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Groups > DONE with Dubya (Formerly Down with Dubya) > Discussions > Topic: Women, Politics, Human & Civil Rights, Discrimination, etc.
Topic: Women, Politics, Human & Civil Rights, Discrimination, etc.

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Yvonne W.	November 16, 2009 2:14 PM Sign the petition, send a coathanger Dear Friend, Why did pro-choice Democrats vote to approve the Stupak amendment, the most serious assault on abortion rights in a generation? According to FiveThirtyEight.com, 20 of the 64 Democrats who joined Republicans to pass the measure are nominally pro-choice. We need to tell these 20 Democrats to reconsider their vote and urge Congressional leadership to do everything they can to ensure the health care bill that comes out of committee does not take us back to an era of coat hangers and back alley abortions. I just signed a petition to the 20 formerly pro-choice Democrats -- all of them men -- who voted to take away women's rights. For every person that signs the petition a coat hanger will be sent to remind these politicians what happens when women can't get access to reproductive health care including abortion. Please have a look and take action. http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/send_a_coathanger/?r_by=-1492483-3AJM.Ex&rc=confemail1 [ send green star]
Yvonne W.	October 31, 2009 3:25 PM Jason Leopold \| Cheney Could Not Recall Key Events About His Role in CIA Leak Jason Leopold, Truthout: "A month before Valerie Plame Wilson's covert status as a CIA operative was revealed, Vice President Dick Cheney told his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, and his press secretary, Cathie Martin, that Plame Wilson worked at the CIA. But according to a 28-page summary of Cheney’s May 8, 2004 interview with the special prosecutor probing the leak, Cheney did not recall having that conversation." Read the Article [ send green star]
Yvonne W.	October 20, 2009 2:02 PM Yesterday, 30 Republican senators opposed an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill that would prohibit federal defense contractors like Halliburton/KBR from getting money "if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court." In other words, 30 GOP senators want to deny rape victims their day in court. Think Progress has the story of the woman who prompted this amendment: In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. She was detained in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and "warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job." (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration. Senator Al Franken introduced the amendment to the appropriations bill last week to prevent such complete disregard for the rights of rape victims. Nine senators (Mary Landrieu, Benjamin Cardin, Amy Klobuchar, John Kerry, Jeff Merkley, Bill NElson, Dianne Feinstein, Sherrod Brown and Jeanne Shaheen) joined Franken in cosponsoring the bill -- and it passed with 10 GOP senators supporting it after a passionate speech from Franken. >>><http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q5kVbiWnAQ>><<< All four Republican women (Susan Collins, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Lisa Murkowski and Olympia Snowe) voted for the amendment, and they were joined by Bob Bennett, Orrin Hatch, Chuck Grassley, George LeMieux, Dick Lugar and George Voinovich. These GOP senators deserve our thanks for truly embracing bipartisanship to vote for a bill that is clearly a good idea. Then there's the 30 who voted against it: Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-K Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-M Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Gregg (R-NH) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-K Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-M Of particular note in this bunch? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Nominee for president John McCain. Senators intimately familiar with sex scandals David Vitter and John Ensign. Really, guys? Opposing a bill intended to let rape victims get prosecution? That's truly a new low for the Republican party. You can call them out on it! If you're a constituent of one of these members, we'll deliver your letter of outrage to them -- and if you're not, it'll go to Minority Leader McConnell, who speaks for all Senate Republicans. Send your letter today!: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/155116824?z00m=19795988 (Source: http://www.care2.com/causes/womens-rights/blog/republicans-for-rape/) [ send green star]
Blue B.	October 08, 2009 4:43 PM New Report: "Start With a Girl: A New Agenda for Global Health" http://post.ly/7Vtv "In a pathbreaking follow-up to the 2008 report Girls Count, Miriam Temin and CGD vice president Ruth Levine shed light on girls' health worldwide and its impact on the wellbeing and productivity of girls, their families, and their nations. Start with a Girl: A New Agenda for Global Health highlights successful efforts to break the cycle of ill health and proposes a comprehensive, practical global health agenda that starts with adolescent girls..." [ send green star]
Blue B.	October 08, 2009 4:34 PM WEBCAST: Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn on "Half the Sky" Thank you for all who caught the live show - we have folks from around the world. You can catch the recording by hitting the play button on clicking on the link. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/saja/2009/10/07/Nicholas-Kristof-Sheryl-WuDunn (you can set an e-mail reminder for yourself at that link) Or call-in to listen and/or talk to them at +1-347-324-5991. ~ ~ ~ SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association, celebrating SAJA@15, its 15th Anniversary Year - in cooperation with the Asian American Journalists Association (NY chapter), the Arab & Middle East Journalists Association and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism - presents... a special webcast with NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF & SHERYL WuDUNN, authors of the widely-acclaimed "Half The Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide" (and as seen on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, "Colbert Report," "Oprah," the NYT Bestsellers list). More about them and their book at http://halftheskymovement.org [Folllow Kristof on Twitter: @nytimeskristof] "If you have always wondered whether you can change the world, read this book. Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have written a brilliant call to arms that describes one of the transcendent injustices in the world today - the brutal treatment of women. The authors vividly describe a terrible reality about the world we live in but they also provide light and hope that we can, in fact, change it." - Fareed Zakaria, author, The Post-American World and host of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS." [ send green star]
Blue B.	September 15, 2009 2:37 PM EXCLUSIVE: ANTI-ABORTION GROUP MAY HAVE VIOLATEDTAX CODE [ send green star]
Blue B.	September 14, 2009 7:33 PM SEBELIUS EYES EXPLICIT BAN ON ABORTION FUNDING.... It seemed like an issue that had already been settled -- health care reform would not offer public subsidies to pay for terminating unwanted pregnancies. Conservatives, unwilling to take "yes" for an answer, have said the restrictions don't go far enough. George Stephanopoulos explored the issue further yesterday, and the administration is apparently willing to give the right what it's looking for. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told me on 'This Week' the President will go beyond language in a House bill to make sure no public money goes to pay for abortions under health care reform. Abortion foes argue language in the House bill has too many holes and that taxpayers could potentially subsidize abortions. Sebelius told me there will be no uncertainty with the President's plan. "In fact recently the Catholic bishops came out, after the President's statement saying that his statement about what he intends in the plan that no public fund would go to fund abortion and the fact that he has come out firmly for insuring all Americans and saying that it's a moral issue as well as an economic issue and they endorsed moving forward. I think the legislative language will reflect what the President has just said." I continue to think these are not exactly effective negotiating techniques. Republicans say, "We want explicit language in the bill that would restrict coverage for illegal immigrants." The White House responds, "You got it. What are you willing to concede in return?" To which the GOP answers, "Nothing." Likewise, Republicans say, "We want explicit language in the bill that would prohibit funding for abortion." The White House responds, "No problem at all. What are you willing to concede in return?" To which the GOP answers, "Nothing." My hunch is, the White House wants to make it as politically awkward as possible for Republicans to oppose the bill. The president wants to be able to tell the public that he offered the GOP a reform bill with tort reform, no funding for abortion, no coverage for undocumented immigrants, no deficit increases, no tax increases on the middle class, no "death panels" or "death books," and quite possibly no public option -- and the congressional minority stll rejected the legislation. For all I know, this would be an effective rhetorical/political strategy for the White House, and the public would be disgusted by Republican obstinacy. But no one should have any doubts as to whether these concessions will actually garner GOP votes. They won't -- Republicans don't support health care reform. —Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink \| Comments (31) [ send green star]
