Posts Tagged ‘ Sarah Palin ’

Women Newsmakers in 2011

December 31, 2011
By Hello Ladies
Betty Dukes and Walmart plaintiffs

Betty Dukes and Walmart plaintiffs

Another year almost over, another few cents narrowing the wage gap. Here’s a look back at some of the stories that impacted or involved women in 2011:

Reproductive rights under attack: Three days into the year we wrote, “Congressman John Boehner (R-Ohio) will become Speaker of the House Wednesday and women should pay attention. … In fact, he represents a significant threat to women’s reproductive rights.” And indeed 2011 saw some of the most aggressive attacks on women’s reproductive health. Ashley Portero at the International Business Times has a round up of the staggering number measures related to reproductive health introduced in 2011 including:

  • H.R. 3 with its disturbing “forcible rape”  language (as if all rape isn’t forcible?)
  • H.R. 358, the Protect Life Act, or as some are called it, the Let Women Die Act.
  • The Heartbeat Bill, which would ban abortions after the first detectable fetal heartbeat- before many women even know they are pregnant. Two fetuses were witnesses at an Ohio legislative committee contemplating this bill.
  • And of course, the attack on Planned Parenthood.

Rape and intimate partner violence a very real threat: Speaking of women’s health, in November the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, a comprehensive survey on sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence revealing in the United States nearly 1 in 5 women have been raped,  and more than 1 in 3 women have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner.

DialloTwo brave women speak out: Two women bravely spoke out against sexual violence and took to the mainstream media thereby letting the world know the stigma of rape belongs to the rapist, not the raped. Nafitassou Diallo, the woman who accused Dominique Strauss Kahn (DSK),  former head of the International Monetary Fund of raping her in a New York hotel room, and Lara Logan, the CBS correspondent who was brutally assaulted in Egypt went on primetime television and shared their stories.

Ginni Rometty

Ginni Rometty

IMF and IBM appoint women to top spots: Following the allegations against Strauss Kahn, Christine Lagarde, France’s finance minister, was named the new head of the International Monetary Fund. And technology giant IBM appointed its first ever woman CEO, Virginia (Ginni) Rometty while former eBay chief Meg Whitmasn was named CEO at Hewlett Packard. However, Avon’s CEO Andrea Jung, stepped down and Carol Bartz was fired by Yahoo. While there was plenty of movement, the 2011 Catalyst Census:Fortune 500 Women Board Directors, Executive Officers and Top Earners reported in the corporate world “women have made no significant gains in the last year and are no further along the corporate ladder than they were six years ago.”

The Supreme Court blocks Walmart discrimination suit: In June, The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in the Walmart v. Dukes case in favor of Walmart. The court ruled the gender discrimination suit against Walmart could not proceed as a class action. In doing so the court overturned a U.S. appeal court ruling that granted class action status to female employees of the giant retailer. The decision was widely viewed as a win for big business and a blow to women and we wrote, “The decision leaves women alone in their fight against discriminatory practices, steeling for a long, expensive, and sometimes nasty battle, or merely biting their tongue.”

The wage gap remains: Underscoring why the Walmart ruling matters, in March the White House Council on Women and Girls issued the report, Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economical Well-Being, which noted women have not only caught up with men in college attendance but younger women are now more likely than younger men to have a college or a master’s degree and the number of women and men in the labor force has nearly equalized in recent years. However, the gains in education and jobs has not translated into wage and equity. At all levels of education, women earned about 75 percent of what their male counterparts earned in 2009.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Three women win the Nobel Prize: In October, The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to three women in recognition of “their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” The Nobel Committee divided the award equally between Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman.

Politics continues to be a sexist sport: In August we published “The Hello Ladies Guide to Sexism in Politics” so women could follow along during a wild year for women in politics. The year began with a horrific attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who we were thrilled to see return to the House in August for the debt ceiling vote. Also in January, the formidable Maryland Senator Barbara A. Mikulski became the longest-serving woman in U.S. Senate history. Mid year Congresswoman Michele Bachmann announced her candidacy for president and thankfully former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin did not. In September, Elizabeth Warren officially entered the Massachusetts Senate race. And throughout the year, many in the  media, and certainly Herman Cain, continued to demonstrate sexist behavior towards women in politics. Name It Change It has a good roundup of sexist media coverage in 2011.

