Feminist Forte

Updated: Don’t Miss Events for Women

October 3, 2011
By

Woman climbing corporate ladderThere are a number of interesting events scheduled for the next few months. Check them out, and if you know of others, tell us about them in the comments section.

2020 Women on Boards New York Launch, October 4, New York

Women on Boards has set a goal to raise the percentage of women on corporate boards in the U.S. to 20 percent or greater by the year 2020, certainly a worthy cause. Register here.

Entrepreneur and Innovation Event, October 12, Beverly, Mass

With this event, Moms in Business Unite and Mass Innovation Nights aim to help women entrepreneurs tackle  personal branding, marketing, public relations, go-to-market strategies and fundraising.  Register here.

Career Booster: An Evening of Mini-Mentoring, October 13, New York

3 Plus International, which runs a network of independent mentors, sponsors and peers is hosting this event featuring Gloria Feldt and nine other “women worth knowing.” Register here.

The Insider’s Guide to Early Stage Fundraising, October 26, Cambridge Mass

An estimated 90 percent of all venture funding goes to men. We can’t shift the gender balance in a month, but we can do everything possible to educate ourselves on terms and provisions. Register here.

Women Business Leaders Conference, October 13, Waltham, Mass

The Center for Women and Enterprise is hosting a three-hour interactive workshop covering alliance building, negotiating and social media. Register here.

Massachusetts Conference for Women,  December 8, Boston

The seventh annual Massachusetts Conference for Women will be a day of networking and professional development covering topics such as career planning, finance, health and wellness, relationships and social media. Register here.

 

Five Ways to Observe Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October 3, 2011
By

Army of WomenOctober is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. According to the National Cancer Institute, there are approximately 230,000 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed each year and 40,000 breast cancer related deaths annually. Forget the pinkwashing and please spare us the foolish Facebook memes, and do something meaningful. Here are five ways to observe Breast Cancer Awareness month.

 

Ledbetter, Mikulski and Nine Others Join National Women’s Hall of Fame

October 1, 2011
By

 

 

Lilly Ledbetter
Lilly Ledbetter

Lilly Ledbetter, the women who bravely fought against unequal pay, and Senator Barbara Mikulski, the longest  serving women in the Senate, were inducted into The National Women’s Hall of Fame today along with nine other remarkable women including civi rights activist Coretta Scott King and jazz singer Billie Holiday. The National Women’s Hall of Fame recognizes the achievements of great American women.  Inductees are selected every two years based on their lasting contributions to society through the arts, athletics, business, education, government, humanities, philanthropy and science.

The other honorees include:

Saint Katherine Drexel, a missionary who helped Native Americans and African Americans

Dorothy Harrison Eustus, who co-founded the country’s first dog guide school

Dr. Loretta C. Ford, who co-founded the nurse practicioner model

Abby Kelley Foster, a women’s rights and anti-slaverly leader

Chemist Helen Murray Free, who co-developed dip-and-read diagnostic test strips

Dr. Donna Shala, the longest serving Secretary of Health and Human Services

Katherine Switzer, the first woman to officially enter the Boston Marathon.

Thanks for the inspiration ladies.

Here’s one of our favorite videos of Senator Mikulski in action:

Today is Women’s Equality Day

August 26, 2011
By


Today, August 26, is Women’s Equality Day, marking the anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. How will you mark the occassion? Celebrating doesn’t seem entirely right, as we still have so far to go to achieve true equality. But we must honor the work of the women who fought for our right to cast our ballots and use our voices – and certainly we celebrate their achievements.

Last year on this date we wrote, “Mark the day by taking action. If we exercise our power as women, we both honor the women who came before us and help advance those who will come after us.” We still believe that. So here is our list of ways to honor the day. What else would you add?

After DSK, A Glimmer of Hope?

August 23, 2011
By

Diallo

It’s official. The criminal case against Dominique Strauss Kahn (DSK) has been dropped. A chapter has ended, but the story continues. Strauss-Kahn still faces a civil suit from Nafitassou Diallo, the woman who accused the former head of the International Monetary Fund of raping her in a New York hotel room in May. And in France, where Strauss-Kahn was once (and it’s not out of the realm of possibility could still be) seen as a future president, he faces similar accusations from a journalist. And just this morning, a story broke that Diallo’s lawyer accused a French official of trying to bribe a witness in the case.  But for today anyway, Strauss-Kahn walks free, although certainly tainted.

