This article was updated at 12:41 pm, Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012.

Yesterday I attended a meeting of pro-choice colleagues working to ensure women throughout this country get safe, compassionate abortion care. Today, I received an email from one of those colleagues, detailing the ordeal through which she was put by American Airlines on her flights home. They actually forced her to miss her connecting flight and demanded she change her top. The reason? Her politically salient pro-choice t-shirt was offensive to the flight crew.

That sign said: “If I wanted the government in my womb, I’d fuck a senator.”The t-shirt is the now-popularized version of a sign held by Oklahoma state senator Judy McIntyre (D) at a pro-choice rally in early March to protest Oklahoma’s so-called personhood law, which in conferring the rights of a living, breathing person on a fertilized egg denies all rights of personhood of women, full stop.

At the time of the rally, and asked about the sign, State Senator McIntyre “acknowledged that some in Oklahoma, which is overwhelmingly Christian, may find her sign’s language offensive, but she wasn’t much concerned about them.”

“I would hope they would have that same passion about how offensive it is for the Republican Party of Oklahoma to ramrod, because they have the votes to do so, bills that are offensive to women and take away the rights of women,” she reportedly said.

My colleague, O., of the same mind of many of us in believing that sign says it all, wore a t-shirt with the same message under her shawl and boarded an American Airlines flight home from our meeting.

So what happened? O. writes: 

[O]n the plane of the first leg of my flight home, I spent the majority of [time] sleeping, using my shawl as a blanket. Right before we were set to land the flight attendant from first class approaches me and asks if I had a connecting flight? We were running a bit behind schedule, so I figured I was being asked this to be sure I would make my connecting flight.  She then proceeded to tell me that I needed to speak with the captain before disembarking the plane and that the shirt I was wearing was offensive.

The shirt was gray with the wording, “If I wanted the government in my womb, I’d fuck a senator.” I must also mention that when I boarded the plane, I was one of the first groups to board (did not pass by many folks).  I was wearing my shawl just loosely around my neck and upon sitting down in my seat the lady next to me, who was already seated, praised me for wearing the shirt.

When I was leaving the plane the captain stepped off with me and told me I should not have been allowed to board the plane in DC and needed to change before boarding my next flight. This conversation led to me missing my connecting flight.  I assumed that because I was held up by the captain, they would have called ahead to let the connecting flight know I was in route.  Well, upon my hastened arrival at the gate of the connecting flight, it was discovered that they did indeed call ahead but not to hold the flight, only to tell them I needed to change my shirt. I was given a seat on the next flight and told to change shirts.

Due to the fact that my luggage was checked, changing shirts without spending money wasn’t an option. I consulted a friend with a law background who told me covering with my shawl would suffice. Upon boarding the now rescheduled flight with shawl covering my shirt, my ticket dinged invalid. I was pulled to the side while the gentleman entered some codes into the computer and then told, “it was all good.”  I did finally arrive home to pick up my daughter an hour and a half later than scheduled. 

So let’s review some facts. O. went through security and was stopped for additional screening, but not deemed a “security risk,” and no one at TSA made the slightest mention of her t-shirt. She boarded her first flight, and none of the airline personnel at the gate mentioned her t-shirt. She quietly took her seat, wrapped her shawl around herself, and went to sleep.

When her plane landed the flight attendant confronted her and said she had to speak to the captain. At no point did anyone say quietly, hey… could you keep that covered with your shawl? Could you turn it inside out? We have a policy….

Instead, after the plane landed the flight attendant brought her up front where the captain berated her publicly and made her miss her connecting flight. It turns out when she asked if anyone had complained the answer was: NO, Only the flight attendant!

The captain and flight attendant took it upon themselves to call ahead to the next gate and make them keep her off the next flight, causing her to miss it. Two American Airlines employees decided *after the fact* to make an issue of this of their own accord and, instead of asking discreetly if she could cover her shirt or turn it inside out, she was humiliated in front of other passengers by a captain out of control. Yes, in some way this obviously has to do with profanity, but where does that stop? Is she allowed to walk into Target? Is she allowed to go to CVS?  She was allowed to walk through the airport… If we women all over this country are being fucked over, and we can’t say that, where does that end?