We said goodbye to two strong women and hello to many more: Former Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, who was the first female vice presidential candidate of the United States, passed away in March as did Former First Lady Betty Ford in July. As we said goodbye to these inspiring women, we were introduced to emerging leaders like:

 

  • Afrykayn Moon who held her ground when a public transit bus driver ordered her to either cover up or get off the bus while she  was breastfeeding her child
  • Michelle Hickman, who staged a nationwide nurse-in at Target after she was asked by Target employees to relocate while nursing her child at the store
  • and Penis Mom who reminded us to speak out out against outdated gender stereotypes and biases and made us laugh while doing it.

We’re looking forward to covering more heroines in 2012.

 

 

 

The Hello Ladies Guide to Sexism in Politics

August 18, 2011
By Hello Ladies
Political attack ad against Janice Hahn

The latest presidential election cycle has only just begun and already we are engaged in some lively discussions about the sexist treatment of candidate Michele Bachmann. Was the Newsweek cover photo of the Congresswoman and the accompanying headline sexist? Was the “submissive wife” question out of line?  Sexism may seem more out in front during a presidential campaign but it exists in politics all the time – and at the state and local level too. Some of the sexism is over the top, and some not so obvious. To help you easily identify and respond to unfair treatment of female politicians, here is “The Hello Ladies Guide to Sexism in Politics.”

Overt sexism: In this category we have the outrageous remarks that make you scream, “How does this person (insert name of person who spoke or wrote the sexist comment) keep their job?!” Examples: Conan O’Brien sidekick Andy Richter’s recent tweet that read, “There’s nothing wrong with Michele Bachmann that two solid weeks of orgasms won’t cure.” Statements like that one attempt to reduce a female candidate to a shrew, a sexual object, anything but a viable contender for the job. An Alex Beam column in The Boston Globe during the Massachusetts Senate race last year qualified because it shifted the focus, even if only briefly, from Attorney General Martha Coakley’s front-runner status to her looks. And, of course, the web ad depicting Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn as a pole dancer was one of the most offensive displays of sexism in politics we’ve seen.

Subtle sexism: This is the kind of sexism that doesn’t necessarily jump off the page but still reveals and perpetuates entrenched attitudes that women don’t belong in Washington. Examples: Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen writing, “I can think of no reason why anyone who, for some unaccountable reason, supports Michele Bachmann will not move over to Perry… Perry, who actually looks like a president … will raise far more money and breeze by her.” Because presidents, ladies, don’t look like us. They look like white guys. And to be clear,  political leaders don’t care about frivolous things like makeup and jewelry either. That was the message in an attack ad against North Carolina Senate candidate Margaret Dickson. Because after all, women who wear lipstick might gasp or cough when a terrorist is killed. Yes, the analysis of Secretary of State Clinton in the situation room during the Osama Bin Laden raid was sexist. And the other things legislators are not: mothers, or, women with no children. Sarah Palin had too many kids and  Tampa mayoral candidate Rosa Ferlita didn’t have enough. An attack ad against her implied she was unfit for office unlike her opponent, “a family man.”

Blink-and-you-might-miss-it sexism: From a very young age, we’ve been conditioned by the media to view women a certain way. Think Barbie with her physically impossible figure, models airbrushed into Everyman’s fantasy, Wilma Flinstone – tough but obedient, and Daphne and Velma – pretty or smart but never both. So we don’t always immediately see sexism for what it is because the images served up of female politicians follow the same formula we’ve always seen when it comes to the portrayal of women in the media. Examples: Fox News correspondent Greta Van Susteren asking then Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin if she had breast implants – not relevant to U.S. policy but a topic we’re used to having about women in the news. Another example was Rep. Allen West telling Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz she’s “not a lady.” Because a well-behaved lady doesn’t challenge a man (but we do, don’t we ladies?). And then there’s the use of our least-favorite phrase “Man Up.”  Because it’s men who win wars, fix economies and create jobs. Clearly.