Arguable even more tainted, however, is his accuser. In the recommendation for dismissal, the prosecutors office wrote, “The case rises and falls on (Diallo’s) testimony.” The physical and scientific evidence established a “hurried” sexual encounter occurred between Strauss-Kahn and Diallo but it did not establish whether the act was consensual or forced. Therefore, Diallo’s testimony would have been key. But the 25 page document outlines why the prosecution didn’t feel her testimony would be sufficient to try the case. “The nature and number of the complainant’s falsehoods leave us unable to credit her version of events beyond a reasonable doubt, whatever the truth may be about the encounter between the complainant and the defendant. If we do not believe her beyond a reasonable doubt, we cannot ask a jury to do so.”

Diallo lied you see. She lied years before the attack while trying to secure political asylum. One of her lies was that she had been raped. She later said that story was false. And although we of course know that people who lie can be raped, well….

Then Daillo told lies related to the incident in the hotel. She lied about how she behaved immediately following the attack. She says she hid out down the hall until Strauss-Kahn left the floor. Later she said she cleaned another room on the floor and then returned to Strauss-Kahn’s room. In a third version of the story, she hid and then returned directly to Strauss –Kahn’s room to retrieve her cleaning supplies.

And how can a jury be expected to believe a woman who lied about cleaning a room or not cleaning it immediately following what she reported was a violent attack? Because we all know there is a right way to behave both pre- and post-rape. We know that rape victims must live exemplary lives free of lies and other imperfections if they are to be believed. And we know that post attack they are expected to be sufficiently upset. And at the same time we expect them to be level-headed enough to go to a hospital for an exam and call the police to file a report within an acceptable period of time.

And we could never imagine that a woman from a war-torn country, who’s been through the political asylum process, who works as a maid, who reportedly doesn’t read or write, and who is taking on a man who might have been a head of state, wouldn’t second guess what she did immediately following an attack and what the right reaction should be when reporting the incident to authorities who she might mistrust?

No. That is all much too much to ask a jury to believe even when that imperfect woman is taking on a man who faces similar accusations of sexual attack in another country, who had an affair with a subordinate at the IMF who said of the situation, “Despite my long professional life, I was unprepared for advances by the Managing Director of the IMF. I did not know how to handle this; …… Mr. Strauss-Kahn made use of his position to obtain access to me,” and who’s reputation as a “womanizer” followed him to New York.

Diallo underwent what so many who file rape charges do. Her life was put on trial. Her past was splashed across the news. Her motives were questioned. She was even accused of prostitution by The New York Post.  But she did something rare.

Diallo shared her name and showed her face. And so ultimately, some progress was made. And whether you believe her coming forward was part of her legal strategy or not, it sent a subtle message, as did CBS reporters’ Lara Logan’s interviewon primetime news earlier this year, that rape victims don’t need to hide in shame. It sends the message that rape is carried out by rapists. And that regardless of what the media publishes or the commenters post, victims are not to blame. And so, even amid the standard victim-blaming and all the usual media and legal shenanigans, perhaps we can find just a glimmer of hope in this situation that one woman came forward, no matter how difficult it would be.

On Miscarriage

August 19, 2011
By

Winnie the Pooh cotton sleeperOn my drive home from work tonight, I turned the radio to NPR and heard Ken Harbaugh reading a beautiful, touching essay titled, “After Miscarriage, Missing The Luxury of Grieving.” Harbaugh said, “A miscarriage is tragic enough by itself. What makes it worse is the fact that no social custom has evolved to help us through the loss. There is no ceremony, no coming together, no ritualized support.”

Comparing his private grieving post miscarriage to the more public and communal grieving he experienced after his grandfather’s passing, he said, “In the months since, I have learned something about this kind of grief. It is not a luxury, but an essential part of healing.” Harbraugh’s story moved me and inspired me to share my own experience post-miscarriage. I too grieved silently for months until I eventually found a way to heal. Here’s how:

“I know just how you feel.”

Those six simple words meant so much to me even though I had no idea who had written them. They were posted in a chat room and the writer’s screen name held no meaning for me.

For weeks, well-intentioned friends and family had been telling me they knew someone who went through exactly what I went through and that I would soon get over it.

“Exactly?” I would think. “They went through the exact same thing?”

