December 07, 2016 What Trumponomics Means for Women On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised again and again to “fix the economy.” And now that he’s won, he’s busy padding his cabinet with Wall Street rogues and off-the-chart conservatives from the fringes. If you read their resumes, it’s not hard to figure out they’re planning an umpteenth... Read more |
![]() |
Views Thursday, September 01, 2016 Trump’s Immigration Plan Punishes Women Most Donald Trump made a phony photo-op trip to Mexico City on Wednesday, where his Mexican “rapists, murderers, and drug dealers” miraculously morphed into “amazing people” who are “beyond reproach.” The Republican presidential candidate’s joint appearance with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto was... Read more |
![]() |
Views Wednesday, April 27, 2016 The GOP's Two-Pronged Assault on Women We heard a lot about the “war on women” during the 2012 election cycle — mostly over Republican attacks on abortion rights and birth control. While the phrase has faded in this election year go-round, the war on women has not. The only change is that now we’re fighting on two fronts — reproductive... Read more |