Why it Matters: Sexism hurts. A 2010 poll by Lake Research Partners revealed that “even mild sexist language has an impact on voters’ likelihood to vote for a female candidate and on how favorable they feel toward a woman seeking office.” The Inter-Parliamentary Union, an organization whose mission is to establish representative democracy across the globe, sees gender parity as the path to democracy stating, “The concept of democracy will only assume true and dynamic significance when political policies and national legislation are decided upon jointly by men and women with equitable regard for the interests and aptitudes of both halves of the population.” But here in the U.S. women hold barely 17 percent of the seats in Congress, despite making up half the population.

What We Can Do About It: We can start by calling out sexism when we see it. Organizations like Name It Change It allow people to report sexist coverage and then call on the media outlets to change behavior. We can tell advertisers and sponsors we don’t like it, that we notice where they spend advertising dollars and that we too must think about how we spend our money.

And we can work to shift the political landscape. We can contribute to and volunteer on women’s campaigns. It takes a lot of money and people to get someone elected. We can vote for women. I often quote Gloria Feldt who says, “… when there are two candidates–one male and one female–who are both well-qualified and represent my positions on major issues I care about, I will support the woman until such time as women have our fair 50 percent share of the elected official slots. Then and only then will gender not matter.” And we can run for office.  Organizations like She Should Run, The White House Project, The 2012 Project and Ready to Run offer support and coaching for women seeking office.

And eventually, we too will look like a president.

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

August 10, 2011
By Hello Ladies

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?

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Ignorant Legislator of the Week

June 7, 2011
By Hello Ladies
John LaBruzzo

John LABruzzo

Our ignorant legislator of the week award is back and this week’s recipient is … Nope, not Sarah Palin. Even though she keeps rambling about Paul Revere and bells and warning the British and the Second Amendment and blah, blah, blah. She is no longer governor. And no, not Anthony Weiner – he just needs to stop talking and tweeting.

The winner is Rep. John LaBruzzo, a Republican from the Louisiana House of Representatives. You may remember LaBruzzo because he caused quite a stir back in 2008 when he proposed a program that would pay welfare recipients for getting sterilized. Well he’s back.

Now LaBruzzo is shepherding a bill that would Revises the Human Life Protection Act and make performing an abortion illegal in Louisiana. And LaBruzzo doesn’t care if the pregnancy is the result of incest or rape. And his arguments don’t make a whole lot of sense. Yesterday he argued, “Now the opponents in the opposition argue that whether we make it illegal or not, people are going to get abortions. Well, we’ve illegalized murder and drugs for a long long time, and yet those crimes continue to take place.”

Here he is in action.

LaBruzzo was joined by a lawyer from Personhood USA, a group that is attempting to limit a woman’s right to full reproductive health services, regardless of the circumstances, by defining personhood as the moment of fertilization. Personhood supporters don’t care that the medical world doesn’t consider a woman to be pregnant until the fertilized egg is implanted in her uterus. The Personhood movement may seem fringe, but so did the Tea Party at one point.

 

 

Thank You Geraldine Ferraro

March 27, 2011
By Hello Ladies

Geraldine Ferraro died yesterday at the age of 75 from complications related to blood cancer. It’s Women’s History Month and Ferraro was definitely a woman who made history. In 1984 she inspired generations when she was chosen by Walter Mondale as the first female vice presidential candidate of the United States. In her concession speech, Ferraro said, “My candidacy has said the days of discrimination are numbered.”

Ferraro’s run was marred by sexism, including a comment from Barbara Bush who said of her husband’s opponent, “I can’t say it but it rhymes with ‘rich.” However, many credit her candidacy with changing the political landscape. More women were elected to Congress and appointed cabinet positions post-1984. Ferraro had been a Congresswoman prior to the 1984 election, representing Queens, New York.

Following the election, Ferraro remained a strong advocate for women and was not afraid to speak out against sexism. She was a fierce supporter of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, getting herself in hot water for some comments she made about Barack Obama.

We owe a lot to Geraldine Ferraro. Thank you.

Shooting in Arizona; Stop the Hate

January 8, 2011
By Hello Ladies

Earlier today a lone gunman opened fire in front of a supermarket in Arizona. He killed a nine year old child, a federal judge, and two others. He shot U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords in the head and wounded several other people. Police have 22 year old Jared Loughner in custody for the crime.