I found it hard to believe that anyone could know what I new; that anyone could feel what I felt. My cheeks would burn and my chest would constrict. I was so angry that my feelings were trivialized and compared to those of a friend-of-a-friend or someone’s neighbor.

But when a complete stranger posted her message to me on a bulletin board, I knew without a doubt, that she did indeed know exactly how I felt. That stranger, and six others, became my salvation for the next nine months.

Two months prior to reading that message, I had miscarried. It had been my first pregnancy. Initially, I was reluctant to get pregnant. I wanted to have children someday, but I had no idea when someday would come. But my husband had recently turned 35, I was 34, and we didn’t want to wait too much longer. In just two weeks of learning I was pregnant, my feelings changed from ambivalence to joy. I fell madly in love with my baby and went to the Ob/Gyn excited to pee in a cup and start my new adventure.

The doctor answered my questions, gave me some diet guidelines, and listened for the heartbeat. “We’re going to give you an ultrasound,” she said.

“Cool,” I thought. I had no idea that wasn’t routine.

My baby had a very week heartbeat. The doctor told me to come back in two weeks and they would do another ultrasound. Either the heartbeat would get stronger or it would stop. I sobbed all the way home. For the next fourteen days I tried to stop falling in love. I tried not to blame the baby’s condition on my ambivalence. I tried to completely block out the fact that I was pregnant because I was so anxious I felt I would snap.

When I went back to the doctor, the ultrasound showed that my baby’s heart had stopped beating. My doctor told me I had what was referred to as a “missed miscarriage”. For unknown reasons, the fetus just hadn’t been viable. This shouldn’t affect my ability to get pregnant and have a child in the future she told me. She recommended I wait at least two months before trying to conceive again. Then she handed me a box of Kleenex.

“I hate it when they cry,” she said.

Two months later I was pregnant again. And I was scared because I didn’t want this baby to die. I was angry because the doctor wouldn’t give me an ultrasound. I thought it was cruel that I couldn’t confirm daily that the heart was beating. The technology existed, why weren’t they using it? I was excited because I couldn’t resist planning my baby’s life. And I was disappointed because I didn’t feel the sheer joy, the incredible optimism, of being pregnant. I had lost my innocence the first time around. No matter how many pregnancies I would go on to have, they would always be tainted by the first.

Mostly, I was irritable. My friends and family kept telling me to relax. They said it as if it were a choice. One relative even cautioned me that being tense was bad for the baby. So not only could I not mourn my first baby, I couldn’t worry about my second. If I did, I might cause harm to this one too. I added guilt to the long list of emotions I was cycling through. I didn’t want to think about this baby; to think about it was pure agony.

“Do you feel okay?” people would ask me when I told them I was worried. They wanted to know if I had any pains or strange sensations.

I felt absolutely fine. That was the problem. Maybe if I had morning sickness or sore breasts or any symptom at all I would know that the baby inside me was growing. But instead I felt perfectly normal. It was terrifying.

Frustrated by my friends and family who were focused on reassuring me but failing to listen to me, I went online looking for comfort. On some pregnancy website that tracked a baby’s development week by week, I discovered the term PAM: pregnancy after miscarriage. The site had a bulletin board where PAMs talked about their concerns. For a few days I lurked on the site; reading the discussions but never posting my own comments. And then finally I sent a message.

“I am so scared,” I said to nobody in particular. I explained that I had no symptoms and it was making me crazy.

A few hours later I saw the response: “I know just how you feel.”

Reading those six simple words, I felt such an incredible sense of relief, such a strong sense of belonging, I started to cry.

The writer invited me to join a group of PAMs called the JuneBugs, who were all expecting babies in June, like me.  For the next few months the JuneBugs became my lifeline. There were eight of us who posted daily and a few others who participated less frequently. Three of the JuneBugs already had children. Two others, like me, were on their second pregnancy and hoping for their first child. One woman was on her third pregnancy but had no living children. She had had a miscarriage and then she had given birth to a baby who died from SIDS. Now she was pregnant again. Her posts made me feel a mix of fear, shame and awe. The coward in me wanted to avoid knowing her story as if I could protect myself from that happening to me if I didn’t think about it. Another part of me was so impressed with her strength and her willingness to try again. If she was brave enough to take a risk again, I could do it too.