Blue B.	September 11, 2009 11:25 AM Anti-Abortion Activist Killed Outside Michigan School Quick Read \| Comments (103) [ send green star]
Blue B.	September 04, 2009 12:00 PM Great rally! Pics! http://bit.ly/qNLRn Women walk and stand united for health reform! PHOTO: Michelle Del GuercioWhat do we want? Health care! When do we want it? Now! Shouting that chant, more than 125 women gathered at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City Saturday and walked together to Times Square to join a pumped-up crowd of 3,000 demanding health reform this year. Along the way, the women's walk attracted cheers from tourists passing by on sight-seeing buses and applause from theater-goers waiting for Broadway matinees. The rally was organized to demonstrate that the raucous town hall meetings shown over and over on television and the internet in August do not reflect the sentiments of many Americans. Contingents representing a wide array of health reform supporters -- from unions to physicians to low-income people and even Upper West Side baby boomers -- walked to Times Square from hospitals all across the city. Chief organizers for the event were NYC for Change, Health Care for America Now and Organizing for America. The Women's Walk for Health Reform was organized by Raising Women's Voices. Participants represented 14 organizations dedicated to promoting access to women's health, including the Planned Parenthood of NYC Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice NY, Choices in Childbirth, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Physicians for Reproductive Choices and Health, WCLA-Choice Matters, the Community Healthcare Network, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, NOW-NYC, the Public Health Association of NYC, Gynuity Health Projects, the Pro-Choice Education Fund and the Women's City Club of New York. Jessica Silk, a 28-year-old public health professional and member of the board of the Public Health Association of NYC, told her personal story of being uninsured: "I'm one of the millions of young adults in this country who currently don't have health insurance. I didn't have it all through graduate school in public health and I haven't had it since I graduated in May. The policy offered by the insurance company that my school referred us to was simply too expensive, at over $300 per month. With such high rates, young adults like me are forced to prioritize rent and food over health insurance. For most of us, then, being uninsured is not a choice." On September 1, Jessica will finally get health insurance through her new job, she said, adding that: "Until then, I will be praying I don’t end up like my friend, Sarah, who received a $50,000+ hospital bill after having a completely unexpected heart condition soon after graduating from college at age 21. Or like my partner, who now has a $1,200 emergency room bill for the stitches he got after cutting his hand open when a glass broke while doing his dishes." She quickly broadened her focus, explaining that, "while young adults have the highest rates of being uninsured, this is an issue that affects all age groups and does not discriminate in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, etc. And even many of those who are insured remain underinsured. "As a woman, I am especially concerned--knowing that women may be disqualified from receiving affordable care due to pregnancy; knowing that many forms of birth control are not covered by insurance plans; knowing that health insurance companies can decide a woman’s options for how she will deliver her baby; knowing that so many children go without health insurance. As a New Yorker, I am concerned--knowing how many immigrants in our city are without health insurance; knowing how many low-income and middle class New Yorkers fall between the cracks; knowing how many elderly New Yorkers go into debt for health care costs instead of being rewarded with their hard-earned retirement savings... Please, members of Congress, go back to Washington and get it done!" Amen! The rally attracted media coverage on radio, television, in print and on the internet. Here are some samples: (click on link above for web links and pix) [ send green star]
Blue B.	September 01, 2009 8:48 PM On Losing a Human Rights Icon and a Beloved Uncle Kerry Kennedy, 09.01.2009 Founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights For 30 years, Ted Kennedy was the human rights movement's strongest ally and its soul on Capitol Hill. He was my "go to" guy, and it wasn't just about being family. Read Post \| Comments (23) [ send green star]
Blue B.	September 01, 2009 3:37 PM WATCH: "Great White Hope" Rep. Laughs Off Uninsured Single Mother At Town Hall [ send green star]
Blue B.	August 26, 2009 2:25 PM Freed Academic Haleh Esfandiari: 'Iranians Want Evolution, Not Revolution' Read Post \| Comments \| Iran [ send green star]
Blue B.	August 18, 2009 6:21 PM Women's Health Is Universal Health Care Cecile Richards, 08.18.2009 President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Does anyone else see the irony in the U.S. bishops wanting to define universal health care as covering everything except for what they don't support? Read Post \| Comments (11) [ send green star]
Blue B.	August 17, 2009 6:17 PM IT NEVER ENDS.... The right said a bipartisan, common-sense measure on end-of-life care was scandalous. It wasn't, but reality didn't matter -- conservatives believed it was true, and now it's apparently gone from the bill. The right said a public option would represent a Soviet-style takeover of the health care system. . It wasn't, but reality didn't matter -- conservatives believed it was true, and now the idea is in trouble. Ideally, reform advocates would be able to see around the curve, predicting what the next ridiculous right-wing attack might be, and preparing a response in advance. But that's not easy; the Republican Attack Machine features a painful combination of creativity, paranoia, and pathological dishonesty. For example, Amy Sullivan reports on the next conservative temper tantrum. Now conservative opponents of health reform have found a new threat: home nurse visits to low-income parents. "We are setting up a situation where Obama will be invading parent's [sic] homes and taking away their children," one columnist warned on RightWingNews.com. That something as harmless as home nurse visits has become a target of conservative ire is surprising because of its longstanding popularity with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. But health reform advocates are scratching their heads at the attacks for another reason: funding for home nurse visits was largely included in health reform legislation to accommodate social conservatives. [...] [H]ome nurse visits are exactly the kind of pro-family policy that social conservatives would embrace. And they have. The home visitation provision in health reform legislation was modeled on a bill authored by Republican Senator Kit Bond of Missouri. Bond went through a parenting education program in Missouri when his son was born three decades ago and has been a fan of the idea ever since. [...] Home visits have been so popular with conservatives that the idea kept coming up during conversations White House aides hosted with pro-life advocates earlier this year in an effort to find common ground on abortion. And when Democratic Reps. Tim Ryan and Rosa DeLauro drafted the abortion reduction bill they introduced last month, they specifically included funding for home nurse visits as a way of accommodating pro-life preferences for policies that support women who decide to give birth instead of having abortions. But that was before conservative anxiety over health reform reached its boiling point. Now, prenatal counseling, according to the Heritage Foundation, Chuck Norris, and assorted right-wing voices, are "mandatory home inspections." Will it matter that the idea was sought by the right? Almost certainly not, because intellectual consistency, honesty, and seriousness have had absolutely no role in the policy debate whatsoever. Kevin Drum added, "It hasn't gotten a ton of attention yet, but that's only because the loonies have been obsessed with death panels instead. If that weren't in the bill, Sarah Palin would have dubbed the home nurse program as the Baby Brainwashing Brigades and everyone would be going nuts over that instead." We know the drill. The right makes something up ... Fox News and Limbaugh say it's true ... Republican lawmakers start condemning the imaginary threat ... major mainstream news outlets report that "some say" the imaginary threat is real ... millions of Americans believe it ... Democrats point to reality, but it's too late ... and the worthwhile idea is dropped from the legislation. The challenge in overcoming this is more than just overwhelming; it's also endless and unpredictable. Our political system just doesn't work the way it should. —Steve Benen 1:30 PM Permalink \| Comments (44) [ send green star]