No.. In this country, you see, fundamentalist right-wing male legislators in every state can take away your rights. They can deny you access to contraception, breast exams, Pap smears, and other primary preventive care. They can deny you access to safe emergency contraception and safe medication abortion. They can force any woman in need of a safe abortion to listen to lies about outcomes of the procedure long disproven by medical science and public health professionals. They can mandate that you to listen to religious dogma at crisis pregnancy centers, force you to look at an ultrasound or hear a heartbeat, make you wait 24-, 36-, 72-hours before you can get a safe, legal abortion, just because they feel like it, and just because they feel like it, they can raise the costs of that abortion — in terms of travel, childcare, medical expenses and time — to really shame you good. Moreover, they feel empowered to coerce you into procedures like trans-vaginal ultrasounds, which I maintain is a form of state-sponsored rape.

But protest these laws and the War on Women with a t-shirt that gets right to the point? Let people know the basis of all of it, the people that “want government out of our lives” want to place it directly into our bodies? In a country supposedly founded on freedom of speech and expression, in which protestors can stand outside clinics harassing and threatening women and doctors, and run through every public square with gory doctored photos? A country in which other protestors can stand outside the funerals of gay soldiers killed in duty and scream disgusting insults, and still have their rights protected? 

Oh, no. You can’t do that. You can’t take that message that your body is your own anywhere. Because in the United States today, that is like taking your burqha off under the Taliban. That is “offensive,” “insulting” and “not for public consumption.”

At least according to American Airlines, which apparently has not heard the term freedom of expression.

Let’s be clear: This is a woman who was not a security risk — she got through the gauntlet of DC airport security, which I assure everyone is easily the most rigorous of any in the country — and obviously was not considered a “risk” of any kind, because… she was not. She boarded her plane without incident and went to sleep. It was at the end of her flight that the flight crew decided she should not be able to board the next flight because her t-shirt was offensive. How is it okay for American Airlines to decide what she can wear on her t-shirt or not? I have been on flights with men wearing tatoos that demean women, and t-shirts that advocate violence against women, that demean women, that treat Obama with racist derision… What someone wears on their body is their business. Whether or not you would wear that t-shirt is not the point. It is not for American Airlines to decide what is politically okay or not.

In March, State Senator Judy Mcintyre told the Huffington Post:

“I was so excited about the fact that the women in Oklahoma have finally begun to wake up and fight for their rights. I saw a sea of signs that caught my eye, but this one in particular — I loved its offensive language, because it’s just as offensive for Republicans of Oklahoma to do what they’re doing as it relates to women’s bodies. I don’t apologize for it.”

We don’t apologize for fighting for the freedom of women. We don’t apologize for taking that war into streets, on sidewalks, into legislatures, into airplanes. We don’t apologize for protecting our rights and our bodies and those of every woman in this country.

While there are plenty of people in power right now that owe women of the United States an apology, American Airlines owes a huge — and public– apology to O. 

Tell them so.

A minute-long video played during the Cleveland Cavaliers’ playoff game against the Chicago Bulls last week started off in a cute, albeit corny, fashion: An apron-clad woman and a man wearing an “All In” Cleveland Cavaliers shirt begin to dance to “I’ve Had the Time of My Life,” mimicking the moves Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze made famous in Dirty Dancing, as a Cavs game plays on TV in the background.

Then, the woman removes her apron, revealing a Bulls shirt underneath. Her partner sees the shirt, gets upset, and throws her away from him and onto the floor. Looking over and down at her, he says with anger and disbelief, “Bulls fan? I didn’t know you were a Bulls fan.” She is lying on the ground, in obvious pain, grunting and grasping her arms. Over the image of her writhing on the ground, the words, “All In” appear, accompanied by a voiceover that warns, “When it’s playoff basketball time, you have to be all in. Don’t make the same mistake she made.”

