Posts Tagged ‘women’
The Yanks Are Coming–Back–Now What?
The road to the international agreements forged in Cairo and Beijing was long and fraught with cultural potholes, but nothing like the challenges that our own government placed in the path of women’s reproductive self-determination. Now, there’s been a 180 degree turn back to the future, and the world is relieved. But other countries have moved forward, so what’s the next step for the U.S.?
Linda Hirshman, author of Get to Work and columnist for Slate’s new XX among many other accomplishments, and I wrote this commentary. After we were rejected by the New York Times and the Washington Post (what else is new?), we decided it was too important an issue not to see the light of day. So we’re publishing it on RHREalityCheck, Huffington Post, and here on good ol’ Heartfeldt.
At the very moment the Obama administration’s decision to seek a U.S. seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council grabbed headlines, the United States quietly took the reins on the most important human rights issue for humanity’s future: sexual and reproductive rights. On March 31, State Department Acting Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees, and Migration, Margaret Pollack, told delegates to the United Nations Commission on Population and Development, meeting in New York, that America was back.
Marking a 180 degree turnaround from Bush administration policies that fought international efforts to enable people to control their own reproductive fate, the U.S. will once again defend the “human rights and fundamental freedoms of women” and support “universal access to sexual and reproductive health.” Abstinence-only sex education, the bête noir of health providers attempting to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, was Kung-Fu kicked aside. Human rights apply to all regardless of sexual orientation. The U.S. commits to ratify CEDAW, the women’s rights treaty already signed by 185 nations, and even endorses “equal partnerships and sharing of responsibilities in all areas of family life, including in sexual and reproductive life.”
The global sigh of relief was palpable. For with all its money and diplomatic resources, the U.S. is the 10,000 gorilla in international reproductive policy. Now the question is, while this is certainly change we can believe in, is it all the change we need?
Read MoreAnd Now a Word From the Media
I wanted to write a long and erudite post today about the history of women in the media and the media on women. But the hour is late and the task far larger than I can do with full justice. For the bigger picture, let me refer you to:
- the Women’s Media Center for stats that will knock your socks off and so will their programs to fix the imbalances,
- WIMN for Jenn Pozner’s smart and specific media criticism and a lively group blog
- Media Matters excellent reporting on media treatment of women
- FAIR’s Women’s Desk
- This website that has documented both sung and (mostly) unsung media women through history
In 1970, Time Magazine published this article entitled “Liberating Women”.
Read MoreThe Value of Work Deja Vu All Over Again
There has been a marked change in the estimate of [women’s] position as wealth producers. We have never been “supported” by men; for if all men labored hard every hour of the twenty-four, they could not do all the work of the world. A few worthless women there are, but even they are not so much supported by the men of their family as by the overwork of the “sweated” women at the other end of the social ladder. From creation’s dawn. our sex has done its full share of the world’s work; sometimes we have been paid for it, but oftener not.
Any idea when this statement was made? OK, a clue: I recently ran across it in a speech given by Harriot Stanton Blatch at a suffragist convention–in 1898.
Blatch went on to raise issues much like what Ai-Jen Poo said at the “Unfinished Business” program 111 years later, what Moms Rising has organized itself to organize the troops about now, and what dozens if not hundreds of bloggers will be talking about this weekend over at Fem 2.0:
Unpaid work never commands respect; it is the paid worker who has brought to the public mind conviction of woman’s worth…If we would recognize the democratic side of our cause, and make an organized appeal to industrial women on the ground of their need of citizenship, and to the nation on the ground of its need that all wealth producers should form part of its body politic, the close of the century might witness the building up of a true republic in the United States.
Yep, don’t agonize: organize. Band together to make the workplace and worklife such that people of both genders can both earn a living and have a life. This is the necessary next wave of the feminist movement, one in which both men and women must participate. Because these days, men want to participate in their children’s lives as women have always done.
Read MoreAnd Now a Word from the Economy Herself
The economy is apparently a woman. Check out this intelligent parody from my friend Marcy Shaffer at Versus.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfYdh-l01zI[/youtube]
… a parody of “I Will Survive” (Words and Music by Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren).
Read MorePow! Bam! Comic Books on Today’s Women Leaders Pack a Strong Message
Superheroines, Quemosabe! If art imitates life and pop culture depicts contemporary life most real and raw, then these new Female Force comic books deliver a powerful message that women in top political leadership have truly saturated our cultural consciousness. Embedded video from CNN Video There’s irony in that Female Force’s creators at Bluewater Productions are male,…
Read MoreA Brief and Checkered History of Women’s Path to Parity, Our Power Leap Moment, and the Road Ahead
Today’s Women’s History Month post was written for the NOW New York newsletter. It was a tossup whether to place it in my Heartfeldt Politics blog or if I should put it into Courageous Leadership or Powered Women. While it could have fit in any of these, I chose Heartfeldt because the movement history strikes me as being exactly where the political meets the personal. See if you agree.