Blue B.	August 12, 2009 9:43 PM Killing Grandma vs. Killing Babies/Fetuses Steven Waldman, 08.12.2009 Editor-In-Chief and Co-Founder of BeliefNet It's tempting to equate the assertion that Obamacare pays for abortions with claims that death panels will kill your grandma, but they're different. Death panels are a lie. The abortion charge is an exaggeration. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	August 10, 2009 2:09 PM Go Ahead, Let Outrage Start the Much Needed Gender Conversation Andrea Learned, 08.08.2009 women's market and gender trends expert, author and speaker We don't need a fight to the death between men and women to see who is "better." Rather we need to be identifying those qualities women tend to have that make them transformational leaders. Read Post \| Comments (12) [ send green star]
Blue B.	August 06, 2009 11:47 PM The Inspiration of a Confirmation: What Sotomayor Means for Women and Girls Marie Wilson, 08.06.2009 Earlier this summer, I traveled to Georgia to help train nearly 200 women to run for office. What was unusual was the high number of women who intended to run for judiciary positions. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	August 06, 2009 1:38 PM OUR NEW JUSTICE Quick Read \| Comments (865) \| Sonia Sotomayor [ send green star]
Blue B.	August 06, 2009 1:23 PM Senate Confirms Sotomayor, First Hispanic on Supreme Court \| Comcast.Net Judge Sonia Sotomayor won U.S. Senate approval on Thursday to become the first Hispanic on the U.S. Supreme Court. [ send green star]
Blue B.	August 05, 2009 7:18 PM GOP Senate candidate: I'd send abortion docs to jail [ send green star]
Blue B.	August 03, 2009 3:14 PM Misleading Attacks on Women's Health Cecile Richards, 08.03.2009 President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America It was only a matter of time before the right-wing campaign against health care reform began to focus on abortion, and last week the Family Research Council pulled out all the stops. Read Post \| Comments (18) [ send green star]
Blue B.	July 24, 2009 11:04 PM Ohio Republican Re-Introduces Bill Making Abortion Illegal Without Permission From A Man [ send green star]
Blue B.	July 17, 2009 11:07 PM GAO: VA Failing to Serve Women Warriors Paul Rieckhoff, 07.17.2009 Exec. Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) This week, the Government Accountability Office released a stunning new report detailing significant barriers that many female veterans face in accessing health care at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Read Post \| Comments (38) [ send green star]
Blue B.	July 15, 2009 8:23 PM US may allow asylum for abused women "Victims of severe domestic beatings and sexual abuse" could be granted asylum. [ send green star]
Blue B.	July 15, 2009 12:27 PM Wise Women Unite! What Sotomayor Should Have Said C. Nicole Mason, 07.15.2009 Assistant Professor, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU Racial and ethnic minorities and women are the only groups asked to check their identity at the door. It is assumed that once given access to power, they will try to funnel those resources to their own kind. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	July 13, 2009 9:25 PM What do you do when you're an ultra-Orthodox divorcee? [ send green star]
Blue B.	July 13, 2009 3:38 PM Sotomayor's "Wise Latinas" Virginia Sanchez-Korrol, 07.13.2009 Historian and Professor Emerita at CUNY-Brooklyn College Informed initially by their own experiences, these Latinas galvanized efforts to effect societal change that produced results far beyond identity politics. Each could serve as a worthy role model for Latina and non-Latina professionals. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	July 10, 2009 8:06 PM Judith Warner: Dangerous Resentment By Judith Warner Why are educated and affluent women suddenly coming under attack? [ send green star]
Blue B.	July 07, 2009 7:47 PM Oh Bloody Hell About that medical insurance? It may not cover care for lady parts. -Atrios 16:34 Comments (315) [ send green star]
Blue B.	July 04, 2009 8:25 AM Yvonne, ReTHUGniCON$ play dirty ... I wonder who made the "noise complaint" .... [ send green star]
Yvonne W.	July 03, 2009 7:30 PM For Some Reason I can't post a comment on that Fundraiser, so I will here: "Deputy Abbott AND a Psychiatric Emergency Response Team clinician" - I certainly wonder if The Psychiatric Emergency Response Team clinician was supposed to be monitoring this Power-Trip Policeman? Because BOTH seem to need psychiatric help with their "mother issues"! [ send green star]
Yvonne W.	July 03, 2009 7:14 PM ACLU \| Statement on Raid at Progressive Candidate's Fundraiser http://www.truthout.org/070309N?n ACLU: "On Friday, June 26, 2009, according to press reports and witness statements, a San Diego County Sheriff's deputy, responding to a noise complaint, entered the home of Shari Barman who was hosting a political gathering to support Francine Busby, a candidate for Congress. When the homeowner questioned why she had to provide her date of birth, the deputy grabbed her arm, put it behind her back, and brought her to the ground. Feeling intimidated by a group of mostly middle-aged women, he pepper-sprayed a number of guests and arrested Barman." [ send green star]
Blue B.	July 03, 2009 7:50 AM It's Time to Make Mothers a Priority Sia Nyama Koroma, 07.03.2009 First Lady of the Republic of Sierra Leone Maternal mortality has sadly become the rule not the exception. But this can change. We have the knowledge and the skills to deliver -- we just need the political will and resources to support us. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	June 30, 2009 5:01 PM Jodi Jacobson: What Comes After Abstinence-Only: Advocates Urge White House and Congress to Broaden Teen Pregnancy Initiative Advocate and expert on women’s health and human rights. Far more must be done to address teen sexuality, prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and to prevent the violence and coercion by intimate partners. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	June 30, 2009 7:50 AM Jenny Sanford -- The Political Spouse Role Model for My Daughter Joanne Bamberger, 06.29.2009 Political/media analyst, author, Founder of PunditMom political blog The message often sent to our kids is that it's okay for husbands to wander and that wives will still stick around, regardless of how badly they've been betrayed. That is, until Jenny Sanford. Read Post \| Comments (33) [ send green star]
Blue B.	June 23, 2009 11:30 AM Obama Administration Seeks To Join U.N. Rights Of The Child Convention Kids The treaty says children have basic rights to education, health care and protection from abuse. Its supporters have used it to improve child protection laws for schools and courts in places like Lebanon, South Korea, South Africa and Sri Lanka. [ send green star]
Blue B.	June 18, 2009 6:38 PM A Radical Notion: Women's Health Care as Mainstream Cecile Richards, 06.18.2009 President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Maybe one day we won't need a special campaign to support women's health. But until then, Planned Parenthood is here to make sure women aren't worse off after health care reform than before. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	June 13, 2009 7:59 AM New Resources Examine Racial and Ethnic Disparities Among Women at the State Level The Kaiser Family Foundation this week released a package of resources including a comprehensive report, state fact sheets, and interactive data tables, that illuminate and document the persistence of disparities on 25 indicators between white women and women of color, including rates of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, AIDS and cancer, and access to health insurance and health screenings. The report, "Putting Women's Health Care Disparities on the Map: Examining Racial and Ethnic Disparities at the State Level,” moves beyond national statistics to provide a rare look at state-level variations, quantifying where disparities are greatest. Also available are state-level data for women of many racial and ethnic populations that are often difficult to obtain. The data show that, a decade after U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher called for the elimination of racial disparities in health; women of color i n every state continue to fare worse than white women on a variety of measures of health and health care access. The Foundation released the report and other resources, including a video documenting the real-life struggles of women at a community clinic in Arlington, Va.,at a June 10 briefing in our Washington, D.C. office. The report and other resources, including an archived webcast of the briefing, are available online. [ send green star]