The final shot is of her next to the man on the sofa, his arm wrapped around her shoulders as she holds an ice bag to her injured head. Her Bulls shirt is gone, replaced by one supporting the Cleveland Cavaliers. He looks at her and says, “I thought you were all in.” She replies, “Well, I’m all in now.” Gesturing to the screen with the hand not holding the ice, she says, “Let’s just watch the game.” The final image is a close up on the man’s satisfied face as he says, “Go Cavs.”

This video, which spread like wildfire across social media last week, was just the latest example of the way organizations continuously downplay the impact of domestic violence and rape culture. In turn, this betrays how little we as a society care for, or even think of, victims of interpersonal violence.

The video, a parody of a United Healthcare commercial in which a couple has a moment of miscommunication and a failed lift before ending up injured on the floor, was shown on the Cavaliers arena’s Humongotron: a “four-sided scoreboard,” according to the team’s media guide, that “is the largest center-hung screen in any arena in the country.” The screens are all high-definition, and “are tilted and uniquely curved to provide optimal viewing angles for all fans in the arena.” In other words, if you were in view of the Humongotron that night, you saw the video.

And that video, unmistakably, portrayed abuse: The woman acquiesces to her partner’s demands because he beat her up and intimidated her into it. The final image is the abuser smiling over his win.

After it was roundly condemned on Twitter and across the web, the Cavaliers released a statement the next day that read in part:

While the video was not intended to be offensive, it was a mistake to include content that made light of domestic violence. Domestic violence is a very serious matter and has no place in a parody video that plays in an entertainment venue. We sincerely apologize to those who have been affected by domestic violence for the obvious negative feelings caused by being exposed to this insensitive video.

But in order for this video to get made, someone had to think of the concept. The set had to be created, actors cast, parts learned. Visual had to be filmed, the entire thing had to be edited down, and graphics and voiceover had to be added. To say that it was simply a “mistake” is to downplay and nearly erase the amount of approval that had to happen for that video to get made. It did not “whoops!” into existence.

The people behind that video did not accidentally show abuse in its full form; if anything, they had too good an idea of what domestic violence looks like for it to be a mistake. It’s a near-perfect rendering of the cycle of abuse. That no one flagged this as a problem in a parody video played during an NBA game reflects how members of the public tell the story of abuse more often from the perspective of the abuser than the victims. This means many don’t see the violence present in media at all, and they most certainly don’t stop to consider the portrayal of or impact on victims.

When bad marketing and public relations incidents like this happen, many people ask, “How did all those people who OK-ed it along the way not say or do something to stop this? How did everyone miss this red flag?” We saw the questioning after the Cavs video aired. But there was even more of this commentary only a week earlier when a horrible Bud Light , titled “Up For Whatever,” led the company to put labels on its beer bottles that read, “The perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night. #UpForWhatever. The perfect beer for whatever happens.”

“No Means No” has been the most recognizable phrase associated with anti-sexual assault work for decades now, and so when people are trying to determine if a sexual assault occurred, one of the first and most frequent questions asked is, “Did you say ‘no’”? The implication there is that if you didn’t say “no,” then consent existed; this very problematic framing is why “yes means yes” campaigns are becoming more popular. In many cases, the victim and/or perpetrator being drunk complicates the understanding of boundaries and the presence or absence of consent. So for Bud Light to put on its labels that its beer will “remove ‘no’” from someone’s vocabulary in the midst of this longstanding, well-known cultural context was irresponsible, at the least. The criticism of the label was widespread; even a Fox News contributor referred to the label as “rapey.”

This reactive questioning seems useless in the long run, though, given that victims or people advocating for them apparently have to be the ones to speak up in order to even force the questions. The change needs to happen on the front end before any of these messages make it to the public. Otherwise we will remain in this same cycle.

On the May 3 episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver suggested a reason for how those words ended up on the Bud Light bottle, despite going through five levels of approval. Each of those levels, his joke went, consisted of a white dudebro wearing a polo shirt (some with their collar popped) who looked like he just stepped out of a fraternity house, saying “Yeah boy!” or giving the idea the thumbs-up.

