Posts Tagged ‘ obama ’

2010 Political Review (Slideshow)

December 31, 2010
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Here is a look back at just a few of the political stories we were talking about in 2010. What do you think 2011 will bring?

Dear Mr. President

July 29, 2010
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Dear Mr. President:

I just watched your appearance on “The View.” I had never watched the show before; I’d only seen clips on YouTube of  Whoopi Goldberg saying what Roman Polanski did wasn’t “rape rape” and then defending Mel Gibson, because after all what he’s accused of doing isn’t really “abuse abuse.”

The show wasn’t bad and I appreciate the accessibility you offer the media. But Mr. President, here’s the thing: just because I am a woman, just because I am a mom, even though I voted for you and am happy to have you in the White House, you will not win me over by going on daytime television. You could appear on “Real Housewives of New York” or guest star on “Glee” and I wouldn’t care. No, Mr. President – this woman – this American, voting, blogging, mother wants to hear more than standard sound bites interspersed with tales of your family vacation and thoughts on Lindsey Lohan and Justin Bieber spouted from a studio sofa.

If you are trying to appeal to women, than why not address questions about women’s issue? Questions like:

When will we see some progress with the Fair Pay Act? The Lilly Ledbetter Act was a great start but there’s much more work to be done and the wage gap is not closing.

What is the Administration doing to support working families? Where are we with affordable childcare and paid sick leave?

Why haven’t we signed The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)? To date, 186 of 193 countries have ratified the treaty. The United States has not.

What more can be done to protect women in the Armed Forces from rape and harassment?

 Why are our maternal mortality rates so high?

What is happening to our reproductive rights and what are you doing to protect them?

And Mr. President, I don’t care how you deliver the substance. A boring press conference is fine with me. But if  you want women to support you, then show us your support of women.

Sincerely,

Hello Ladies

It’s the End of Men as We Know It

June 11, 2010
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Hanna Rosin has written an interesting and complex article at The Atlantic titled, “The End of Men.” Citing the recent shift in the national payroll – more women are reporting to work than men, and the fact that two women per every one man are graduating college, Rosin asks, “what if equality is at a standpoint?” Perhaps, she posits, our postindustrial society is better suited to accommodate women.

It’s an interesting concept following closely on the heels of Maria Shriver’s report, “A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything.” After all, women are the breadwinners or co-breadwinners in two-thirds of U.S. households. And, we control 85 percent of consumer purchasing power. Women even represent just a tiny percentage more of the population than men do. Beyond the statistics, women have had some recent, high-profile successes. Two women just won their primary races in California – Meg Whitman in the governor’s race and Carly Fiorina in the Senate race (where she will face another women opponent, Senator Barbara Boxer in the final election). More women than ever before were awarded Nobel prizes this past year, including the first woman to win the prize for economics. And we are close to reaching a critical mass of women justices on the U.S. Supreme Court if President Obama’s nominee Elena Kagan is confirmed.

But neither statistics nor individual anecdotes tell the whole story. For every Sonia Sotamayor, or Urusla Banks, (the CEO of Xerox who succeeded another women, Anne Mulcahy) there are multiple women struggling to take home a fair paycheck, managing a disproportionate amount of housework to the tune of 53 percent more, or dealing with domestic violence and sexual assault. It’s unlikely anyone will convince those women that we’ve achieved equality, not even the dozens of college women interviewed for The Atlantic story who believe women will “hold the cards” in this new economy.

Rosin must have anticipated responses like mine when she penned the piece because early on she writes, “In feminist circles, these social, political, and economic changes are always cast as a slow, arduous form of catch-up in a continuing struggle for female equality.” That is indeed how I view things. After all, yesterday was the 47th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act and the wage gap has widened in recent years. Women still earn, on average, just .77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That, to me, is “a slow, arduous form of catch-up.” But I also know that perspective matters and where I see the glass half empty, others see it half full.

As evidence that the new world may be better suited for women, Rosin cites some of the same ideas that those of us advocating for the advancement of women have cited. She writes, “The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus—are, at a minimum, not predominantly male.” She says that in the white collar world, communication skills and social intelligence are required, and there again, women have the advantage.

And among the working class, she says, the gender role reversal is “obvious and painful.” Men who were once solidly in place as the heads of households now struggle, not only to make child support payments, but to cope with women who are economically and emotionally independent of them.

