Healing for the Women of Afghanistan
Thanks to Gerardine Luongo for this guest post about what powered women can do for our sisters.
For almost three decades Afghan women were hidden under burquas and in homes they could not leave without a male escort. The impact of this oppression is evidenced by the horrifyingly high maternal and infant death rates among Afghan women. Indeed, each day 44 Afghan women will die giving birth.
During the rule of the Taliban (1996 – 2001), women were treated worse than in any other time or by any other society. They were forbidden to work, leave the house without a male escort, not allowed to seek medical help from a male doctor and not allowed to practice medicine! Women who were emerging leaders of their nation –doctors, teachers, lawyers were forced into horrific conditions.
But despite many gains in Afghanistan, women continue to lag behind their male peers in health and education status. Today, less than 20% of girls attend school regularly, 1-in-8 women die giving birth, child-brides and the sale of women into marriage are still common, victims of rape are stoned for shaming the family and no Afghan court will condemn an Afghan man for domestic violence. We have only to imagine what will be the impact on women’s health of spending five or more years literally without sunlight and natural vitamin D.
Read MoreNew Facebook Page Tells Cheney to Shut Up–but Why?
There’s a new Facebook page that just went up yesterday and already has over 54,000 fans. The name of it is “Telling Dick Cheney to Shut the Hell Up”. Probably the people (they refer to “we” but don’t tell us who they are) who started it really wanted to use the f-word, but restrained themselves.
Personally, I hope Cheney keeps talking. Every time he opens his mouth, he digs himself and his party further and further into their already deep and murky hole. As one commenter on the fan page observed ironically, Cheney seems to think, “Maybe if I just keep repeating the same lie, it will suddenly become true.”
Well, that strategy surely worked for most of the long and treacherous (in all senses of the word) Bush II administration. So it’s not crazy of Cheney to think it will continue to work. But fortunately it won’t. The American people have at last awakened.
So let the man keep talking. Because it’ll help us stay awake so that the snarling, angry, power-mad Cheney and his ruthless right-wing ilk won’t be able to once again snag the reins of power.
Have a good Memorial Day Weekend.
Read MoreLeading From Gender to Agenda
My last post was about how leaders put their purses where their principles are; this second of leadership expert Anne Doyle’s regular guest posts on Heartfeldt Politics illustrates how she is putting her principles where her politics are. I am so excited that three women I admire and respect greatly have thrown their hats into the political ring in the last two weeks. I sense a big change just in the year since I started researching this Elle article which found women don’t run for a variety of reasons. What motivated Anne? Here’s her story:
I’ve been politically active for decades. Have worked hard for candidates I believed in. Gave as much money as my budget could bear. Dialed at least a thousand phone calls. Knocked on doors. Served as precinct captain. Even turned my house into a bustling, “get-out-the-vote headquarters” on election day. And I’ve been on the “we need more women in political office” bandwagon for at least a decade.
The one thing I haven’t done is stick my neck out and run for office myself. Until now. I’ve just pulled my petitions and started to gather signatures to get my name on the ballot this November for City Council in Auburn Hills, a rapidly changing, once rural, community 30 minutes north of Detroit, Michigan.
Read MoreLegalized Neglect of Children at Risk
Rinku Sen is president of the Applied Research Center and Publisher of ColorLines Magazine. I found this guest post she wrote very compelling, for it is so often the voices of children most in need that are least heard by our policy makers. But there is something we can do about it. Read on…
As our state legislatures struggle with impending budget deficits, American families are going to be presented with a bunch of terrible “choices.” Do we want less healthcare or affordable housing? Fewer teachers or trash collectors? Childcare policy has gotten very little attention, but devoting resources to ensuring the safety and early education of kids in subsidize day care needs to go to the top of our agenda. As we see in this video and in our new report at the Applied Research Center, “Underprotected, Undersupported,” state childcare policy too often constitutes “Legalized Neglect” of the low-income children, as always disproportionately of color, who deserve so much better.
A handful of leading childcare advocates have pointed out the recession’s devastating impact on the childcare industry and parents’ ability to pay for childcare. We need federal and state governments to provide more support to low-income families as we shift “from a culture of greed to a culture of care” in the United States which ranks 18th out of 25 other developed nations on early childhood education according to Save the Children’s 2009 State of the World’s Mothers Report.
But our childcare licensing and inspection systems also need a major overhaul if we’re going to do more than just warehouse kids. In fourteen states, for example, you essentially don’t need a full license to operate a childcare center. Requirements vary, but policies and practices in these states often allow significant exemptions to their childcare standards and regulations – including child-staff ratios and even basic health and safety standards like criminal background checks and regular inspections. In the case of Alabama, deregulation of childcare centers removed the expectation of any inspections at all. While some unlicensed centers that we visited were of excellent quality, concern is growing about the small storefront centers exploiting the state’s “faith-based” exemption to avoid basic standards and inspections while simultaneously benefiting from state subsidies for “caring” for low-income kids. Call yourself a church, and avoid the cost of proper licensing.