The bit worked so well because that is what most of us imagine the process is actually like: A bunch of men without a concern for anyone but other men, who have an idea of rape culture but just don’t care about participating in it. We are right to imagine this, too, given that only 3 percent of all creative directors are women. We also come by our belief because companies and organizations continually fail on this topic; Bud Light had just taken heat for encouraging sexual assault with its Up For Whatever campaign in March, when it tweeted on St. Patrick’s Day that it was okay to pinch someone who was not “#UpForWhatever.”

This could be an unfair assessment, though. Women do make up 60 percent of the public relations workforce, though men dominate the top-level positions in that field. Compared to other professional sports, the NBA does the best overall job of including women within the organization and on teams; it’s a low bar, but they still jump over it. In the end, the problem, as it is, is systemic, which means no one is immune from participating in the myriad ways we sanitize and excuse violence.

We, as a culture, approach issues of interpersonal, domestic, and sexual violence most often from the perspective of the perpetrator. No one who created that Bud Light label or that Cavs video was thinking about the people against whom violence is done. The Cavaliers noted in their statement that they made light of domestic violence and that in doing so, caused “obvious negative feelings” for people who have been affected by domestic violence. Like the Cavs, Bud Light pulled the label in response to the criticism and issued a statement saying its “message missed the mark, and we regret it. We would never condone disrespectful or irresponsible behavior.” Except, well, it did do just that. And based on what we know about beer companies and their marketing campaigns, it’ll probably do it again.

Here’s the huge breakdown in these marketing and public relations failures: No one cares about the victims. That is why, when cases of violence arise, we are obsessed with determining whether it happened at all—as a society, we err on the side of believing the victim to be lying rather than someone to be an abuser. This is why media outlets write sympathetic stories about abusers, even when their violence is horrific. It is also why there is always inevitably a push to move on, move forward, move past the violence as soon as given the chance to do so.

And we live in a society that does not need even one more reason to remind abusers that we don’t care about their violence and that we don’t see their victims. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey from 2010, “More than 1 in 3 women (35.6%) and more than 1 in 4 men (28.5%) in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.” The 2013 National Census of Domestic Violence Services says that in a single day, domestic violence programs in the United States provided services to nearly 67,000 people, and that “local and state hotlines answered 20,267 calls and the National Domestic Violence Hotline answered 550 calls, averaging more than 14 hotline calls every minute.” The National Domestic Violence Hotline states that “On average, 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States—more than 12 million women and men over the course of a year.”

In a perfect world where our society took this kind of violence seriously and actively worked to dismantle the cultural structures that prop it up, there would be few victims. That is the ideal. Outside of that pipe dream, here’s a simpler one: It would be nice if there was always someone in the room to remind everyone that a victim of the violence they are portraying will undoubtedly witness their product, and their interpretation should be considered.

That this does not happen is not just a sports problem (though it is that, too, but only in the way that sports are a microcosm reflecting ourselves back at us). This is a problem with a culture that does not care about victims and that tolerates—even sanctions and encourages—abuse. We are a culture who privileges the perspective of abusers. That is most evident in moments like these, when we find ourselves asking, “How did so many people approve this ad, this label, or this video?”

The night the Cavs showed the video in the arena, statistics tell us that the odds were high that a woman was sitting next to her abuser, their shoulders or knees probably touching. We can imagine her turning her eyes to the Humongotron upon hearing the first bars of “I’ve Had The Time of My Life.” Then she would have seen a scene unfold onscreen that probably would have caused her back to stiffen, shifting away from her partner as she recognized too well the dynamic she was seeing. And then she would have had to watch and listen to the people around her laugh and perhaps even cheer the satisfied smirk of the man at the end of the video as he said, “Go Cavs.”

Then she might have looked over at her partner, her abuser, and seen him, a dedicated Cavaliers fan, enjoying that video. He, too would have recognized the dynamic—but for him, the message he received would have been “Yeah boy!,” with a double thumbs-up from the Cavs. Neither one would have thought they were looking at a “mistake.”