The Internet is exploding with theories and commentary about the shooting. The shooter had a MySpace page which has been taken down and also has a series of strange videos on YouTube which discuss U.S. currency and other ramblings. Was the shooting politically motivated? Was Loughner just a deranged young man? We don’t have the facts yet. But there are two things we know for sure.

First, guns kill. Shooters pull the trigger, no doubt. But they couldn’t deliver the bullets without the guns.

Second, the political rhetoric and culture of hate in this country is out of control. We live in a time when former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin published a list of political targets marked with gun crossfires. Palin also delivered the infamous tweet, “Don’t retreat. Instead–reload.” Tea Party members rally with signs that say, “We come unarmed… this time” and “I own a gun and I didn’t bring it … yet.”

We live in a time when Sharron Angle, who ran for Senate last year, floated ideas about armed revolutions to fight “tyranny” and Giffords’ opponent in the last election hosted a campaign event inviting people to “target” Giffords at which his supporters could shoot an M16. Our so-called political leaders are stoking the flames of hate.

Yes, the shooter is responsible for pulling the trigger. But we need those who engage in hate talk and reference violence  to examine the impact of their words. Arizona Sherriff Dupnik said after the shootings, “The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous… There’s reason to believe that this individual might have a mental issue, and I think that people who are unbalanced might be especially susceptible to vitriol.” Words have power and the speakers have influence. We need them to have social responsibility.

And hopefully, as a country, we know that we don’t want to continue down this path. We want to move forward with tolerance, healthy debate and on common ground. This is not who we were. This is not who we will be.

2010 Political Review (Slideshow)

December 31, 2010
By Hello Ladies

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?

Six Things We Need to Do to Send a Woman to the White House

July 9, 2010
By Hello Ladies


Last week I posted a question at SkinnyScoop: Do you think a woman will be elected president in your lifetime? Most of the respondents (81 percent) said yes. No one answered definitely not. I sure hope the respondents are right, but getting there won’t be easy.

One respondent at SkinnyScoop wrote, “We are ready and there are more of us than them, we just need to get out and vote ladies.” It seems simple. But it’s not. The sad truth is we haven’t moved past the misogyny and sexism we witnessed during Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Senate hopeful Martha Coakley didn’t do herself any favors when she made some bad campaign decisions last winter but the press didn’t do her many favors either. And the Republicans don’t seem to treat their women much better, as Newsweek recently pointed out.

I remember during Clinton’s presidential run people groaning about the word misogyny. “I’m so sick of feminists talking about misogyny,” friends and coworkers would tell me when I was discussing things Tucker Carlson, Chris Matthews, Glen Beck and Keith Olbermann had said on television the night before. I challenge those same people to come up with a better explanation for Playboy’s recent article (which has been removed from its site) “The Top 10 Conservative Women We Love to Hate” complete with hatef**k ratings for each woman.

The fact is the media can be a brutal place for women in politics and we are far from achieving any kind of critical mass. Women make up only 17 percent of Congress today and only six states have women serving as governor. So, if we are going to put a woman in the White House ladies, we have work to do. Here are six things you can do to make it happen.

1. Contribute. It takes a lot of money to get elected. Just recently, two promising women candidates ended races citing lack of support from their party, the Democrats. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner lost the primary to Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and Connie Saltonstall quit the race to replace Michigan’s Congressman Bart Stupak. Saltonstall said she didn’t think she could raise the necessary funds to run without her party’s support.

2. Volunteer. It also takes a lot of people power to run a campaign. Get involved. Too often I hear mother’s in my community tell me they just don’t have the time to get involved because their children need them at home. I tell them my children need me out fighting for the things I believe will secure their future. Your kids will be fine if you spend a few hours at the phone bank. Trust me.

3. Support qualified women candidates. Period. As Gloria Feldt says, “… when there are two candidates–one male and one female–who are both well-qualified and represent my positions major issues I care about, I will support the woman until such time as women have our fair 50% share of the elected official slots. Then and only then will gender not matter.”

4. Start local. Get involved in your local politics and help groom future women leaders.

5. Run. Better yet, why don’t you run for office? Check out She Should Run or attend a Whitehouse Project event for more information and access to support.