“If women want any rights more than they got, why don’t they just take them, and not be talking about it.” –-Sojourner Truth, 1797-1883, former slave, abolitionist, 
Sojourner Truth – click for more infowomen’s rights activist, traveling preacher
During the last 50 years, thanks to feminism and other civil rights movements, reliable birth control, and an economy that requires more brain than brawn, women have broken many barriers that historically prevented us from partaking as equals at life’s table. I feel privileged to be part of this amazing trajectory, and I thank NOW for what it has done for all women, and for me specifically.
I was a desperate housewife in Odessa, Texas, when I discovered NOW a few years after its 1966 founding, and joined as an at-large member. Soon, I’d find the half-dozen other at-large members in West Texas’ expanse. It was a heady time of firsts for women; still, few of us could have predicted either the stunning advances or the discouraging setbacks ahead.
Fast forward to Hillary Clinton’s groundbreaking presidential campaign. Today even right-wing Republicans realize putting a woman on the ticket symbolizes electrifying change. Women outnumber men in universities, reproductive technologies have changed the power balance in personal relationships and we’re closer to parity in earnings than any time in history.
To be sure, women still don’t have full equality in any sphere of political or economic endeavor.
Read MoreGoosebumps Over Dipnotes
I was over at the UN last week. Staffers from a variety of countries mentioned how great it feels to the international community to know that the US is back–resuming its rightful place in among the member countries of the United Nations. One woman said to me that she goes around these days smiling and saying “Yes, we can!”
What gave me goose bumps? Being reminded what a profound impact Hillary Clinton is making as Secretary of State–and a SOS who understands and prioritizes women in her approach to the rest of the world at that– when I signed onto my Twitter account (I’m Heartfeldt if you want to follow me) a moment ago and saw the following tweet from Dipnotes, the Department of State’s blog name and Twitter handle.
Question of the Week: How Best Can Women’s Rights Be Expanded Internationally?
The world recognizes March 8 as International Women’s Day. During her recent travel to the Middle East, Secretary Clinton met with women who are developing their own businesses through a microcredit program. Promoting women’s economic and political participation is an important element of U.S. foreign policy and a key component of democratic development.
Yes, indeed we can!
Read MoreI Have to Learn to Spell “Sebelius”
I just realized I’ve been misspelling the name of Obama’s apparent new pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Spelling it with an “i” instead of an “e” as the second letter. Well, I’ve got to get it right now, because it looks like I’ll be referring to her quite a bit. She’ll have one of the largest portfolios of any cabinet member, and certainly one of the most important.
Her appointment comes as no surprise, but it’s good news. Who will be the White House health czar then is the question? Maybe Obama won’t appoint one after all, since that was perhaps a position cobbled up to give Daschle extra status in the pursuit of universal health care. Pride goeth before a destruction…
Read MoreGoodyear, You Can Spare $360K for Lilly Ledbetter?
You know how I like to ask “so what are you going to do about it?” Well, here’s a great example, courtesy of blogger Joanne Cronrath Bamberger, aka PunditMom. She has graciously allowed me to crosspost her commentary from Huffington Post. For those of us who feel justice requires that Lilly Ledbetter receive compensation for her heroic efforts on behalf of all women’s paycheck equality, Joanne provides an easy way to communicate to Lilly’s former employer, Goodyear Rubber and Tire, and urge them to make good on the pay they in effect robbed her of over the years. Here you go, and don’t forget to drop your note to Goodyear:
As so many women have been basking in the glow of the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the news reports reminded us that even though Lilly has become a standard bearer for the fight for fair pay for women, Lilly herself will never see a nickel of the money that she sued Goodyear Rubber and Tire for.
Read MoreThe Glass Ceiling in Media
Pink Magazine, which covers career and lifestyle issues for women had an interesting article on why there is still a glass ceiling in media by Tekla Szymanski. An excerpt:
According to Catalyst, women make up about 38 percent of journalists in the United States; however, they often feel that they need to work twice as hard to get ahead. “One reason the glass ceiling remains strong in broadcast and newspapers is media consolidation, which squeezes out positions at the top and in mid-management, where women might have been in the pipeline to advance,” explains Gloria Feldt, an author and activist for women’s rights. “When resources are scarce, the old boys’ network closes ranks and chooses leaders it feels most comfortable with – those most like themselves.”
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