Things are changing, no doubt. But it’s not the end of men. They still run the White House, and Capitol Hill, and Fortune 500 companies, and newsrooms, and organized religion. But it could be the end of men as we know it. Women have successfully adapted to societal and economic shifts over the years. They were cheap labor in the textile mills then formed labor unions to protect themselves. They entered the workforce in large numbers after the Civil War took so many men’s lives and again during World War II while the men were away fighting. Then they handed those jobs back to the men when the war ended. And now they are moving into breadwinner roles while still mostly managing life at home.

If men can demonstrate the same ability to adapt, letting go of how it used to be and moving forward to how it will be, then perhaps we can move into a “modern, postindustrial society.” Women will make progress, gender roles will shift, and the men will be just fine.

Motherhood: the key to your career

May 17, 2010
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Okay, I definitely missed a memo. Apparently, motherhood is now an asset for working women. Who knew? I spent years in the office downplaying my life as a mother for fear I would be exiled to The Mommy Track, never to get a promotion again. Apparently I should have flaunted the fact I had children.  After all, critics are saying the problem with Elena Kagan, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, is that she is not a mother.  

I wanted to write in depth on this topic today. However, I am a working mother and I was up all night with my sick 5 year old. My daughter and I finally fell asleep around  5:15 this morning but then my son woke me up at 8:15 so he could give me a kiss before he went to school. And now, I am too tired to write a coherent sentence. Want to hire me?

So instead, I have complied some of the recent stories on Kagan and motherhood. What do you think? Oh, and if there is a mother out there who actually had eight hours of sleep, can you answer this question for me: If Kagan isn’t qualified to rule on work-life balance issues, then are men qualified to make laws about women’s bodies?

“Then Comes the Marriage Question” by Laura Holson at The New York Times

“Is ‘careerism’ the new ‘empathy’?” by Susan Reimer at The Baltimore Sun

“The Supreme Court needs more mothers” by Ann Gerhart at The Washington Post

“Elena Kagan sends us on the way to a motherless Supreme Court” by Michael Roston at True Slant

“Are Mothers Better than Everyone Else?” by Bella DePaulo at Psychology Today

Is Elena Kagan a Careerist?

May 13, 2010
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“She seems to be smart, impressive and honest — and in her willingness to suppress so much of her mind for the sake of her career, kind of disturbing.” So wrote New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks about President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

Kagan is a tough nut for the media to crack. Three days after the President named her as his nominee, there is still no “wise latina” controversy to feed on. Yes her sexual orientation has been questioned and her appearance has been criticized, but that’s about as deep as it gets. And wise Americans know it’s also irrelevant. Neither the left nor the moderate right can confidently claim her as their own because Kagan has not left much of a paper trail in the course of her distinguished career. Aside from a memo about late term abortions – more strategic than opinionated, Kagan has managed a stellar, and mostly neutral career. And so, we criticize her for that. Critics are saying Kagan is a careerist.

Careerists don’t make the best friends. They’ll blow off drinks for a deadline. They usually don’t make the best spouses or the best parents. But if they have savvy and brains, they do make it to the top of their chosen careers.  And someone needs to get there.

Career and political ambition isn’t always considered a bad thing. When someone makes a plan to reach the top of their profession and then achieves that goal we often note they have focus or they were groomed for the job. But in Elena Kagan this trait is “disturbing.”

To be fair, David Brooks never actually calls Kagan a careerist. But he is clearly bothered by her drive. Is Brooks a sexist?

Maybe not. Brooks likens Kagan to the “Organization Kids” at elite colleges. He writes, “These were bright students who had been formed by the meritocratic system placed in front of them. They had great grades, perfect teacher recommendations, broad extracurricular interests, admirable self-confidence and winning personalities.” And he notes, “There’s about to be a backlash against the Ivy League lock on the court.”  If Kagan is confirmed, all of the Supreme Court Justices will be Harvard or Yale Law graduates. And that could be what’s bothering Brooks.

But Brooks is a smart man. His own career has been spent working at what could be considered the elite publications: The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly, and now The New York Times. Surely he sees that the” Organization Kids” are running rampant in Washington. So when he decides to call one out, one who happens to be a woman nominated for the Supreme Court, he’s got to realize his timing is “kind of disturbing.”

Perhaps even more disturbing than Brooks’ column, was the follow on piece by Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic. Sullivan writes, “David Brooks’ column today really helped crystallize for me my qualms about Elena Kagan. Her life, so far as one can tell, is her career, and her career has been built by avoiding any tough or difficult political or moral positions, eschewing any rigorous intellectual debate in which she takes a clear stand one way or the other, pleasing every single authority figure she has encountered, and reveling in the approval of the First Class Car Acela Corridor Elite.”

That sounds like much of Washington to me. And much of Wall Street, and the Fortune 100, and the big, non-profits run by privileged Ivy Leaguers too. So what’s the problem? Sullivan laments the fact Kagan’s life lacks any personal struggle. “Not a single anecdote in her life-story would be out of place in a Rhodes Scholar application – and I mean that as damning.”

Pity Brooks and Sullivan can’t grasp any real understanding of what the climb to the top might actually be like for a woman like Kagan.  I’ve conducted many interviews with women executives and based on those discussions, here’s what a woman’s career might entail – there’s plenty of personal struggle.

She would need to have a perfect academic record to compete with the men. Studies show the system would be stacked against her getting hired and getting promoted. She would have to have a perfect work record; she couldn’t afford any red flags in her personnel file. She would need to ask for plum assignments without being labeled as too aggressive.  She would have to seek out her own mentors; most likely they wouldn’t come calling for her. She could never appear weak; she’d learn to walk the fine line between assertive and “bitch.” She better not be too pretty; but being just pretty enough could be an asset. She would have to check parts of her personality at the door; lest she get labeled emotional. And she’d be in constant danger of getting placed on the mommy track. Then again, she might get dinged for not choosing motherhood.

And her reward for all of that would be more than just making it to the top. It would be her opportunity to use her power for good when she got there. It takes power and influence to affect change. And it takes being “prudential, deliberate and cautious,” as Brooks describes Kagan, to make it into a power position.

Will Kagan use her power for good not evil? None of us can know for sure.  And I think that’s what really bothers Brooks and Sullivan. We can only hope. All we know for certain is Kagan is driven. And last I checked, there was nothing wrong with that.

Who is Elena Kagan?

May 10, 2010
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Elena Kagan is the current Solicitor General. President Obama is expected to announce this morning that she is his pick to replace Justice John Paul Stevens who is retiring from the Supreme Court.

Here’s what we know about Elena Kagan:

-          As Solicitor General she conducts all litigation on behalf of the United States in the Supreme Court

-          She has never served as a judge

-          She was the first woman Dean of Harvard Law School

-          While at Harvard Law she banned military recruiters from campus because of the discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy

-          Also at Harvard Law, she hired 32 tenured and tenure-track hires, but only one was a minority and only seven were women; four out of every five hires were white men

-          She worked in the Clinton administration as a domestic policy aide

-          She clerked  for  Justice Thurgood Marshall

-          She has a bachelor’s degree from Princeton, a master’s degree from Oxford and a law degree from Harvard

-          She is 50 years old and would be the youngest member of the Supreme Court.

No doubt the media will have much more to say about her in the next few weeks and we will learn more about her stance on hot button issues.

Kagan’s anticipated nomination is encouraging for those of us calling for gender diversity and a critical mass of women in leadership. President Obama is reported to have interviewed four people for this opening, two men and two women – a search that is representative of the U.S. population. If appointed, she would join two other women Justices, bringing the gender mix to thirty percent women, sixty percent men.

But a Kagan appointment would not improve diversity in other areas. The New York Times reports that if Kagan joins the high court, every member would have studied law at Harvard or Yale. Kagan would be the third Jewish Justice, the other six are Catholic. And the Court would remain predominantly white with only one African American and of course, one “wise Latina.”

Kagan has a solid resume and is clearly a highly intelligent person. She has broad experience off the bench, a proven backbone to fight injustice, and a touted ability to bridge divides among groups with opposing views. Those traits are all encouraging. Now we watch as the ideological and partisan games begin.

I forgot Chris Matthews was sexist

January 28, 2010
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I forgot Chris Matthews was sexist for an hour last night.

Following the State of the Union address Matthews said of President Obama, “I was trying to think about who he was tonight. It’s interesting; he is post-racial, by all appearances. I forgot he was black tonight for an hour. He’s gone a long way to become a leader of this country and past so much history in just a year or two. I mean it’s something we don’t even think about. I was watching and I said, wait a minute, he’s an African-American guy in front of a bunch of other white people and there he is, president of the United States, and we’ve completely forgotten that tonight — completely forgotten it.”

Here’s a clip.

Wow. So does that means Matthews definition of post-racial is color-blind? A world where black leaders actually seem white – whatever that means? Oh Chris, you really stepped in it this time.