6. Vote.

 

And in other news, congratulations to Mary Jo McMenamin who won a Yogi Max from Yogibo for answering our question at The SkinnyScoop.

Varying Degrees of Progress

June 30, 2010
By Hello Ladies

Iceland’s prime minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, just got married – to another woman; the country’s marriage equality laws went into effect this past week. And for the record, Iceland elected its first female president, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, thirty years ago. Now that’s progress.

Meanwhile, Australia has a new prime minister – its first woman to hold the position, (progress) and she is unmarried, which is causing significant discussion. Julia Gillard, elected June 24, does have a boyfriend and the Sydney Morning Herald is concerned with their living arrangements. In article titled, “Shacking up is hard to do: why Gillard may be leery of the Lodge,” writer Bettina Arndt worries that, “as a popular role model for women, her lifestyle choice may influence other women into making big mistakes about their lives.” That mistake is “wasting precious breeding time in such uncertain relationships.” Wow. That doesn’t feel like progress. The newspaper even ran a poll asking “Do you agree that Julia Gillard’s de facto lifestyle is a bad influence for women?” So far 78 percent of respondents have said no. That’s progress.

And here in the United States, the closest we’ve come to electing a woman to lead the country was Hillary Clinton’s run for office and two women, Sarah Palin and Geraldine Ferraro, running as vice presidential candidates. Are we making progress? Do you think a woman will be elected president in your lifetime? Answer that question at The SkinnyScoop and you’ll be eligible to win a Yogi Max from Yogibo.

Newsweek takes on sexism

March 24, 2010
By Hello Ladies

Brava to the three Newsweek writers who take on gender discrimination at their own magazine. In the March 29 issue Jessica Bennett, Jesse Ellison and Sarah Ball ask just how far women at Newsweek have come since 46 women filed a sexual discrimination suit against the magazine in 1970. They go on to describe a culture of sexism perhaps less blatant than the corporate landscape of the 1960s and 70s but harder to confront. It is the micro inequities women face every day that can be hardest to address. Tell me “women don’t write here” “or sell here” or “manage here” and I can deal with that. But fail to give me the choice assignments and instead hand them to my male colleagues and what do I do with that? And good luck getting any support from coworkers – male or female. No one wants to fight the good fight, especially since we’ve been told we already won.

Write the authors, “There’s no denying that we’re enjoying many of the spoils of those women’s victories. We are no longer huddled in secret; we’re reporting for a national magazine, and we’re the ones doing the writing. We have a president whose first act in office was to sign a law that promises equal pay for equal work. Yet the fact that such a law is necessary makes the point: equality is still a myth. …We’ve come a long way, baby. But there’s still a long way to go.”

What I found to be even more revealing than the article is a slideshow on the magazine’s website showing how Newsweek has reported on women over the years.

- There is the cover featuring Bryn Mawr students from 1966. The accompanying article says “for the first time, the career drive in girls exceeds the mating drive.”

- “The Divorced Woman” cover in 1967.

- “The New Woman” cover in 1971 featuring Gloria Steinem.

- The “Women at Work and Home” cover in 1980. The article inside the magazine states, “The women’s movement, after concentrating on legislative action in the past decade, has now vowed to make day care and other family issues top political priorities in the ’80s.” Wow. We’re still trying to make them a priority in 2010.

- Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears on the “Girls Gone Wild” cover in 2007. Apparently, celebrity bad boys got a pass.

- And the Sarah Palin in running clothes cover of 2009.

According to the White House Project, women account for just 22 percent of the leadership positions in journalism. Until women reach critical mass in the newsroom, we can expect more of the same – stories discussing us as alien beings who’s desires to learn, work, have children, not have children, marry, divorce, reach the corner office and the oval office, are radical new ideas instead of the normal desires of 51 percent of the population.

Until women reach critical mass in the newsroom, we can expect more of the same – stories discussing us as alien beings who’s desires to learn, work, have children, not have children, marry, divorce, reach the corner office and the oval office are radical new ideas instead of the normal desires of 51 percent of the population.   

 

 
 

 

 

 
  
 
 
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