2013 not only saw a number of pro-choice successes but also countless hard-working activists and allies who, against tremendous odds, put in time and energy to advance reproductive rights and health and ensure the safety of women and girls of all backgrounds. We salute these heroes for all that they do each and every day to make certain that women and their families have the resources they need to live happy, healthy lives. Here is a far from comprehensive list of some of those brave women and men.

Legislators Who Walk the Talk

Nina Turner: Turner is not just a courageous pro-choice lawmaker running for Ohio secretary of state—she’s also hilarious. She wore a t-shirt suggesting “GOP” should really stand for “Get Out of My Panties” when her conservative colleagues were fighting for extreme restrictions on abortion. And she’s introduced some amazing taste-of-their-own-medicine bills that use absurdist role reversal to expose right-wing hypocrisy. Ohio lawmakers think welfare recipients need to be drug-tested before they get taxpayers’ money? Well, then so should Ohio lawmakers. Legislators concern-trolling about how women seeking abortions don’t know what’s good for them? Good point, says Turner—taking Viagra is a serious reproductive decision too (priapism is no joke!), so we should require “informed consent,” including psychological testing, for the men who want the drug. Just to, y’know, make sure they know all their options (celibacy included!). Bravo, Nina. —Emily Crockett

Leticia Van de Putte: “At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over her male colleagues?” Texas state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte’s pointed question to Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, asked in the final minutes of Sen. Wendy Davis’ 13-hour filibuster against Texas’ omnibus abortion bill, sent the reproductive rights supporters who were packed into the state senate gallery into an uproar. Anti-choice legislators were unable to hear each other to take a vote, and the bill died at midnight. It has become Van de Putte’s most publicized moment from a hard-fought summer at the state capitol, but the senator—a pharmacist by profession—has a long record of standing up for reproductive rights, and this winter announced a bid for Dewhurst’s office, showing that she’s nowhere close to backing down. —Andrea Grimes

Wendy Davis: State Sen. Wendy Davis’ epic 13-hour filibuster against Texas’ omnibus anti-abortion bill shot her into the national political spotlight this summer, as she forced Republican Gov. Rick Perry to call a third special legislative session in order to force an unprecedented package of abortion restrictions into law. A self-made woman who went from single mom to Harvard Law grad to legislator, Davis has invigorated the state’s Democratic party in her bid for the governorship. —Andrea Grimes

Kirsten Gillibrand: If forced to describe U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in a single word, “persistent” might be the first to come to mind. In 2013, the pro-choice lawmaker put her legendary tenacity in the service of survivors of rape and sexual assault in the military, specifically those who suffered at the hands of the comrades in arms. Amid a torrent of news reports highlighting sexual crimes conducted against service members, often by fellow members of higher rank, leaders of each branch of the armed forces, together with the joint chiefs of staff, found themselves facing a withering barrage of questions from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in June, just after the Pentagon released its latest yearly estimate of “unwanted sexual contact” experienced by those serving in the military: 26,000. In the face of opposition from Pentagon brass and committee leaders, Gillibrand put forward a measure that would remove the adjudication of sexual assault and other serious crimes from the chain of command, which she says would create a more just process for those bringing charges, which would also put other predators on notice. When Committee Chairman Carl Levin declined to include the measure in his mark-up of the annual defense authorization, Gillibrand, undeterred, continued to buttonhole colleagues so she could add it as an amendment in a floor vote. Pundits posited that she would never get the number of supporters she’d need to win a vote, and then she did—even winning over such unlikely Republican allies as Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY). When an unrelated procedural skirmish between Republicans and Democrats prevented that vote, Gillibrand began pushing for a stand-alone vote on her Military Justice Improvement Act, which, according to sources, will likely take place when Congress returns after the holiday recess. Regardless of the outcome, Gillibrand succeeded in keeping a light on the issue, bringing the stories of survivors into public view—and showing her prowess in outmaneuvering some very powerful men. —Adele Stan

Gretchen Whitmer: When Michigan Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer spoke on the floor against the state’s newly passed “rape insurance” bill, she didn’t know she was going to end up sharing her deeply personal story about being raped 20 years ago. But she says she looked at her colleagues, who had never had a committee hearing on the bill or heard from women or doctors, and knew that “they never thought for a second who this was going to impact.” Her voice shaking with emotion, she told her fellow legislators, “I think you need to see the face of the women you are impacting by this vote today.” No one supporting the bill acknowledged her in their remarks, and the measure passed, banning insurance coverage of abortion and forcing women to buy a separate rider for it even if they are raped. But Whitmer’s courage is an inspiration to women in Michigan and across the country whose voices are silenced in these debates. —Emily Crockett

Advocates Who Never Give Up

Tanya Fields: Food justice activist Tanya Fields is committed to improving the lives not just of her children but of her entire community in the Bronx. She launched her own event on the local food movement after she was disinvited from a TEDxManhattan event called “Changing The Way We Eat” (and then later re-invited) earlier this year. Her work at the BLK Projek and her role speaking “for women who feel like they don’t necessarily have a voice” is critical, especially as it relates to creating “economic development opportunities for marginalized women and youth.” In a recent interview with Rewire, Fields spoke candidly about how when “we talk about reproductive rights and reproductive justice … we don’t talk about the right of a woman to carry her baby to full term and to receive the types of things that she would need to have a successful birth.” Fields reminds us that it’s long past time we start talking about the women who do not feel like they have a choice, and how we can help them. —Regina Mahone

Tiana Parker: The constant policing of the bodies of girls and women of color makes it tough for some to stand up for who they are. Parker was sent home from her Tulsa, Oklahoma, school earlier this year because of her dreadlocks. Her bravery, and the support of her family to speak out about the right to be yourself and that Black natural hair is beautiful, is an inspiring message for all of us. —Wagatwe Wanjuki

Rev. William Barber II: It wasn’t long after a new class of lawmakers took their seats in the North Carolina legislature this year that a barrage of harmful legislation began to rain down on citizens. Voting rights rolled back, unemployment benefits curtailed, health-care expansion halted, education underfunded, and reproductive rights impeded. The Tea Party-allied majority even repealed the state’s Racial Justice Act. In response to these attacks on ordinary North Carolinians, Rev. William Barber, president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), forged an extraordinary coalition of activists who staged weekly protests at the state capitol building in Raleigh, under the name, “Moral Mondays.” In April, at the start of the protests—at which people would commit civil disobedience by unlawfully entering the capitol building—several hundred people turned out. By July, when the legislature sneaked anti-abortion measures into a bill regulating motorcycle safety, the numbers of protesters were in the thousands. (Protests are set to resume with a major rally on February 8.) Interviewed by Peter Dreier of Moyers & Co., Barber said of his opponents: “The one thing they don’t want to see is us crossing over racial lines and class lines and gender lines and labor lines. When this coalition comes together, you’re going to see a New South.” —Adele Stan

Janet Colm: Colm, who has led a major North Carolina Planned Parenthood office in Chapel Hill for some 30 years, thought long and hard before she decided to get herself arrested as part of the Moral Mondays protests in July. Although she had attended earlier protests, she told the Raleigh News & Observer, it was the legislature’s sneaky passage, in the motorcycle bill, of measures to impede women’s access to abortion that put her “over the edge.” And so it was that Colm, who heretofore couldn’t bear to break a parking rule, according to the Observer, found herself in handcuffs, wearing a pink t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Women Are Watching.” —Adele Stan

Madison Kimrey: While we’re cheering on Moral Mondays activists, 12-year-old Madison Kimrey earned a shout-out for a speech she gave in October at one of the protest rallies, at which she slammed Gov. Pat McCrory for his roll-back of voting rights, including the end of pre-registration for teenagers, a mechanism that allowed young people to submit a registration form before their 18th birthday, so that their registration would be automatic once they reached voting age. According to Ashley Alman of the Huffington Post, Kimrey said that when she asked the governor to meet with her, he called her “a prop for liberal groups.” “I am not a prop,” Kimrey said in her speech. “I am part of the new generation of suffragists, and I will not stand silent while laws are passed to reduce the amount of voter turnout by young people in my home state.” —Adele Stan

Julie Burkhart: Burkhart knows anti-choice extremism first hand. Based in Wichita, Kansas, Burkhart worked at the Wichita Women’s Center, a reproductive health-care clinic heavily targeted by Operation Rescue during their 1991 Summer of Mercy clinic siege. Burkhart later worked closely with the late Dr. George Tiller, serving as his clinic’s spokesperson from 2002 to 2006. As executive director of Trust Women, Burkhart has re-opened a clinic in the same space where Tiller’s was located, staring down threats of violence and intimidation by anti-choice extremists in the process. Undeterred, Burkhart and her team at the South Wind Women’s Clinic make sure those who need comprehensive reproductive health care in Wichita and the surrounding area have access to it. —Jessica Mason Pieklo

Malala Yousafzai: After surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban, Pakistani teenager Yousafzai continues to speak out for equality and education for women and girls. In so doing, she is advancing practical change and inspiring others to do the same. Let’s be real: She should have won the Nobel Peace Prize this year. —Erin Matson

Raquel Batista: While she didn’t win her race for New York City Council, Batista campaigned as a pregnant woman and then a new mom—showing women and girls around the nation that we should believe anything is possible, even when we have a baby bump. She responded to sexism and scorn by working harder to secure elected office to advance a whole range of progressive issues. Thank you, Raquel, for your commitment to breaking barriers! —Erin Matson

Mikki Kendall: Last summer, Kendall started the #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen hashtag on Twitter to spur discussion “between people impacted by the latest bout of problematic behavior from mainstream white feminists.” Her work has spawned a number of offshoots that were created to support a wide range of communities. Kendall not only encouraged a critical discussion about intersectionality in the feminist movement, she also paved the way for other activists looking to Twitter to find a voice. —Regina Mahone

Melissa Harris-Perry: Last year, Marissa Alexander, a Black mother of three, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot during a disagreement with her abusive husband. In contrast, in July of this year George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder charges in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin—raising questions about who “stand your ground” laws are most applicable to. During Thanksgiving week last month—when Alexander was released from jail and placed under house arrest, where she will remain until early spring of next year, when her new trial is set to begin—MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry read an open letter to Florida State Attorney Angela Corey, who has been accused of overcharging in the Alexander case. A stalwart supporter of women’s rights, Harris-Perry used her program to call attention to the failure of the justice system to protect victims of intimate partner violence. This represents just one of the many times Harris-Perry has given a voice to women and girls who are too often treated like they don’t matter. —Regina Mahone

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear: Beshear has become an unlikely health-care hero. As the only governor of a Southern state to both expand Medicaid and set up a state health insurance exchange, the Democrat is showing the rest of the region that the Affordable Care Act can not only work, but is necessary for many Americans. Because Beshear wasn’t OK with one in six Kentucky residents being uninsured, he went over the heads of the Republican-controlled state senate to do something about it. Beshear has been persistent and eloquent in his defense of health care as both a moral and economic issue. —Emily Crockett

Doctors (and Support Staff) We Love

Amy Hagstrom Miller speaks on Maddow.

Amy Hagstrom Miller: The dedicated and fearless CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, a group of comprehensive reproductive health providers in Texas, the Midwest, and the East Coast, Hagstrom Miller has become one of the country’s most powerful voices for reproductive rights. Based in Austin, Hagstrom Miller is fighting on the front lines of the battle for reproductive freedom, ensuring that her clinics’ patients get safe, compassionate abortion care, despite heavy opposition from anti-choice legislators. —Andrea Grimes

Tammi Kromenaker: Despite the radical and unconstitutional anti-choice legislation being passed in her state, Kromenaker has stood up for women’s reproductive rights in North Dakota. As the only abortion provider, Kromenaker has faced a Republican legislature and that has targeted her clinic with laws designed to end safe and legal abortion in the state. —Teddy Wilson

Leroy Carhart: Carhart’s name is on landmark abortion-related federal court cases, but his work is very much on the ground. This year, the documentary After Tiller followed the day-to-day lives of the only four providers in the country who openly provide third-trimester abortions, one of whom is Dr. Carhart. He has put his life at risk to continue providing later procedures, traveling across the country to do so, despite threats of violence from anti-choice zealots who would rather see him dead than providing safe, legal abortion care. —Andrea Grimes

Shelley Sella (left) and Susan Robinson.