Blue B.	June 11, 2009 12:02 PM Asking Anti-Abortion Demonstrators An Important Question Q.:"Should abortion be illegal?" A.: "Yes." Q.: "What should the punishment be?" " A.: Duhhhrrrrr.... I don't know, I don't think things through obviously, because I'm a fundie abortion protester." [ send green star]
Blue B.	June 10, 2009 8:42 PM * Operation Rescue may purchase Dr. George Tiller's clinic. [ send green star]
Blue B.	June 10, 2009 8:36 PM White Women: The Silent Racist All too often when people think of racist they envision the white male. The confederate flag-totting red neck, the red-faced arrogant supervisor, or the corporate god sitting on the golden throne of a large company, [ send green star]
Blue B.	June 02, 2009 2:21 PM LEAHY: SHE CAN'T SPEAK OUT SO I WILL ATTACKS ON SOTOMAYOR "UNBELIEVABLE," "AMONG THE MOST VICIOUS" I'VE SEEN Quick Read \| Comments (1374) \| Sonia Sotomayor [ send green star]
Blue B.	June 02, 2009 2:20 PM Pundit who called Mexicans 'primitives' returns to airwaves [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 30, 2009 4:39 PM A Supreme Sotomayor: How My Country Has Caught Up to Me Maria Hinojosa, 05.29.2009 Senior Correspondent, NOW on PBS What President Obama has done for men of color, Sonia Sotomayor will do for Puerto Rican women. She will forever and profoundly change the image of what a "Puerto Rican girl" really is. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 29, 2009 4:59 PM Guardsmen filmed female soldiers nude Army probes pics of women's shower by National Guard unit. [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 26, 2009 10:34 AM Why Are Women Still Treated Like Second-Class Soldiers? Helen Benedict, The Nation Rights and Liberties: More women have fought and died in Iraq than in all the wars since World War II combined. Yet the military continues to treat them as inferior. [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 10, 2009 6:56 PM I'm one of the knitters who contributed to the "Radical Act of Knitting in honor of Mother's Day" organized by CODEPINK. [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 10, 2009 11:56 AM Mother's Day Thoughts from a Political Mom Melinda Katz, 05.09.2009 Like many women in New York and throughout the country, I'm all too accustomed to the challenges, trials and tribulations of balancing work with motherhood. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 10, 2009 11:51 AM Mother's Day is Going Viral: Talking Babies and a National Mom Uprising Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, 05.10.2009 Co-founder and Executive Director of www.momsrising.org Michelle Obama isn't the only one flexing her right to bare arms. The millions of women proclaiming their friends as Mom of the Year this past week is nothing short of a national mom uprising. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 10, 2009 11:49 AM To Mom, With Love: HuffPosters Share Their Mother's Day Stories [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 10, 2009 11:45 AM On Mother's Day: A Message of Hope and Survival Rachel Brown, 05.08.2009 Masters candidate at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy We need to recognize that the respect accorded to our mothers is compromised by the suffering of mothers in places like Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 10, 2009 11:44 AM More Than Breakfast In Bed: A Legislative Agenda for Moms Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, 05.05.2009 U.S. Senator from New York This year, with the difficult economy posing challenges for all families, our mothers need more than just attention on Mother's Day. They need a legislative agenda that enables them to thrive. Read Post \| Comments (32) [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 09, 2009 2:15 PM Mother's Day for Peace Gloria Steinem, Vanessa Williams, Felicity Huffman, Fatma Saleh, Alfre Woodard, Ashraf Salimian, Christine Lahti and Mother's Day for Peace talk about the origin of Mother's Day by Julia Ward Howe as a protest against war. [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 09, 2009 1:31 PM In the Name of Womanhood and Humanity by David Swanson \| May 8, 2009 - 9:48am \| permalink Imagine that tomorrow you begin to feel ill and rush to the hospital where you are eventually diagnosed with a horribly debilitating and probably incurable disease. Within a week your body and mind have deteriorated drastically. You cannot dress yourself. You have difficulty getting out of a chair or walking at all. You have no control over your bowels. You literally lack the sense to come in out of the rain or not wander into traffic. You are a danger to yourself and require a fulltime caregiver, one or more people of infinite patience and devotion who can turn their own lives into the handling of your life 24-7. And what if there is nobody who can do that for you? What if you are on your own? And then what if there is someone, a single person, who can do everything you require and more, and be grateful for the opportunity to do it, do it with joy and love, and slowly and magically restore your faculties so that over a period of five to ten years you gradually regain your mental and physical abilities? What would your gratitude be to such a person? Would it be measurable? Most of us began life in such a situation, and our mothers -- with a lot of help from our fathers -- provided just this unfathomably devoted service, and then some. What we owe them is infinite. But now imagine the point of view of the 24-7 loving caregiver, educator, counselor, parent. A mother's life is poured into a child's life drop by drop, leaving behind in the mother no regret, no resentment, but ever increasing love and adoration. What would be the attitude of a mother, then, to the idea of shipping her child off to kill and be killed in a foreign land for the amusement and enrichment of a handful of wealthy fools without the heart of an insect? Resistance, yes, but also horror, and incomprehension, rage, fury, desperation, and despair. Mother's Day was created not so that we could be grateful to our mothers (and buy them plastic crap and pre-written notes) but so that mothers could engage with the world as an organized force of mothers, placing a greater value on human life than someone might who had never raised a human child. Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation reads in part: "Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn "All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. "We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country "To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." It is in this spirit that CODE PINK: Women for Peace has organized a 24-hour vigil in front of the White House on Mother's Day. It is in this spirit that every day should be mother's day, every day father's day, every day a day of preserving and protecting the most precious little creatures we have ever cared for or anyone else has cared for. Every single day on which we read a number, the number of people killed by our latest bombing in Afghanistan or Pakistan, we should picture that number as a gathering of people, and we should picture each of those people's mothers. And we should be deeply ashamed with the bottomless shame of a mother who has failed her own child. And we should act, together, nonviolently, lovingly, with such intensity that the war makers suddenly sense themselves interlopers who have accidentally stepped between a mother bear and her cub. [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 09, 2009 10:27 AM Hoping for Healthy Mothers All Over the Globe Christy Turlington, 05.08.2009 As I celebrate Mother's Day, I am reminded of how fortunate those of us who have access to healthcare are and I am hopeful that those who do not, will, in the foreseeable future. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 05, 2009 12:22 AM The National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy Marian Wright Edelman, 05.04.2009 It's estimated that three in ten girls in the United States still get pregnant by age 20. 51 percent of Black and 53 percent of Latino teenage girls become pregnant at least once before age 20. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	May 01, 2009 8:52 AM Sec. Hillary Clinton Defends Reproductive Rights and Family Planning (video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH9rC0MaBJc&eurl [ send green star]
Blue B.	April 29, 2009 5:24 PM The Top 10 Women's Health Achievements in Obama's First 100 Days Cecile Richards, 04.29.2009 President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America We are off to an incredible start, though as everyone involved in improving the long-term health of our nation knows, it's not just about the first 100 days. Read Post \| Comments (28) [ send green star]
Blue B.	April 16, 2009 9:57 PM Journalist Michelle Goldberg Covers the Global Battle Over Women's Rights Michelle Goldberg's new book is ambitious: "The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World." She covers the global battle over women's rights and connects the dots between the culture wars played out on American soil, and how the fallo [ send green star]