Read MoreHeads We Win, Tails They Lose: Why Obama’s Plea for Civility on Abortion Helps Pro-choice
Early this morning my daughter called to ask me what I thought about President Barack Obama’s comments about abortion yesterday in his commencement address at Notre Dame. She worried he’d been too soft and that by not stating his moral support for reproductive rights had instead signaled that he would not stand firm on policy related to abortion. Take a look at what he said and tell me what you think:
I replied to her that it was as good as we’d get from Obama, who clearly wants everyone to get along and doesn’t like confrontation. I wish he’d wax as eloquently about sexism and women’s human rights as he did about racism during his campaign. The controversy about race ignited by statements Obama’s minister made had threatened to be as divisive as the one he confronted at the Catholic university, and he used the first occasion to teach about race as well as to “tamp down the anger” as he has said he wants to do with regard to abortion. The disappointment for me was that he failed to elevate women’s reproductive self-determination to a similar moral high ground.
Read MorePutting Your Purse Where Your Principles Are
Swanee Hunt sings the Mother Goose ditty, “The king was in the counting house counting out his money; the queen was in the parlor eating bread and honey,” to describe the gendered roles about money she learned at the knee of her Texas oil magnate father. Her sister, Helen LaKelly Hunt, talks about how her father brought her husband into his business because in the 1950’s it never occurred to him to hire his daughters.
How they went from that beginning to seed and lead the Women Moving Millions campaign which has thus far raised $176 million in $1 million+ gifts for women’s funds and organizations across the country reflects a journey often taken by women of wealth who want to use their money for worthy purposes. Indeed, while well-heeled men often go into politics or start businesses, women are more likely to start social movements or fund charities.
Read MoreSens. Boxer and Snowe Ask Obama for Woman Justice
Senator Barbara Boxer talks about their letter to the president and makes the compelling case in this video.
Read MoreHave You Ever Been in Helpless Patient Mode?
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This post by Michelle Robson, the founder of the awesome women’s health website EmpowHer.com, is the second in a series of National Women’s Health Week guest posts. Michelle founded EmpowHer after experiencing her own horror story with the health care system. The site she created is dedicated to helping women improve their health and well-being. They provide up-to-date medical information, access to leading medical experts and advocates, and a devoted community of women who ask questions, share stories, and connect with one another in a safe and supportive environment.
In this article, Michelle describes a situation that each of us has probably found ourselves in at one time or another: what she calls “helpless patient mode.” Sound familiar? Read on…share your story if you’re so moved…and be sure to check out EmpowHer.com.
I really believe that women tend to go to a certain state of mind when they’re patients and relying on a doctor’s care. It’s called “helpless patient mode.” Ironically, when we have a sick child, spouse or other loved one, we can be a doctor’s biggest nightmare. We’re brilliant and strong when advocating for a loved one. A mother will do an inordinate amount of research and will carefully question the pediatrician when her child is ill. But when she is ill, it’s another story altogether. Women tend to do what their doctors tell them to do. We don’t listen to ourselves, to our guts. We simply want that doctor to fix us, give us that magic pill, and quick, so we can go about doing all the millions of things we do to take care of other people.
I admit that I’m totally guilty of this. Big-time. In fact, my hysterectomy may not have even happened if I hadn’t succombed to the all-too-easy “helpless patient mode.” I may have chosen another option if I’d been aware of the other options and hadn’t relied so completely on what I was told was my only option.
Read MoreWas Wooly Bully a Woman?
The recent New York Times article entitled “Backlash: Women Bullying Women” instantly reminded me of the 1960’s song, “Wooly Bully”*. Its logic was garbled and its presentation just plain silly, but it was nevertheless so entertainingly in tune with the culture of the day that it became a big hit.
Though the piece began by acknowledging that men are the majority (60%!) of workplace bulliers, that fact was quickly dismissed. Why wasn’t it the headline? Because it’s so obvious. It’s not a “man bites dog” story.
Instead, the reporter zeroed in on the finding that of women who do bully, 70% choose other women as their targets. Then the article proceeded to analyze this through the lens of a recurring cultural narrative, far too often embraced by even the New York Times despite evidence to the contrary, that women can’t get along, that women don’t support other women, that women are their own worst enemies when it comes to fostering workplace advancement.
Read MoreBidding Adieu to Bud Shrake
Journalist and author Bud Shrake died yesterday. He was a Texas archetype with my home state’s uniquely expansive sense of humor and political history, as you’ll see in this clip from an interview he did recently with Texas Monthly president and editor-in-chief, Evan Smith. Note the connection with Jack Ruby, who shot JFK’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
Larry McMurtry, probably my favorite Texas writer, rated Shrake “an intriguing talent, far superior to his drinking buddies,” the latter clause of which might have been the ultimate compliment. He’ll be laid to rest next to the late Gov. Ann Richards who often said theirs was the best relationship she ever had.
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