EVE Says: Put Amelia Earhart back in the skies!
One of the most exciting new efforts to achieve gender parity is called “EVE: Equal Representation Everywhere.” If you can only be that which you can see, then girls need to be able to see as many women in leadershsip roles as men. And that includes in statuary, on stamps. and everywhere else that we give recognition to people who have made significant accomplishments.
Right now EVE is looking at making sure women are represented in parade balloons such as will be wafting above July 4th parades all around the country. Here’s how you can help:
Join EVE’s 99 Club to help fund the new Amelia Earhart balloon!
We need 99 donors to give $99 each. Visit our secure online donation page to contribute today — and put Amelia Earhart back in the skies!
Health Care Reform Will Help Everybody
Many Americans assume the new health care reform act will benefit mostly the poor and uninsured and hurt everyone else, according to polls. As Matt Yglesias wrote, “Basically, people see this as a bill that will take resources from people who have health insurance and give it to people who don’t have health insurance.” Those who still oppose the reform say that people ought to pay for their own health care.
Read MoreWill Kagan Pursue a “Liberal” Agenda?
The attempts to frame Elena Kagan pre-emptively as a wild-eyed, party-line liberal, socialist even, and quite possibly a lesbian who “looks like she belongs in a Kosher deli” (wink, wink, you vestigial anti-Semites), started long before President Obama uttered her name as his second pick for the Supreme Court.
On day three of the confirmation hearings, in which Judiciary committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) plans to conclude the ritual grilling of the fourth woman ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, no one on either side of the aisle seems to imagine a scenario in which she won’t be confirmed.
Read MoreHow an Insult Led to Title IX Law Giving Girls Equal Education Access
I’m a day late recognizing the 38th anniversary of Title IX.
But it’s never too late to give a big shout out to Bernice Sandler, the woman responsible for initiating the law that for almost four decades now–long enough to see significant benefits to girls and the women they become–from removing barriers to access to equity in school sports and educational opportunities that used to be denied to females based solely on gender.
Read MoreFeminism in Second Life–and Its Challenges in the 21st Century Real Life
Listen on Blogtalk radio to the lively multi-generational conversation that took place last night on Second Life–and please share your comments–I’d love to hear how you would answer the questions that we were asked.
The panelists are journalist and author Lynn Harris, youth activist Shelby Knox, and myself talking with host Jay Ackroyd.
Why Everyone Should Celebrate Juneteenth
I recall Juneteenth being widely observed by the local African American community when I was a little girl in Texas. There were barbecues, church services, and speeches, along with a general air of celebration. Today is the 145th anniversary of Juneteenth–June 19, 1865–the date when the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring the end of slavery, finally reached Texas 2 1/2 years late:
“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer.”
President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation in September, 1862, with an effective date of January 1, 1863. There are several versions of why the news traveled so slowly to Texas, a Confederate state, none of them particularly pretty, most having to do with foot dragging shenanigans and entrenched resistance to ending slavery, at least until another cotton picking season had finished.
Read MoreWhat’s the Best Language: Choice, Freedom, Human Rights, or???
after 35 years, I’m tired of arguing about what is the most persuasive language to bring the most people into what we have for some decades now been referring to as the pro-choice fold. And frankly, I have moved on–or outward, as I prefer to say–to the bigger canvas of women’s equality and power, not just between the navel and the knees but also in politics, at work, and at home.
However, thanks to the perpetual obsession about women and sex by those who want to outlaw abortion, I find myself drawn in once more to the fray over the rhetoric of–well, whatever you want to call it. Historian Nancy L. Cohen started the latest public discussion of the terminology in her Los Angeles Times op ed proposing that we switch from “choice” to “freedom.”
Read MoreToo Cute for Words–Just Watch This Powered Girl
The adorable Jessica and her affirmations are making her way around the web, but i couldn’t resist sharing the video here. Also check out this link to Jessica’s Monday Affirmations on Feministing.com where they have the transcript–just in case you don’t catch every upbeat word she is saying. Enjoy!
Read MoreJK Rowling Talks About the Benefits of Failure
If we haven’t failed at something by the time you reach midlife, we probably aren’t trying to break boundaries or reach our deepest dreams. This video of JK Rowling’s commencement speech to Harvard graduates delivers a profound message–that “rock bottom is a solid foundation” from which realize that when you have nothing left to lose, you are completely free to start anew on the path to your life’s ambitions.
She said it better than I did, as you would expect from the author of the Harry Potter books, so take a watch.
J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.
Read MoreMolly Ivins Speaks Her Truth
An avid Kathleen Turner fan, Els Van Landuyt from Belgium, sent me the link to this video clip of Kathleen playing the late, great, sassy Texas journalist Molly Ivins in the one-woman show “Red Hot Patriot.” Put on your Lucchese boots, throw back a can of beer and enjoy, ya’ll.
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