I couldn’t help comparing stories and ranking the situations among the JuneBugs. The woman who had lost two babies, one in vitro and one a few months after birth, had the number one story and outranked the rest of us. Those of us who had had one miscarriage and no children trumped those who had healthy babies already. At least they knew they were capable of producing life. What if I just couldn’t grow a baby inside me? That would be the ultimate failure.

As the months went on, I stopped comparing stories and started listening to the other JuneBugs. We formed a strong bond. We were a diverse group made up of a liberal feminist from the Northeast, two Southern Christian Conservatives, two career women and three stay-at-home moms. And we were friends. Every day we would go online and share our pregnancy stories. We’d update each other on our monthly checkups, our weight gain, and what items we purchased at Babies-R-Us. And we would talk about our lives: our husbands, our mother-in-laws, and our jobs. During the pregnancies, one of us moved to a new city, one of us lost a job, and one of us divorced.

In April we threw ourselves a baby shower. One woman assigned each of us a name. Then we exchanged addresses with our online partner and sent each other a gift. I received a Winnie the Pooh cotton sleeper for my future son. Many years later, it is tucked away in the attic, one of only a few baby items I’ve kept.

In June the babies started arriving. Husbands would email the rest of us with names, weight and time of arrival. I had the latest due date and I prayed I would have a happy ending like my friends who went ahead of me. I don’t know if it was luck or a miracle or the power of friendship and love, but each one of us delivered a healthy baby that June.

For almost six months after my son was born, I continued to chat with the JuneBugs daily. But when I went back to work full-time, and the charm of diapers and midnight feedings wore off, I went online less and less.

A few years ago I went back to the site and saw that several of the JuneBugs were still talking regularly. I lurked for a few nights, catching up on their lives, but I never posted. Just seeing their comments and knowing that some of them were still good friends, made me smile. If I were to submit a post, it would simply have three words:

“Thank you JuneBugs.

 

Like what you’ve read? Then sign up here to receive future posts by email or RSS.


New From Around the Web

August 12, 2011
By

woman reading newspaperHere’s a roundup of stories impacting women for your weekend reading.

This one in The New York Times Magazine on parents expecting twins who chose to abort one fetus is sure to generate discussion.

You probably heard that Nafissatou Diallo, who has accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault, has filed a civil lawsuit. Did you hear Law & Order plans to air an episode based on the case? Speaking of DSK, Bloomberg BusinessWeek has an article on whether the IMF looked the other way and ignored the former executive’s behavior toward women.

Cleveland.com reports on misogynist, serial killer Anthony Sowell who was sentenced to death for murdering 11 women.

TechCrunch reporting on the new Verizon Android phone targeted toward women, cites unofficial reports that the droid is “pretty”, has dangly charms and less functionality than the standard variety. Ugh.

And in case you were wondering if FOX moderators were being sexist when they asked Michele Bachmann during last night’s GOP debate if she would be a submissive wife as president, read this piece from RH Reality Check.

 

 

 

How Do You Do It All?

August 11, 2011
By

This post originally ran on TheMamaBee.com. We’ve since replaced some of the activities listed below for new ones, but our house remains dirty and we still don’t have any friends. With the movie version of “I Don’t Know How She Does It” opening next month, we’re wondering, how do you do it all? Here’s our story:

Supermom dollPeople always ask me, “How do you do it all?”  I am a full time working mother –in fact I’m the family breadwinner.  I am also president of the PTO, chair of a town committee, organizer of  an annual event for 400 attendees, and I moonlight as a freelance writer.  “It’s easy,” I tell them. “But my house is always dirty and I have no friends.”  And then the person who asked the question always laughs.  But I’m not joking.

My house is dirty.  While my husband has the time to clean, he has no interest.  And I have neither the time nor the interest. Type As like me thrive on checking things off a to-do list and cleaning never comes off the list; by the time you get through all of the rooms in the house, you need to start over.  I don’t choose to spend my time cleaning. Nor do I choose to spend my time fighting with my husband trying to get him to clean.

We used to fight about it.  Big, ugly hairy fights. But fighting wastes precious time and for a working mother, time is currency.  The fighting just didn’t add up. Do the math:

Ask husband (three times) to remove unfolded piles of laundry from couch and put them away: 3 mins.

Yell at husband for not putting laundry away, disrespecting all of my wishes, being an insensitive lout, never listening, and not knowing the meaning of love: 20 mins.