Blue B.	April 16, 2009 12:47 PM What's at Stake for Women in Health Care Reform Marcia D. Greenberger, 04.16.2009 Every woman in this country should have a guarantee of high quality, affordable coverage. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	April 15, 2009 7:11 PM Nurse Called Out Of Surgery And Laid Off Quick Read \| Comments (27) [ send green star]
Blue B.	April 15, 2009 3:31 PM A Woman's Nation Maria Shriver, 04.15.2009 For the first time in our nation's history, women now represent half of all workers and are becoming the primary breadwinners in more families than ever before. This country is now what I like to call "A Woman's Nation." Read Post \| Comments (53) [ send green star]
Blue B.	April 12, 2009 7:56 AM Nobel Women's Initiative We six women - representing North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa - have decided to bring together our extraordinary experiences in a united effort for peace with justice and equality. Read more about us here . [ send green star]
Blue B.	April 01, 2009 11:42 PM WATCH: Africa's First Elected Female President Lifts Up Liberia Quick Read \| Comments \| Africa [ send green star]
Blue B.	March 13, 2009 5:43 PM Michelle Obama And Hillary Clinton Present International Women Of Courage Awards (VIDEO) (PHOTO [ send green star]
Yvonne W.	March 08, 2009 5:41 PM "Anti-contraception Senator Jim DeMint moved this week to increase birth control prices as much as 900% for college women, forcing them to "splurge" if they want to use protection." I wish the college women would get that ba$tard down & put a Condom Over his Head - just to see if Dick-head's die from SAFE SEX!!! [ send green star]
Blue B.	March 07, 2009 11:02 PM How The Stimulus Sells Women Short: TAP Quick Read \| Comments (12) \| Stimulus Package [ send green star]
Blue B.	March 07, 2009 10:22 PM A DeMinted Attack on College Women Cristina Page, 03.06.2009 Author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America Anti-contraception Senator Jim DeMint moved this week to increase birth control prices as much as 900% for college women, forcing them to "splurge" if they want to use protection. Read Post \| Comments (166) [ send green star]
Blue B.	March 07, 2009 2:48 AM Health Care Now: Women's Health Takes Center Stage Cecile Richards, 03.06.2009 President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America If we as a nation are serious about controlling costs and increasing access to health care, we need to address the real health needs of women. Read Post \| Comments (13) [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 26, 2009 4:23 PM Sexist Swine Rush Limbaugh Wonders Why Women Despise Him - Here's Why [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 23, 2009 5:37 PM Why Some Things Never Change Everybody should -- no, NEEDS TO -- read... Second Class Citizens...its focus is on the inequities between respect for women, people of color, and Native Americans that we take for granted in this society. Go read it. I'll wait. Come back and discuss... [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 22, 2009 11:38 PM More Daycare Steve noted this poll from USNews' Washington Whispers site: He asked: "Would it ever occur to them, even for a moment, to ask who would run the best daycare center: Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden, or John Boehner?" Well, no. But let's take this a bit further. Here are some other polls I do not expect to see on the Washington Whispers page: If you needed some yard work done, would you hire Mel Martinez, Henry Cisneros, Xavier Becerra, or Bill Richardson? If you needed a rap DJ for a party, would you hire Barack Obama, Charlie Rangel, John Lewis, or Michael Steele? If you needed an interior decorator, would you choose Jim McGreevey, Barney Frank, Larry Craig, or the disinterred corpse of Harvey Milk? It's not just that the people who make up polls for the Washington Whispers page would not expect John McCain to run a daycare center. It's that they would probably recognize any of these other appeals to stereotypes as offensive. And yet, oddly enough, asking which one of four prominent women we'd like to have running our children's day care center is A-OK. —Hilzoy 8:49 PM Permalink \| Comments (31) [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 22, 2009 11:23 AM Meet Rahinatu, a Microfinance Success Story Rahinatu lives in Ghana and is a teenager finishing her last year at Savelugu Senior Secondary School. She's also a successful businesswoman, all thanks to a $110 loan from local Ghanaian microfinance institution, Sinapi Aba Trust. In honor of the upcoming International Woman's Day on March 8, 2009, the Grameen Foundation will be sharing a weekly story of women who are involved with microfinance. [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 22, 2009 1:55 AM Bob Herbert: The Invisible War In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the brutal raping of women by soldiers and militias has pulled apart the entire society. And the world, for the most part, has remained indifferent. [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 19, 2009 9:43 PM Christian Domestic Discipline - Loving Godly Christian Marriages "...has the authority to spank his wife for punishment..." Yet more info & commentary: Spare the rod, spoil the wife - Broadsheet - Salon.com [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 17, 2009 8:27 PM Two Women Show Real Bipartisanship Madeleine M. Kunin, 02.17.2009 First Woman Governor of Vermont; Marsh Scholar, University of Vermont Think of what the Congress might accomplish if we had a few more women like Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe on both sides of the aisle. Read Post \| Comments (24) [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 16, 2009 3:39 AM Wal-Mart's Love Valentine to Its Women Workers Al Norman, 02.14.2009 By delaying justice for their own workers, Wal-Mart's public relations efforts to present itself as The Good Employer just took another arrow to the heart. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 13, 2009 11:17 PM Congressional Leaders, Public Health Experts Announce New Framework to Promote Womens Health Congressional Leaders, Public Health Experts Announce New Framework to Promote Womens Health [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 10, 2009 11:47 PM Michelle Obama Steps Out The first lady takes her first solo trip in the neighborhood...told a group of 13 high school students Tuesday afternoon. She was visiting Mary's Center, a community health organization in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The kids wanted [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 07, 2009 2:09 AM New 'Gang of Moderates' Cuts Target Women and Children Again.Disproportionately Affect Women and Children. Eliminations: Head Start, Education for the Disadvantaged, School improvement, Child Nutrition, Firefighters, Transportation Security Administration, Coast Guard, Prisons, COPS Hiring, Violence Against Women, NASA, NSF, CDS, Food Stamps, ..... [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 07, 2009 2:00 AM New ‘Gang of Moderates’ cuts target women and children again.disproportionately affect women and children. These cuts included $150 million to the Violence Against Women Act and $1.1 billion to Head Start. Today, Greg Sargent posts an internal Senate memo detailing the newest cuts that the so-called “Gang of Moderates” — led by Collins and Nelson — is proposing. Once again, the eliminations and reductions are going toward programs that assist women and children: Eliminations: Head Start, Education for the Disadvantaged, School improvement, Child Nutrition, Firefighters, Transportation Security Administration, Coast Guard, Prisons, COPS Hiring, Violence Against Women, NASA, NSF, Western Area Power Administration, CDC, Food Stamps *************************** Reductions:** Public Transit $3.4 billion, School Construction $60 billion The increases the Gang wants? Funds for Brownfields, STAG Grants, transportation, and of course, defense. UpdateBrad Johnson takes a look at the cuts to green jobs, and Pat Garofalo highlights the cuts to education. Comments 37 Permalink [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 06, 2009 2:24 AM ‘Centrist’ Economic Recovery Package Disproportionately Cuts Programs For Women And Children» [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 06, 2009 2:19 AM 78 percent of women say men and women do not receive equal pay for equal work. In an new Rasmussen poll, 78 percent of American women said that “men and women do not receive equal pay for equal work in the United States.” Only 53 percent of men agreed. In the same poll, 49 percent of women attributed the unequal pay to discrimination while only 20 percent of men believe discrimination is the problem. Last week, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which boosts workers abilities to bring pay discrimination lawsuits. Comments 32 Permalink [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 03, 2009 6:10 PM Women Are Not 'Pork' For years, reproductive justice activists have argued that the religious right's real agenda is not just to eliminate abortion, but to end the historic rupture between sex and reproduction that took place in the 20th century. [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 03, 2009 3:47 PM Good News About Women and the Stimulus Package So, what's in the package for women? "Expanding health for them, child care, unemployment insurance, direct help in higher food stamps and energy assistance," said Joan Entmacher, vice president for family economic stability at the National Women's Law... [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 01, 2009 4:35 PM Change We Haz Compare and contrast five years ago and yesterday...you'll be glad you did. (f/t Watertiger) [ send green star]
Blue B.	February 01, 2009 11:25 AM Uh Huh Feb 1st, 2009 at 11:00 am by Susie So far, I’m not seeing anything resembling political courage: WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is telling the Pentagon and gay-rights advocates that it will have to study the implications for national security and enlist more support in Congress before trying to overturn the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” law and allow gays to serve openly in the military, according to people involved in the discussions. They said Obama, who pledged during the campaign to overturn the law, does not want to ask lawmakers to do so until the military has completed a comprehensive assessment of the impact that such a move would have on military discipline. Then, the president hopes to be able to make a case to members of both parties that overturning the 1993 law would be in the best interest of national security. I don’t suppose he could simply say, “This is wrong and we won’t allow it”? Of course not. Posted in Politics As Usual \| No Comments » [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 30, 2009 12:19 PM "COMPROMISE" THROUGH UNILATERAL SURRENDER. I hadn't seen the wealthy urban male proposing to "solve" the abortion debate by letting anti-choicers win (hey, women he knows will be able to get abortions, so sho cares, right?) routine in its pure form for a while, but Damon Linker is back to the plate: How could Obama -- how could liberals, how could supporters of abortion rights -- both win and end the culture war, once and for all? By supporting the reversal or significant narrowing of Roe, allowing abortion policy to once again be set primarily by the states -- a development that would decisively divide and demoralize the conservative side of the culture war by robbing it of the identity politics that holds it together as a national movement. I've been through this many times before -- most comprehensively in the article linked at the top -- but to summarize some of the most obvious defects in Linker's argument: The idea that overturning Roe would "return the issue to the states" is transparently wrong, and the idea that having constant legislative battles about banning abortion at the state and federal level would somehow "end the culture war" is bizarre. Linker's claim that the pro-life movement was "conjured into being" by Roe is entirely false. Opposition to abortion legalization was very well-mobilized prior to 1973, which is why abortion was still illegal in most states with little immediate prospect for changing policy for the better. If the argument is that the movement expanded, this would seem to be the more trivial argument that winning creates more opposition. Linker's answer that it would therefore be better to lose seems...unconvincing. Linker's grasp on abortion law seems, at best, tenuous. Consider his claim that "in socially liberal Western Europe, where democratically elected legislatures readily place modest restrictions on abortion that would never be allowed to stand under current American constitutional law." My first question: what "modest" restriction of abortion (aside from husband notification laws) would not be permitted under current American constitutional law? (Linker shows no awareness that Casey even exists.) My second question: Does Linker realize that when you consider all factors -- most notably state funding -- abortion is probably more accessible to women in many Western Europeam countries than in the U.S.? I fear he does not, and indeed has never spent much time considering how abortion policy actually works on the ground. Another country Linker doesn't mention: Canada, where abortion is a federally protected right, abortion is both largely unregulated and state-funded, and yet policy has been stable and abortion is not a salient issue in national politics. And since it completely destroys his assertion that the "culture war" over abortion is solely the product of judicial intervention, I think you can understand why. In addition to these kinds of problems, there's a broader question: why is the fact that people disagree over abortion supposed to be a bad thing, exactly? Politics is about conflict. So talk about "ending the culture war" doesn't make sense. But even if it was a viable and desirable goal, I'm certainly sure that extinguishing the aboriton rights of poor women in red states won't somehow end political conflict over abortion. --Scott Lemieux Posted by Scott Lemieux on January 30, 2009 12:35 PM \| This post was modified from its original form on 30 Jan, 12:20 [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 30, 2009 10:23 AM President Obama Vows to Restore UNFPA Funding, Return U.S. Leadership to Women's Issues President Barack Obama today pledged to implement policies that help raise the status of women around the world, including the restoration of a U.S. contribution to UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 29, 2009 1:38 PM Ledbetter Act: Obama signs first bill into law, undoes a great injustice By SilentPatriot Thursday Jan 29, 2009 10:02am Download \| Play Download \| Play Barack Obama today signed his first bill into law, and boy was it a good one. Is it just me or has this man done more good in eight days than George Bush did in eight years? Washington Post: The bill is a response to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that said a person must file a claim of discrimination within 180 days of a company's initial decision to pay a worker less than it pays another worker doing the same job. Under the bill, every new discriminatory paycheck would extend the statute of limitations for another 180 days. The plaintiff in the case, Lilly Ledbetter, argued that she did not become aware of the pay discrepancy until near the end of her 19-year career at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Gadsden, Ala. The Bush White House and Senate Republicans blocked the legislation in the last session of Congress, but Obama strongly supports it and the Democratic-controlled Congress moved it to the top of the agenda for the new session that opened this month. Full remarks below the fold Continue reading » Tags: Equal Pay, Lily Ledbetter [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 28, 2009 9:27 PM Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Not Enough Martha Burk, 01.28.2009 Political psychologist, co-founder, Center for Advancement of Public Policy Congress did the right thing by bringing us back to a 40 year old standard when it fixed Ledbetter. But the State of New Mexico is way ahead of the curve, looking forward, not backward. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 26, 2009 10:25 PM "Constance E. Cook, 89, Who Wrote Abortion Law, Is Dead: Constance E. Cook, a former New York State assemblywoman who was co-author of the law that legalized abortion in the state three years before the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, died Tuesday at her home in Ithaca, N.Y. She was 89." That bill, by the way, was co-authored with a Manhattan Democrat, making it bipartisan. Yes, that's right, Constance Cook was a Republican. Those were the days, eh? [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 24, 2009 2:36 PM Obama Lifts Stranglehold on Women's Health Cecile Richards, 01.23.2009 President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Under Bush, the global gag rule forced the closing of hundreds of clinics worldwide, and took away the freedom of providers to be honest and open with women about their health options. Read Post \| Comments (231) [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 22, 2009 8:16 PM Patriarchal A-Holes by BooMan Thu Jan 22nd, 2009 at 08:22:17 PM EST The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 Comments >> (9 comments) [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 20, 2009 10:10 AM ENDING THE GLOBAL GAG RULE.... The LA Times reports this morning that one of Barack Obama's first acts as president will be "to lift a rule that prevents federal money from going to international family planning groups that counsel women on abortion or perform the procedure." This seems to be something of a recent tradition. One of Bill Clinton's first acts as president was to lift the global-gag rule, and eight years later, one of George W. Bush's first acts as president was to bring it back. Obama is apparently poised to keep the trend going. It's probably worth noting that Bush didn't exactly know what he was doing when he acted on this issue. Soon after his inauguration, Bush met with a group of Roman Catholic bishops in the White House to tout his support for the "the Mexico City" policy, which got its name because Ronald Reagan launched the ban in Mexico City in 1984. Bush was anxious to show his support for issues of direct concern to the church, and was overheard by a live microphone that he didn't know was piping his remarks directly into the White House press room. The president had just signed an executive order on the policy, literally just days prior to speaking to the bishops, but he clearly had no clue what he'd just done. Bush ended up bragging about "the money from Mexico, you know, that thing, the executive order I signed about Mexico City." That's not even close to what this policy is all about. The "Mexico City" policy prohibits US dollars and contraceptive supplies from going to any international family planning program that provides abortions or counsels women about their reproductive health options. The policy isn't about money going to pay for abortions. Even those groups that use only private funds for abortion services -- where abortion is legal -- are barred from assistance. This is money going to family planning programs. [...] [N]ot only are organizations that provide or counsel about abortion services affected; those that dare to take part in a public discussion about legalizing abortion are also affected (hence the name "global gag rule").... This policy has nothing to do with government-sponsored abortions overseas. Ten years before the gag rule was in place the law strictly prohibited that. This policy is about disqualifying prochoice organizations from receiving US international family planning funding. Under Bush's policy, organizations that play a vital role in women's health are forced to make an impossible choice. If they refuse to be "gagged," they lose the funding that enables them to help women and families who are cut off from basic health care and family planning. But if they accept funding, they must accept restrictions that jeopardize the health of the women they serve. The most tragic ramifications have been felt in the developing world. In Kenya, for example, two of the leading family planning organizations have been forced to shut down five clinics dispensing aid from prenatal care and vaccinations to malaria screening and AIDS prevention. Kenya's experience is common, according to "Access Denied," a report on the impact of the global gag rule on developing nations. Researchers found that programs for rural communities and urban slums have been scaled back by as much as 50 percent. As a result more women are turning to unsafe abortion -- a leading cause of death for young women in much of Africa -- because they lack access to family planning information and essential contraceptive supplies. In the 1990s, the United States helped lead on international family planning, promoting sustainable development, empowering women, and saving lives. If Obama acts today to end the gag rule, we can again. —Steve Benen 9:25 AM Permalink \| Comments (3) [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 19, 2009 4:44 PM Obama May Reverse Abortion Policy Through Executive Order: CNN Quick Read \| Comments (83) \| President Obama [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 18, 2009 5:50 PM SLIDESHOW: First Ladies Of The World Quick Read \| Comments (38) \| Obama's Inauguration [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 16, 2009 3:15 PM Women Matter Michelle Kraus, 01.15.2009 This was a heroic week for women worldwide. Read Post \| Comments (12) [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 09, 2009 2:00 PM Making Momma Happy -- What Obama Can Do for Women Martha Burk, 01.09.2009 President-elect Obama said last week that "when Momma's happy, everybody's happy." But let's hope he means it for all of America's "mommas" -- the women who elected him. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 08, 2009 3:05 PM Women We Need: Towards a More Female-centred Foreign Policy Margot Wallström, 01.08.2009 We may have accepted in principle that politics should include both women and men, but this has not been adequately applied to foreign and security policy. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 07, 2009 10:57 AM Teen Pregnancy Rates Rising With Alaska Leading The Way Quick Read \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	January 02, 2009 5:19 PM The Dissembler Cristina Page, 01.02.2009 Author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Politics and the War on Sex Hopefully, with the arrival of the Obama administration, Steven Mosher's ability to force his extremist views on the rest of the world will soon be over. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	December 11, 2008 3:35 PM W's Parting Gifts to Women Martha Burk, 12.11.2008 It's not new that outgoing Presidents try to change national policy at the last minute through rule changes. But W is set to set a record. Read Post \| Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	December 08, 2008 3:04 PM Question of the Day \| Today 12:00 amThe state of the economy has us shaking in our stilettos. What can we do to keep our fears under control? Mary Wells and Liz Smith have these words of wisdom for us … and Uncle Sam 29 Comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	December 02, 2008 3:29 PM ACID ATTACKS on women, largely unpunished in Pakistan, horrifies journo. [ send green star]
Blue B.	November 30, 2008 4:13 PM $100 A Victim: Fathers, Husbands Openly Hiring Hitmen For Honor Killings In Iraq HuffPost's War BigNews Page Quick Read \| Comments (334) \| Iraq [ send green star]
Blue B.	November 25, 2008 9:51 PM Why America Needs A First Grandmother Read Post \| Comments (23) \| Obama Family [ send green star]
Blue B.	November 19, 2008 11:05 AM UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman invites you to Say NO to Violence against Women Add your voice to an ever-growing movement of people who call for global action to end violence against women. 901356 people have already signed up [ send green star]
Blue B.	November 18, 2008 9:58 PM A Garden Full of Women in Tech by Virginia DeBolt at 8:10am Tue, 18 Nov 2008 under Social Media, Business & Career, Feminism & Gender, Technology & Web; 127 views The list-making has begun. No, not gift wish lists—I mean those end of year lists of the top, best, or most important. In recent days there have been three new lists of notable women in tech. The Wall Street Journal published a list of The 50 Women to Watch 2008. While WSJ is focused on women in the business world, I found it interesting to scan this list for women whose businesses were high tech leaders. For example: 0 comments [ send green star]
Blue B.	November 18, 2008 2:28 PM From a nurse: I'll never forget the look in my patients' eyes when I had to tell them they had to go home with the drainage tubes, new exercises and no breast. I remember begging the Doctors to keep these women in the hospital longer, only to hear that they would, but their hands were tied by the insurance companies. So there I sat with my patients, giving them the instructions they needed to take care of themselves, knowing full well they didn't grasp half of what I was saying, because the glazed, hopeless, frightened look spoke louder than the quiet 'Thank You' they muttered. A mastectomy is when a woman's breast is removed in order to remove cancerous breast cells/tissue. If you know anyone who has had a Mastectomy, you may know that there is a lot of discomfort and pain afterwards. Insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient procedure. Let's give women the chance to recover properly in the hospital for 2 days after surgery. It takes 2 seconds to do this and is very important. Please take the time and do it! Please send this to everyone in your address book. If there was ever a time when our voices and choices should be heard, this is one of those times. If you're receiving this, it's because I think you will take the 30 seconds to vote on this issue and send it on to others you know who will do the same There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the 'drive-through' Mastectomy where women are forced to go home just a few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached. Lifetime Television has put this bill on their Web page with a petition drive to show support. Last year over half the House signed on. PLEASE!! Sign the petition by clicking on the web site below. You need not give more than your name, state, and zip code. http://www.mylifetime.com/community/my-lifetime-commitment/breast-cancer/petition/breast-cancer-petition [ send green star]
Blue B.	November 18, 2008 9:21 AM Why the Concept of Working Moms Works [ send green star]
Blue B.	November 18, 2008 9:17 AM I changed the topic to include ALL WOMEN and issues about women, so that others may contribute to this topic. When you open a new folder, please chose a TOPIC as well as a TITLE, so that we don't have too many folders with only 1 or 2 messages. [ send green star]
Kate S.	November 17, 2008 9:47 PM Amen, sister! [ send green star]