And then, I was watching and I said, wait a minute, he’s a sexist guy in front of a bunch of television viewers and there he is, chauvinist Hardball host, and we’ve completely forgotten that tonight – completely forgotten it.

This is the same Chris Matthews, after all, who linked Hillary Clinton to a she-devil, Nurse Ratched and Madam Defarge, referred to her as witchy, described her laugh as a cackle, and compared her voice to fingernails on a blackboard.

Do I think Matthews meant well last night? Probably. After all, Obama sends thrills up his leg.

But anyone who was surprised by Matthews’ comments last night has a short memory. He’s stepped in it before and he will surely step in it again.

National Day of Action

December 2, 2009
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Protect Women's Health protesterToday, Planned Parenthood is sponsoring a National Day of Action to lobby the Senate for health care reform that ensures women’s access to reproductive health care. Busloads of women arrived in Washington, D.C. this morning and even more women are writing, tweeting and making calls. 

As you know, the House of Representatives passed a healthcare bill last month which included an amendment banning abortion, the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. The ban goes well beyond the existing Hyde amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortion. And it could prohibit a woman’s access to full reproductive healthcare including care for miscarriages and high-risk pregnancies.

This amendment violates the underlying principle of health care reform, as promised by President Obama — that reform will not cause any U.S. citizen to lose benefits they already have. It supposedly allows women to purchase a separate, single-service “abortion rider,” but these riders don’t exist.  

Now Senators Hatch and Nelson are planning to introduce a similar amendment to the Senate healthcare bill.  Click here to contact your Senators and ask them to pass healthcare reform that works for women as well as men.

(Photo used under Creative Commons license.)

Why Bomb the Moon?

October 9, 2009
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moonI felt like Cindy Lou Who from “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” when she says, “Santie Claus, why? Why are you taking our Christmas tree? Why?” Because this morning I wanted to know, “NASA, why? Why are you bombing our moon? Why”

Why bomb the moon? The moon is a symbol of love, of mystery, of inspiration. It has been a muse to Dickinson, Yeats, Plath, Thoreau, Rumi, and countless others.

Why bomb the moon? So we have an excuse not to save our own planet? No more tiresome recycling and carbon reductions? If there is water on the moon we can go live there?

Why bomb the moon? So we can destroy another planet?

Why bomb the moon? Do we own it? Oh right, we put our flag there. And to bomb it on the same day President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize is just surreal.

Why bomb the moon? Doesn’t it control the tides? Do we really want to mess with that?

Why bomb the moon? Because boys like to blow things up? I didn’t see any women clapping and high fiving inside the Ames Center this morning. That’s because only 31 percent of NASA personnel at a GS-12 (research positions) or higher are women. Perhaps if there was gender equity in space exploration and aeronautics research someone would have nixed this mission.

Why bomb the moon? Many believe it controls our menstrual cycles. And why, why, why would you want to mess with that?

Wage Gap Widens

October 5, 2009
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Hello Men: you suffer too when you pay women less than you pay men for comparable work. I don’t mean to blame everything on men, but the reality is men still dominate management positions in this country. They hold 85 percent of all board seats, the majority of executive positions, and run 95 percent of the companies in the Fortune 500.

My husband knows the drill. If I bring home less than my fair share of wages, then he, a stay-at-home-father, has less money to run the household. Less money for groceries, less money for the kids, less money to pay the bills, less money to fill the gas tank, less money for his fantasy football team (it costs money to manage a team).

Why are we talking about this now? It’s not Equal Pay Day; the one day a year this subject gets any significant attention. And President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act back in January. Here’s why: The. Wage. Gap. Has. Widened. That’s right. Last year’s data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed women earning, on average .78 cents for every dollar a man earned. The new data shows women are earning .77 cents. That’s. Not. Progress.

Not only is it not progress (and not fair). It’s foolish. With traditional male dominated jobs hit hardest by the recession, there will soon be more women on the national payroll then there are men. If these women are earning less than their fair share, their families, and the economy will suffer. Groceries, gasoline, doctor’s bills – none of it becomes 23 percent less expensive when a woman is paying for it. And if families are living off less than fair wages, there is less available income to pour back into the supposed recovering economy.

It’s not just my husband who should be upset by the wage gap. We need to reverse the trend and close the gap. Click here to take action and send a message: No More Pay Discrimination on the Basis of Gender.

Read more on this topic here.

View the data here.

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