Give husband silent treatment: 30 mins.

Apologize for slightly overreacting : 2 mins.

Simply push piles of laundry to the other end of the sofa so I have a place to sit down and snuggle with the kids: immediate and priceless.

As far as friends go, I do exaggerate, but just slightly.  I actually have two and a half friends – two of them I’ve known for thirty years. I talk to one of them almost every day during my commute. And I go months without talking to the other one but our friendship is strong enough to withstand the long silences.  And the half?  Well that represents all the lovely acquaintances I make through my many activities.  I would befriend them but then they’d expect me to call, email and socialize.  And I don’t have the time.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed, like when I have too many deadlines, I’m tired and there are thirty-eight plastic dinosaurs on my living room rug. Just recently, one of my cousins stopped by on a  weekend morning.  Over coffee, I unloaded on her that I was exhausted and couldn’t manage everything.

“You need to lower your standards,” she said.

As I slid the previous night’s dirty dinner plates out of my way so I had a place to put  my coffee mug, I said hopefully, “Really, do you think that’s the answer?”

My lifestyle is not for everyone.  Like all working mothers, I make sacrifices. I will never go scrapbooking, for example, or host a book club meeting. Hell, I won’t even be invited to join the book club. But despite my busy schedule, I always have time to read a book to my child.  Now if only I could find the damn book somewhere in this mess.

Eversave is running a fun survey asking women how they do it all. You can take it here.

Like what you’ve read? Then sign up here to receive future posts by email or RSS.

Why We Can’t Agree: Is the Bachmann Newsweek Cover Sexist?

August 10, 2011
By

Michele Bachmann's Newsweek coverTerry O’Neill from the National Organization for Women (NOW) says yes, it is. Salon’s Joan Walsh says no, it’s not. And feminist icon Gloria Steinem says it’s borderline.

Pundits are split on whether or not Newsweek’s decision to run the unflattering (we can all agree on that, right?) picture of presidential candidate Michele Bachmann was sexist.

Why is it so hard to figure out? I think  it stems from the way the media has conditioned us to think about and view women. When so many young, female characters on television are sexualized, when even the most beautiful women in the world are airbrushed, when we see too few images of strong, athletic women and when so much of our news comes from the male point of view, we struggle with what is reality, what is media manipulation, how we view other women and what we’ve come to expect of how the media views us.

And then add politics to the mix and things get even more distorted. With such small numbers of women participating in politics, the media turns the few women who do into Everywoman. Remember, for example, how a vote for Hillary Clinton was portrayed as a vagina vote, not a vote for a candidate? President Obama caught on camera calling someone a jackass was an on-air gaffe. But Carly Fiorina caught mocking her opponent’s hair was mean girl behavior. More than one man running for president from a political party is called a candidate pool. But more than one woman is a cat fight. So is it any wonder that determining whether Newsweek chose a crazy-eyed image to match a crazy candidate or whether the magazine chose to create an unstable portrait of a woman running for president, gives us pause?

What do you think? Is the Bachmann Newsweek cover sexist?

Like what you’ve read? Then sign up here to receive future posts by email or RSS.

Washington Makes Women’s Health a Priority

August 3, 2011
By

The PillMore good news out of Washington (can you believe it?). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this week announced new guidelines as part of the Affordable Care Act that require new health insurance plans to cover women’s preventive services including breastfeeding support, domestic violence screening, and contraception – without charging a co-payment or a deductible.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement, “These historic guidelines are based on science and existing literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need.” In developing the guidelines, the HHS worked with the Institute of Medicine to do a review of women’s health needs and provide recommendations on preventive measures specifically for women.

According to the HHS website, women will have access to the following services without cost-sharing starting in August of next year:

  • well-woman visits;
  • screening for gestational diabetes;
  • human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing for women 30 years and older;
  • sexually-transmitted infection counseling;
  • human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening and counseling;
  • FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling;
  • breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling; and
  • domestic violence screening and counseling.

An amendment to the new regulation allows religious institutions that offer insurance to their employees a choice whether or not to cover contraception services.

Not only are these guidelines key to helping women get the medical services and treatments they require, they are key to women’s professional and financial security too. Giving women access to choice, support and tools makes the challenges of managing career and family that much easier.

This is progress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related Posts with Thumbnails
Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes