Posts Tagged ‘Gloria Feldt’
Memo to Julia Louis-Dreyfus: How Veep Can Lead Without Power
I could hardly wait to see Julia Louis-Dreyfus in her new life-after-Seinfeld sitcom, Veep.
As a student of women’s relationship with power, I made sure to be curled up in bed for Veep’s 10pm edt HBO premier last night, ready to soak it up and take notes on my equally charged up ipad.
My excitement deflated minute by minute.
Entertainment Watch’s plot overview is one reason:
Louis-Dreyfus’ Vice President Selina Meyer is a veep without much influence constantly trying to gain some, a ripe premise for comedy.… In the first installment of Veep, we saw V.P. Meyer trying to advance her green initiative with the introduction of cornstarch-based utensils in government offices, a move that irritated (“outrage” being too strong a word to use for anything a Vice President introduces) the plastics lobby.
Now, I know that Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president John Nance Garner (do you even know who he was?) described the job as “not worth a bucket of warm piss.” And when Veep Meyer asks her former senatorial colleague what she’s been missing since she left the Senate to take the vice-presidency, the senator replies, “Power?”
As the tension between corn starch versus plastic utensils mounts, Veep receives repeated messages that the White House doesn’t want any mention of anything that could bring down the wrath of Big Oil’s mega lobby. The President himself is never seen or heard—rubbing the wound of Meyer’s perceived powerlessness with sea salt.
But that’s just the beginning of the narrative by which Veep renders the foul-mouthed Meyer less than influence-commanding.
Read MoreRosen’s gaffe does not equal Ted Nugent’s threat
Should a politician have to answer for what his/her surrogates say? That’s the question Politico’s Arena asked yesterday.
I see a big difference in the comparison between the two examples given, however. Here’s my answer–what do you say?
Politico Arena Asks:
The Secret Service has taken an interest in comments by rocker Ted Nugent about President Obama. At an NRA convention in St. Louis on Saturday, Nugent, a Mitt Romney supporter, said, “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”
The Romney campaign has disavowed Nugent‘s remarks. And last week President Obama’s team denounced comments by supporter Hilary Rosen critical of Ann Romney’s role as a stay-at-home mother.
Should Romney be tied to Nugent’s tirade, as the president got linked to Rosen’s remarks? Or should candidates be absolved of responsibility for what supporters say about the campaign?
My Response:
All leaders get tarred or starred by the people they bring with them. It’s how leaders react that counts.
Read MoreShe’s Doing It: Elisa Parker Creates Movements Every Day
Elisa Parker, this week’s She’s Doing It, is the visionary co-founder, president and host of the award winning radio program, See Jane Do.
An activist for women, social justice, and the environment, Elisa’s work takes her around the world to discover and share the extraordinary stories and solutions in each of us.
She hosts her weekly show for nationally acclaimed radio station KVMR and is the co-founder of the Passion into Action™ Women’s Conference. She is an alumna of the Women’s Media Center Progressive Women’s Voices program & The White House Project’s Go Run program.
Elisa holds a BA in Communications from SF State and a MA in Organization Development at University of SF. She lives in the Sierra Foothills with her husband and two daughters.
I’ll be privileged to speak at the 3rd Annual Passion into Action Women’s Conference Oct. 12th-14th, 2012 in Grass Valley, CA, along with musician Holly Near, author activist Frances Lappe, Girl Scouts Rhiannon and Madison (of Roots and Shoots), and many more inspiring speakers.
Gloria Feldt: In No Excuses, I asked, “When did you know you had the power to_____?” What have you learned about your power to) during the past year or so?
Elisa Parker: I knew I had the power to be the solution from a very young age. Social justice has always been very important to me and I’m generally the one that will stand up for the underdog. I’m not one to hang on the sidelines but to go for the front line instead with the attitude of “if not me then who”.
Of course my Pollyanna attitude often creates a surge of anxiety for my husband. He’s never sure what I’ll do next. Considering that women still have a ways to go when it comes to gender parity, it’s not surprising that I’ve taken on the challenge of standing up for women just like myself.
I was recently reminded of one of my defining be the solution moments when I interviewed my long time hero, Lily Tomlin.
Read MoreWill Equal Pay Make You Submissive in Bed?
I raise this question because today I experienced the disorienting juxtaposition of Equal Pay Day with the retro notion that women’s growing economic power makes us want to be dominated during sex.
Equal Pay Day marks the day in April when women wear red to signify we’re in the red, earning (by 2011 calculations) but 77.4 cents to men’s $1. And for African-American and Hispanic women the differential is significantly more extreme.
This marker of financial non-power came just after Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker disappeared the state’s equal pay law. It also coincided with author and journalism professor Katie Roiphe’s implausible analysis of the S and M-loving novel Fifty Shades of Gray.
A paradox in her own mind, Roiphe opines:
“It is intriguing that huge numbers of women are eagerly consuming myriad and disparate fantasies of submission at a moment when women are ascendant in the workplace…when—in hard economic terms—women are less dependent or subjugated than before.
It is probably no coincidence that, as more books like The Richer Sex by Liza Mundy and Hanna Rosin’s forthcoming The End of Men appear, there is a renewed popular interest in the stylized theater of female powerlessness…We may then be especially drawn to this particular romanticized, erotically charged, semi-pornographic idea of female submission at a moment in history when male dominance is shakier than it has ever been.”
Really? And whose preferred narrative do we think this zero-sum “power-over” social model is?
Read MoreHilary Rosen v Ann Romney: Will Mitt Benefit?
Resisting the cheap thrill of calling this the “War Between Women,” I nevertheless think this dustup pitting two views of modern womanhood against one another is worth acknowledging. Do you think Rosen was right in what she said?
Politico Arena asks:
During an appearance on CNN Wednesday night, Democratic commentator Hilary Rosen questioned whether Ann Romney was qualified to be talking about women’s economic issues since she’s “never worked a day in her life.”
On Twitter @AnnDRomney responded: “I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work.”
Do Rosen’s comments advance the Democratic narrative of a GOP “war on women”?
Or is it a mean-spirted attack on Mitt Romney’s wife of 42 years that’s like to backfire on the Obama campaign and fellow Democrats? http://politi.co/HBRdyo
My Response:
Read MoreWhat Do Boomers Want? Here's Boomer, Babe, and No Excuses
I was in Arizona last week, and who knew that a national radio program I’d been asked to do emanated from just across the valley from my Scottsdale home, in Youngtown AZ?
Youngtown being a euphemism for older folks, which Baby Boomers are quickly becoming in the millions—a very important segment of America. It was great to talk with Pete and Debra who are “Boomer and the Babe”
Listen to the interview right here and chime in with your thoughts in comments.
Open the podcast in a separate window here or listen now by clicking the PLAY arrow above.
Read MoreRometty’s Epic #FAIL to Lead at Augusta
Talk show bloviator Rush Limbaugh calls 30-year-old Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a slut for advocating insurance coverage of contraceptives. Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus compares women to caterpillars. And the Augusta National Golf Club’s perfectly manicured greens remain firmly planted among those last bastions protecting male hegemony over society’s most powerful economic and political institutions. 
The all-male golf club, based in Augusta, Georgia, has failed once again to award its coveted green jacket to a woman who clearly deserves club membership—IBM’s president and CEO Virginia “Ginni” Rometti. IBM is one of three major corporate sponsors of the club’s vaunted Masters golf tournament, and Rometty is Big Blue’s first female CEO.
But as much as I’ve excoriated Augusta’s male leaders for perpetuating this exclusionary practice, and as much as I believe IBM’s board is culpable for not standing up for their own CEO, I’m even more distressed over Rometty’s failure to take this unprecedented opportunity to lift up not only herself but all women aspiring to the upper echelons of corporate leadership.
Read MoreDoes the GOP have a caterpillar problem?
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus caused a small uproar among Democrats yesterday after he compared the Republican Party’s female gender gap issue to a caterpillar problem.
“..If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars, and mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we have problems with caterpillars,” Priebus said on Bloomberg TV. Democrats quickly seized on the comments, accusing Priebus of comparing issues of women’s health to an insect infestation.
Are the chairman’s comments a sign that the GOP is truly not concerned about the gender gap it has with women? Or was it simply a poor choice of words that Democrats have blown out of proportion?
My Response:
Caterpillars? How much deeper can the Republicans crawl into the muck?
Priebus’s remarks are just one more example of how the last bastions of sexism—and male hegemony over society’s powerful institutions—think. Or fail to think. Their disrespect for women is profound. Priebus’s unrepentant disregard for women’s intelligence and humanity will cost his party dearly in November.
Read MoreSenator Hatch’s Fanciful Power Play
Politico Arena asks:
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz fired back yesterday at Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch’s prediction that Democrats will attack Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith in the election, calling the charge “nonsense.”
“For them to suggest that religion will be injected [into the election] by President Obama and the Democratic Party, I mean, I think they need to take a look inward at the accusations that their party and their supporters have hurled before they take that step,” Wasserman Schultz told MSNBC.
Is Romney likely to face more criticism from the Left over Mormonism as he did from conservatives during the primaries?
My Response:
Read MoreShe's Doing It: Jamia Wilson Learns Resilience and Power of Inter-generational Bonds
I’m a little biased about Jamia Wilson having had the pleasure of knowing her and working with her as we both went through several career transitions during the last decade.
She’s an inspiration to me because of her seamless commitment to social justice and her positive way of putting her ideas into action.
Her responses to my questions continue the series in which I ask people I interviewed for No Excuses what they’ve learned since then. You can connect with Jamia on Facebook and Twitter.
Gloria Feldt: In No Excuses, I asked, “When did you know you had the power to _____?” What have you learned about your power to _____ during the past year or so?
Jamia Wilson: In the past year or so, I have learned so much about faith and perseverance. I have faced many triumphs and challenges during a transitional time in my life and have learned so much.
The rough edges and moments where I stared fear in the face taught me about the importance of courage and authenticity above all else. I have learned that I have the power to choose to be who I am authentically without apology and let that guide me towards realizing my dreams and my highest power.
As Janis Joplin said, “Don’t compromise yourself, you’re all you’ve got”. 2010-2011’s greatest gift to me was an appreciation for my own resilience and that to me is one of my most sacred superpowers.
GF: Was there a moment when you felt very powerful recently?
Read More