Author: Noelle Swan
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The Grand Champ of Women's Boxing: A Massachusetts fighter opens the door to first-ever women's Olympic boxing
Noelle Swan Spare Change News NORTH ADAMS, MASS. — In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court’s first woman justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, was still a newbie. Astronaut Sally Ride had just become the first woman in space. And Gail “The Champ” Grandchamp wanted into the Olympic boxing ring. She wanted it with all the ferocious energy […]
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Mass. Unemployment Up 6.1%
By Matt Murphy STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, AUG. 16, 2012….Massachusetts employers added 1,600 jobs in July, but the state’s unemployment rate ticked up slightly for the first time in three years to 6.1 percent, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released by the Patrick administration Thursday morning. A previously reported 2,600 […]
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Testing, Testing…HIV: Taking the Stigma Out of AIDS Testing
Noelle Swan Spare Change News “College-educated black women who live in the suburbs and date lawyers don’t get HIV and AIDS. This just doesn’t apply to you,” Kimberly Wilson remembers her doctor saying back in 2004. That was the first time she asked her physician for an HIV-test. Four years, seven bouts of shingles and […]
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Women On The Rise: Cambridge Organization Forges Personal Relationships within the Growing Female Homeless Community
Zachary Goldhammer Spare Change News On The Rise, the name of the Cambridge women’s day shelter located at 341 Broadway in Cambridge, has recently taken on a new meaning. The phrase not only represents the ideological aims of the program—to rehabilitate women who have been left on the streets—but also an unfortunate reality: the number […]
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The Rise of Women’s Boxing: From Local Gym to Olympic Arena
Noelle Swan Spare Change News No sooner had the bell rung than Jamie Jacobsen’s fist connected with my nose. Instantly, my eyes welled up with water and a cold chill set in all over my body. By the second round, my nose had swelled up beyond utility, leaving me struggling to learn how to breathe […]
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Transgender Equal Rights Law Shows Promising Start: New laws, while flawed, pave new ways for transgender rights
Noelle Swan Spare Change News Kim McMurray began her medical transition from male to female at 49 years old. “If I had done this in my early teens, there’s a good chance I’d have ended up in a psychiatric ward and shock therapy wasn’t uncommon then.” She waited half a century to live as her […]
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Mass. GLBT Teens Still Face Disproportionate Risks in Public Schools
Noelle Swan Spare Change News Through tears, Roger Bourgeois described an evening when his high school-age son sat him and his wife down at the kitchen table to tell them why their life would be better if he were dead because he was broken. As they tried to assure him that things would get better […]
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Workin' For a Living: A Tale of Four Spare Change News Vendors
By Noelle Swan SPARE CHANGE NEWS Like so many others, Atiqa Mallah came to America looking for opportunity. Life in Morocco was hard, she says. Both her parents died when she was young, leaving Mallah and her siblings to care for each other. When she had a child of her own, she wanted to create […]
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Women's Commission Presses for Equal Pay/ Sick Day Bills
By Colleen Quinn STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JUNE 13, 2012….Women across the state face an frightening rate of poverty as they age because many work lower-paying or part-time jobs that leave them without pensions and retirement savings, according to the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women. Commission members gathered for their […]
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Back in the Closet: “Gen Silent” Explores Challenges Facing Gay Seniors
Noelle Swan Spare Change News “Long ago we decided, to hell with hiding,” Sheri Barden told a small group gathered at the Fenway Community Health Center last month for a screening of the documentary film Gen Silent directed and produced by Stu Maddox. The 78 year-old South End framer and her partner, Lois Johnson, have […]