Posts Tagged ‘power’
I'm Doing It: Wireless Activism for Social Change
Being an activist does not always mean being political. Recently, I served as the moderator for a panel of media innovators who discussed how wireless technology is bringing about social change.
It was exciting to explore the tools currently being used, invented and dreamed of to create a better world at CTIA Wireless 2012, the international wireless association conference in New Orleans. CTIA hosts this premiere industry conference for wireless, telecom and broadband as well as the key vertical markets that have entered into wireless. Forty thousand service providers, manufacturers, developers, retailers, enterprise end-users and media attend the conference.
The all-woman panel on “Wireless Activism”, presented by the Women’s Media Center, focused on how wireless tools are used by activists to create local and global transformation.
(Click here to read the full article)
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Gay Advisor’s Departure from Romney Campaign: Homophobia or Just More Hypocrisy?
Regardless of which label one chooses for Richard Grenell’s departure from the Romney campaign ranks, the result is the same. And can anyone tell me why in the world a self-respecting gay person or a woman would ever support the Republican candidate in the first place?
Politico Arena Asks:
Mitt Romney’s foreign policy spokesman Richard Grenell announced he was resigning from the campaign this week. Grenell, (an occasional Arena contributor), was the first openly gay spokesman for the Romney campaign.
However, Grenell’s hiring became a source of tension for the campaign after conservatives expressed concern over Grenell’s sexual orientation as well as his endorsement of same sex marriage. Grenell’s voice was also absent during a week of key foreign policy news – the anniversary of Osama bin Ladin’s death.
Does Grenell’s exit reflect poorly on the Romney campaign? And does it indicate that openly gay individuals still have a hard time climbing the ladder in politics?
My Response:
Read MoreGrace, Grit, and Paycheck Fairness – When?
The annual hooplah over Equal Pay Day is over. At gatherings around the country last month, politicians and activists alike decried the persistent 20% plus pay gap between men and women. Now what? Back to work with our heads down as usual?
Not if you’re Lilly Ledbetter.
The namesake of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act—the first bill President Barack Obama signed into law while surrounded with the smart political optics of Ledbetter, bipartisan members of Congress, and other women leaders in red power suits—knows this:
- Securing fairness and equality in compensation requires each woman to be persistently aware of what she’s worth and stand up for herself in the workplace.
- Securing fairness and equality in compensation is a long haul process that requires changes to laws and policies so the system is fair to all.
The personal and the political are, as usual, intertwined.
Sure, negotiation expert Victoria Pynchon can coach you on how to negotiate compensation more effectively for yourself. And when I speak and teach about my book No Excuses and its 9 Power Tools, I emphasize #3—use what you’ve got—to help women identify just how much power they have in their own hands, including the power to make changes in their paychecks.
And sure, as the Daily Muse pointed out, it’s good that the U.S. Department of Labor held an Equal Pay App Challenge seeking an app to educate people about the persistent problems of equal—or rather, unequal—pay.
But clearly these individual actions, as important as they are, constitute isolated drops in the deep blue ocean of needed systemic change.
Ledbetter’s new memoir, Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay and Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond, takes the personal and weaves it together with the political as she describes how she became a leader in the fight for equal pay.
Read MoreShe’s Doing It: Lily Finds Women Revolting and a 9-Year-Old Feminist
You met Lily Womble in last week’s She’s Doing It and learned that she attended the AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in Development) international forum in Istanbul.
There, she recorded video interviews with a number of women from around the globe. Besides the two in this post (watch them to learn what the post title means), you can see more on Lily’s YouTube channel.
Now back in college in Mississippi, 19-year-old Lily reflected on her experience:
Read MoreA smart ALEC complaint?
Right-wing legislative think tank ALEC seems to be whining that it’s getting smeared. Pity.
Politico Arena asks:
Common Cause has filed a complaint accusing the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) of violating its tax-exempt status by lobbying state legislators. Critics have seized on ALEC’s support of so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws, coordinating a campaign against the group in the wake of the shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.
Is this a valid complaint? Or a smear against a successful conservative advocacy group?
My Response:
Read MoreShe’s Doing It: Meet Lily Womble Out Loud, Part 1
“I am a college woman living in the worst state for women: Mississippi (as determined by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research), and I am passionate about empowering our women and girls!”
So began the e-mail that made my day, March 29 to be exact. It was from Lily Womble, whom I’d never met but immediately knew was a force to be reckoned with. In a very good way.
Lily told me about her blog, Smart Girls Out Loud and her plans to attend the AWID (Association of Women’s Rights in Development) conference in Istanbul April 19—22.
There is no way I could tell you this whole story in one post. So this is part one of a two-part series. Here I’ll introduce you to this very out-loud and proudly feminist young woman whose declared intention
Read MoreMemo 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?
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