Posts Tagged ‘ White House Project ’

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

August 10, 2011
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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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Guest Post: Why 2012 Could Be a Banner Year for Women

July 15, 2011
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PoliticianThe recent series of sex scandals involving male politicians has generated lots of discussion in the media about the need for more women in elected office. Would women be less likely than men to behave badly? It’s hard to say but also irrelevant. What the media failed to point out is that we need more women. Not because they might subject the public to fewer headlines regarding extramarital affairs, but because women are dramatically underrepresented in public office.

Looking at the make-up of the 112th Congress, the numbers are staggeringly bad. Although 51 percent of the U.S. population is female, women hold 89, or 16.5 percent of the 535 seats — 17, or 17.0 percent, of the 100 seats in the Senate and 72, or 16.5 percent, of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. That puts the US at 69th in the world for gender parity, according to the Inter Parliamentary Union.

The problem, however, is not that women aren’t winning elections, it’s that they aren’t running for office. This is why political strategist Mary Hughes created The 2012 Project, a campaign of Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics. It’s a nonpartisan, national campaign to recruit record numbers of women to run for Congress and state legislatures in 2012. The 2012 Project functions as a matchmaker. “We inspire women to step forward, and connect them with fundraising networks, training programs and think tanks in their states. We identify them, and then we entrust them to folks with relevant expertise,” says Hughes.

The last time there was a significant increase of women in the Congress was in 1992, when 24 new women were elected to the House. But 1992 wasn’t an accident. It was the combined result of a favorable climate partially created by the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings as well as a coordinated effort to reach out to potential candidates.

Similar to 1992, the election of 2012 presents a once-in-a-decade opportunity for women to increase their numbers in office. Following the 2010 census, every congressional and state legislative district in the country is being redrawn. Reapportionment creates opportunity, and research shows that women have more success winning open seats. Of the 24 women who were elected in 1992, 22 ran for open seats.

While it’s all fine and good to hear pundits call for the need for more women in office, they won’t win if they don’t run. Hughes believes the media’s call for more women should be taken as a compliment.  “It means there is a general recognition that women in public office take their jobs seriously,” she says. The opportunity of the 2012 election should be taken equally seriously if we want to see gender parity in government. 2022 is too long to wait.

The 2012 Project is a national, non-partisan campaign to increase the number of women in Congress and state legislatures by taking advantage of the once-in-a-decade opportunities of 2012.

More resources for women interested in elected office:

She Should Run

The White House Project

Ready to Run

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New Year’s Resolutions for Everywoman

December 27, 2010
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New Year's Resolutions for Women

(This post first appeared on Care2.) According to Psychology Today, the most common New Year’s Resolutions are to lose weight, exercise more, quit smoking, manage debt and save money  – all worthy endeavors. But experts say that more than 75 percent of all people fail at meeting their goals.

So why not scrap the traditional resolutions altogether? Instead, resolve to help improve the lives of women. Here are five resolutions you can make to help others.

  1. Support women candidates. Women bring a unique perspective and much-needed diversity to public office. Plus, recent studies show women politicians bring more money back to their districts than men do. But women with political ambition don’t always have access to the same resources men have. So  lose the phrase, “I want to support a woman candidate but….,” and back her if she’s qualified and supports women’s rights.
  2. Learn to negotiate. Women still earn less than men for comparable work. There are many factors that contribute to this inequity including plain, old sexism. Help mitigate these factors by learning to advocate for fair pay. With strong negotiation skills, you can at least ask for fair equitable compensation. With more women on the payroll then men, and more women supporting their families, equal pay is not just an individual issue, it’s an economic one.
  3. Vote with your wallet. Women control more than 85 percent of all consumer purchases so use your power for good not evil. Make informed decisions about the products you buy and the companies with which you do business. Know where they stand on human rights, fair trade and environmental practices and send a message with every dollar you spend.
  4. Hone your typing skills. Women occupy only 22 percent of all leadership positions in journalism, according to the Whitehouse Report. As a result, women are often underrepresented or misrepresented in the mainstream media. But women are well represented in social media. Why not join them in 2010? Log on and blog, tweet, send a letter to the editor. Don’t let sexism go unchecked or women’s stories go unwritten.
  5. Consider microloans. Financial loans can make a difference in women’s lives across the globe. Just a small donation can help a woman by raw materials or equipment for her business. Studies show that women use the profits from their businesses to pay for education and healthcare and that repayment rates run between 95 and 98 percent. Care2 makes loaning money simple through its Butterfly Rewards program.

 Happy New Year.

We’re Giving Away Two Tickets to LUNAFEST Boston

November 7, 2010
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Hello Ladies. LUNAFEST is coming to Boston Wednesday, Nov. 10 and we have two free tickets for you. Read more here.

Women, We Need to Vote

November 1, 2010
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Ladies, I get the complacency. I do. I am mostly uninspired by my choices on the ballot. But I will vote. And I hope you do too.

Vote because your grandmothers and great grandmothers could not. Women have only been allowed to vote in this country for 90 years. So I will exercise my right in honor of Nana.

Vote for hope. Brazil just elected its first woman president and someday we will too? and someday we will too.

Vote because you’re not giving up.

Vote because you’re tired of others defining the “woman’s vote.” You can tell them how you feel, thank you.

Vote because we are not going to allow sexist campaign tactics to sway our votes.

Vote because women are losing ground in Washington and we are not okay with that. We are going for critical mass.

Just vote.

And next time around, why not run?

Six Ways to Honor Women’s Equality Day

August 26, 2010
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Today is Women’s Equality Day marking the ninetieth anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. It’s not an easy day to honor. Do we celebrate the tremendous work of the suffragettes who fought long and hard for women? Or do we note the irony of an equality day when women still earn, on average, only 77 cents for every dollar a man earns; bang their heads against a glass ceiling; still do the majority of housework and haven’t reached critical mass in Washington?

I say we 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. Here are six suggestions for celebrating Women’s Equality Day.

1. Vote. The suffragettes fought a long, hard battle in order for women to have the right to vote.  If you aren’t already registered, register to vote today, read up on the issues and cast a ballot in the midterm elections. Women are 51 percent of the population and we do make a difference on election day.

2. Run. Better yet, why not run for office? Ladies, it’s great to help candidates and cast a vote. But we are so much more powerful than just phone bankers and sign holders. We need a critical mass of women in elected positions both locally and nationally if we want equal representation. Visit She Should Run, Emerge and The White House Project to learn about campaigning.

3. Speak. At a minimum, let your elected officials know what you expect of them. Call your Senators and tell them we need them to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Healthy Families Act. Tell the White House it’s time to ratify CEDAW, The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Equal Rights Amendment. We’ve waited long enough.

4. Teach. Tell your children about suffragettes like Helen Gardener, Ida Husted Harper and Marjorie Shuler who aren’t in the text books, but should be. These women changed the course of history.

5. Thank the women who are fighting for equality today. Make sure they know their work is appreciated. My sincere thanks to so many women including Gloria Feldt and Jodi Jacobson who stand up for our reproductive rights; Zoe Nicholson who never stops fighting for equality; Marie Wilson, Jehmu Green and Katie Orenstein who teach other women how to use their power; CV Harquail and The Mama Bee who inspire me by how hard they work; Lea Webb and Jill Miller Zimon, who are modeling a new ideal for public servants; @rosiered23 and Cynthia Samuels for giving women a place to read, write and learn.

6. Notice the women who are quietly making a difference in your life (the coworker who negotiated maternity leave, the sole woman on the city council, the boss who stuck her neck out for you) and honor their work by following their lead.

Enjoy the day and feel free to leave a comment with the names of other women we should thank.

Kagan Approved; Brings Critical Mass to Supreme Court

August 5, 2010
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The Senate voted today to send Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Kagan is only the fourth female justice, out of 111 total, in the history of the Supreme Court and is now one of three women currently on the bench joining Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotamayor. With Kagan’s appointment, women have now reached critical mass on the Supreme Court.

Critical mass is explained in the White House Project Report “Benchmarking Women’s Leadership” as, “an idea that has moved from science and sociology to political science and into popular usage over the last 30 years. The concept is borrowed from nuclear physics:  it refers to the quantity needed to start a chain reaction, an irreversible propulsion into a new situation or process.” When women reach critical mass in senior leadership positions, many organizational experts believe the perception of those women shifts from token representation or special interest to fully integrated  members of the group.

Kagan’s appointment could be a boost for female lawyers. The legal sector is far from reaching critical mass. Despite the fact more women than men are obtaining law degrees, men outnumber women partners in private firms significantly. According to a new report, “New Millennium, Same Glass Ceiling? The Impact of Law Firm Compensation Systems on Women” from the Project for Attorney Retention and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, women represent just 16 percent of equity partners nationwide and experience a higher rate of attrition than men. Just one in four judges is female, according to the White House Project Report. Hopefully, the three women on the Supreme Court will inspire others in the industry to move past outdated stereotypes and operating procedures and develop the support systems necessary to bring much-needed diversity to the legal profession.

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

July 9, 2010
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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.

Missing: Women in Politics

May 21, 2010
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Check out the latest data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) on the number of women in government worldwide. Just 18.9 percent of all elected leaders in both upper and lower parliamentary branches combined (House and Senate for example) are women. That’s correct, less than twenty percent of the world leaders (where data is available) are women.

The IPU’s mission is to establish representative democracy across the globe. One of its main areas of focus is women in politics.  In 1997, the IPU Council adopted a Universal Declaration on Democracy which states, “The achievement of democracy presupposes a genuine partnership between men and women in the conduct of the affairs of society in which they work in equality and complementarity, drawing mutual enrichment from their differences.”

The IPU has also stated, “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.”

Yet here we are in 2010 with a worse than 80/20 split of men and women in leadership.  And the United States is no role model.  Our percentages in the House and Senate are below the worldwide average and we rank 74 on a list of countries classified by descending order of the percentage of women in the lower or single House. We rank behind Rwanda (number 1), Sweden (number 2), Norway, Cuba, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and others.  In 2009, we ranked 72. That is not progress.

What can we do about it?

The IPU published a Plan of Action “To Correct Present Imbalances in the Participation of Men and Women in Political Life”.  When I read the plan, I was reminded of a conversation I had last year with one of my Selectman in the town where I live. He was up for reelection at the time. He told me the reason our town established a Sustainability Initiative was because an environmental activist had run against this Selectman in a previous election in order to raise awareness about environmental issues.

“So maybe I should run against you in this round to raise awareness for the gender imbalance in town politics.”

“What are you talking about?” he said “We have a woman on the board.” He wasn’t being flip. He was serious. There is one woman on a five person board so in his mind there is no problem even though that hardly gets us to critical mass (at least 33 percent representation) and the rest of the town boards are woefully unbalanced in favor of men.

Former Speaker of the House and classic Boston politician Tip O’Neill once said,”All politics is local.” In that phrase lies the answer to what can we do.

Start local. Most of us won’t ever get an invitation to the UN to discuss this issue, but we all have access to our local town hall. Pay attention to your town or city’s politics and ask the tough questions. Support women candidates with time and or money. Ask a woman to run for office, or better yet, why don’t you run? She Should Run is a great resource for women considering a run.  That’s how the political machine works: start at the bottom and make your way up.  

And visit us again Monday. I recently met with Harmony Wu, a small force of nature on the Massachusetts Democratic scene, and I will share my interview with her here.

Fear of Public Speaking

May 12, 2010
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Public Speaking. Hate it!

Even though I took Voice and Articulation, Debate, Oral Interpretation and Public Speaking 101 in college; even though I won, not one but, four awards in my Dale Carnegie class; even though I’ve presented at sales meetings and new business pitches and industry conferences; I still start to shake when I stand at a podium. It makes me crazy.

And yet I continue to put myself in situations where speaking into a microphone is necessary. Last night I spoke before Town Meeting, a tough crowd made up of career, albeit local, politicians; bright young things who’ve recently moved into town; and our own special and crusty “Party of No” — the townies.

I chair a committee which is sponsoring two pieces of legislation so it did make sense for me to explain the bills. But still, I could have avoided the public presentations. There are several well-spoken, well-respected men in town who, quite frankly, could have made the case better than me. And then there are several members of the boy’s club who have more political chips with the lovable Townies than I ever would. (You see I didn’t move here until I was two. I am not an insider.)

I used to think I put myself in these situations for the purpose of personal growth. But then I realized, growth is the last thing I need. Quite frankly, I could use a little personal shrinkage – around the waist, the hips, and the thighs.

No, I stood up last night for two reasons. The first: my daughter. I firmly believe that if we are going to tell our daughters they can grow up and become anything they want, then we must show them examples. And yes, even a trembling mom fighting for change at a suburban town meeting is a better example than a mom sitting quietly in the back of the auditorium listening to all the men speak.

The second reason: critical mass. The idea of  critical mass is that once women reach at least 30 percent representation in a group, they can start to affect real change. At thirty percent they stop being  viewed and judged as the representative women in the group, and start being evaluated for their contributions. Where I live, we are far from critical mass. Just one selectman out of five is a woman. There are only two women on the nine-person Finance Committee. We have no women on the Planning Board.  There are three women, out of seven members, on our School Committee. (But education is women’s work, isn’t it?) Three out of the nine people on my committee are women.

I don’t particularly enjoy politics. I dislike the quid pro quo, the compromises, the lack of transparency and the attitude, “that’s how we’ve always done it.” Plus, I’d rather be home spending time with my husband and kids, or watching Glee, than sitting through marathon meetings. But if I don’t participate, then what will my daughter see? Until we reach a critical mass of women in Washington (and at 17 percent we’re way off), we all need to step up to the microphone and literally, shake things up.

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