Shelley Sella and Susan Robinson: Robinson and Sella worked alongside the late Dr. Tiller providing later abortion services for women in Wichita before Tiller’s 2009 murder. Two of the other subjects in After Tiller, the women have continued the work that is Tiller’s legacy, moving to Albuquerque—a city that recently went through a tough battle over a proposed 20-week abortion ban—to work at Southwestern Women’s Options along side Dr. Curtis Boyd. —Teddy Wilson

Willie Parker: An abortion provider from Chicago who regularly travels hundreds of miles throughout the country to provide abortions in communities where access is limited, Parker is also a dedicated reproductive rights activist. This summer, the advocacy group Physicians for Reproductive Health awarded Parker the George Tiller, MD award for his work providing abortions in under-served areas and for “demonstrating leadership and courage.” Parker’s research work has focused on male responsibility in family planning. —Sofia Resnick

Clinic escorts everywhere: It’s absurd that a woman seeking legal medical care—including abortion, family planning advice, and routine gynecological checkups—is often subject to harassment from folks outside a clinic. In this respect, clinic escorts are the caped crusaders, or at least brightly vested volunteers, of the abortion rights movement. They provide calm respite and, at times, physical blockades between patients trying to do what’s best for themselves and rude people (sometimes terrorists) who think they should be in control. They do this in extreme heat and extreme cold. Brava, escorts! —Erin Matson

Clinic staffers everywhere: Every day, doctors, nurses, intake counselors, receptionists, and a variety of office and medical support staff make the fundamental right to self-determination a reality for women seeking abortions. Clinic staffers do this under the threat of violence and, often, the shadow of relentless “pro-life” harassment, screaming, and worse right outside their doors. In providing compassion and care to women with unsustainable or unwanted pregnancies, they are heroes. Safe, accessible abortion saves women’s lives, and it is clinic staffers who make it all possible. —Erin Matson

Groups Fighting for Our Rights

Young Women United, Strong Families New Mexico, and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health: Young Women United, Strong Families New Mexico, and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health were the driving forces behind protecting reproductive rights in Albuquerque after anti-choice activists attempted to pass a city-wide ban on abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation. Their grassroots efforts organized opponents of the ban, and ensured that reproductive health-care decisions remained with women, their families, and their doctors. —Teddy Wilson

Oct 5th immigration reform event in Brownsville, Texas.

Immigration advocates: This year, thousands of DREAMers and immigrant advocates across the country protested, fasted, and got arrested in the name of passing just, comprehensive immigration reform. While Republicans in both Washington, D.C., and statehouses attacked Medicaid spending, decimated family planning funding, and demonized immigrant workers, organizations like the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health fought back, demanding “salud, dignidad, y justicia”—health, dignity, and justice—for immigrant women, and bringing to the forefront some of the most important reproductive justice work happening today. —Jessica Mason Pieklo

Immigration reform protestors being arrested at the nation’s Capitol in Washington, D.C. on October 8, 2013.

The “Orange Army”: When anti-choice Texas legislators pulled a bait-and-switch, proposing an omnibus anti-abortion law after promising no new abortion restrictions in 2013, Texans turned up by the thousands at the state capitol to oppose the unnecessary and restrictive regulations. Clad in orange, ordinary citizens organized a “people’s filibuster,” giving state Sen. Wendy Davis the time she needed to pull off her 13-hour filibuster. They drove in from the Rio Grande Valley, from El Paso and Dallas and East Texas, taking time off work and with kids in tow, packing the state senate and house galleries, cheering through the night to block HB 2. And when the bill passed anyway, after a last-ditch effort from Gov. Rick Perry and his allies, 19,000 of them continued to press state bureaucrats to mitigate the damage done by the new law. They are legion, and they are relentless. —Andrea Grimes