Hazel M.	November 17, 2008 1:43 PM But among the darker revelations of this election is the fact that the vice-grip of female stereotypes remains suffocatingly tight. On the national political stage and in office buildings across the country, women regularly find themselves divided into dualities that are the modern equivalent of the Madonna-whore complex: the hard-ass or the lightweight, the battle-ax or the bubblehead, the serious, pursed-lipped shrew or the silly, ineffectual girl. It is exceedingly difficult to sidestep this trap. Michelle Obama began the campaign as a bold, outspoken woman with a career of her own, and she was called a hard-ass. Now, as she prepares to move into the White House, she appears poised to recede into a fifties-era role of “mom-in-chief.” It will be heartbreaking if, in an effort to avoid the kind of criticism that followed Hillary Clinton, the First Lady is reduced to a lightweight. Many will say we’ve come a long way this year. The truth is we have a long way to go. [ send green star]
Hazel M.	November 17, 2008 1:41 PM Palin was recast as the charmer, the glider, the dim beauty queen, the kind of woman who floats along on a little luck and the favor of men. In a recent issue of The New Yorker, Jane Mayer recounted how a handful of conservative Washington thinkers became besotted with Palin during a trip to Alaska and subsequently began to promote her in Washington: The National Review’s Jay Nordlinger described the governor as “a former beauty-pageant contestant, and a real honey, too,” Bill Kristol called her “my heartthrob,” and Fred Barnes noted she was “exceptionally pretty.” While it’s obviously not Palin’s fault that men find her attractive, it is fair to criticize her for campaigning on a platform of charm rather than substance. In what Michelle Goldberg called a “brazen attempt to flirt [her] way into the good graces of the voting public,” she waved and winked and smiled—even during the debate—and called herself “just your average hockey mom.” (Never mind that it’s impossible to imagine a male candidate mentioning fatherhood as the source of his readiness to be the nation’s second-in-command.) Her running mate called her “a direct counterpoint to the liberal feminist agenda for America,” and her “Joe Six-Pack” fans seemed to appreciate her nonthreatening approach. To quote a former truck driver named Larry Hawkins who was interviewed by the Times at a Palin rally: “They bear us children, they risk their lives to give us birth, so maybe it’s time we let a woman lead us.” It was enough to incense those of us who related to Hillary Clinton and her plight. “What’s infuriating, and perhaps rage-inducing, about Palin, is that she has always embodied that perfectly pleasing female archetype,” Jessica Grose wrote on Jezebel.com, in a post titled “Why Sarah Palin Incites Near-Violent Rage in Normally Reasonable Women.” Palin had taken a match and set fire to our meritocratic notions that hard work and accumulated experience would be rewarded. “As has been known to happen in less exalted workplaces,” Katha Pollitt wrote, “Palin got the promotion because the boss just liked her.” Her blithe ignorance extended from foreign policy to the symbolic value of her candidacy. By stepping into the spotlight unprepared, Palin reinforced some of the most damaging and sexist ideas of all: that women are undisciplined in their thinking; that we are distracted by domestic concerns or frivolous pursuits like shopping; that we are not smart enough, or not serious enough, for the important jobs. In a rare moment of sympathy for Palin, Judith Warner, writing in the Times, noted that Palin’s admirers must “know she can’t possibly do it all—the kids, the special-needs baby, the big job, the big conversations with foreign leaders. And neither could they.” But many women do manage to do it all, or pretty close to all. They at least manage to come prepared for the big conversations and the critical meetings, no matter what they have going on at home. “Do we have to drag out a list of women who miraculously have found a way to balance many of these factors—Hillary Clinton? Nancy Pelosi? Michelle Bachelet?—and could still explain the Bush Doctrine without breaking out in hives?” wrote Rebecca Traister in Salon.com. Why then must Palin’s operatic failure be the example that leaves a lasting imprint? And so, here we are, nearly two years after Hillary Clinton declared her candidacy. While it’s true that societal change comes in fits and starts and the Clinton campaign went a long way toward helping voters imagine a female commander-in-chief, I can’t help but think that our historic step forward was followed by more than a few in the opposite direction. In August, after Clinton had dropped out of the race but before Palin was selected as the vice-presidential nominee, the Pew Research Center published a study on gender and leadership. A remarkable 69 percent of respondents believed that men and women made equally good leaders. In fact, women were rated equal to or better than men in seven of eight “leadership traits,” such as honesty, intelligence, ambition, creativity, compassion—the only quality on which men scored higher was decisiveness. Two months later, when voters were asked to rate the leadership ability of one particular woman, the results were just as striking. According to exit polls, 60 percent of voters thought Palin was not qualified to be president if necessary. It’s true that Sarah Palin is only one woman, and we’ve seen male candidates of questionable readiness, like the oft-mentioned Dan Quayle, and even presidents of questionable intelligence, such as George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, whom Clark Clifford once called “an amiable dunce.” But because so few women are present at the highest levels of government, they carry the burden of representing their gender more so than men. In politics as in business, an unqualified woman does more damage than no women at all. She serves to fortify the stereotypes that the next woman will have to surmount. In the end, women can take pride in the fact that we helped break another set of retrograde stereotypes and prejudices with the election of Barack Obama. Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson notes that “for the first time since enfranchisement, [women] voted in greater numbers, and more progressively, than men,” favoring Obama by a 13 percent margin, while men were almost evenly split. In doing so, we selected a candidate whose views on issues like health care and equal pay and reproductive rights align with our interests. But among the darker revelations of this election is the fact that the vice-grip of female stereotypes remains suffocatingly tight. On the national political stage and in office buildings across the country, women regularly find themselves divided into dualities that are the modern equivalent of [ send green star]
Hazel M.	Women, Politics, Human & Civil Rights, Discrimination, etc. November 17, 2008 1:37 PM The “itch” and the “Ditz” How the Year of the Woman reinforced the two most pernicious sexist stereotypes and actually set women back. By Amanda Fortini In the past few weeks, Sarah Palin has been variously described as a diva who engaged in paperwork-throwing tantrums, a shopaholic who spent $150,000 on clothing, a seductress who provocatively welcomed staffers while wearing only a towel, and a “whack-job”—contemporary code for hysteric. Worse, she was accused by a suspiciously gleeful Fox News reporter named Carl Cameron of not knowing Africa was a continent, of being unable to name the members of NAFTA, indeed of being unable to name the countries of North America at all. (“But she can be tutored,” Bill O’Reilly told Cameron, as though speaking of a small child.) More significant than the dubious origins of these leaks, or the fact that the campaign that cried “sexism” at every criticism of its vice-presidential nominee was engaging in its own misogynistic warfare, is the fact that all of the allegations were so believable. After all, Palin had earned herself a reputation as, in the words of one Fox News blogger, “something of a policy ditz.” It’s hard to get too worked up on Palin’s behalf, of course; she was complicit in her crucifixion. But it is disappointing to watch what some have called the “year of the woman” come to such an embarrassing conclusion. This was an election cycle in which candidates pandered to female voters, newsweeklies tried to figure out “what women want,” and Hillary Clinton garnered 18 million votes toward winning the Democratic nomination. The assumption was that these “18 million cracks in the highest glass ceiling,” as Clinton put it, would advance the prospects of female achievement and gender equality. It hasn’t exactly worked out that way. In the grand Passion play that was this election, both Clinton and Palin came to represent—and, at times, reinforce—two of the most pernicious stereotypes that are applied to women: the bitch and the ditz. Clinton took the first label, even though she tried valiantly, some would say misguidedly, to run a campaign that ignored gender until the very end. “Now, I’m not running because I’m a woman,” she would say. “I’m running because I think I’m the best-qualified and experienced person to hit the ground running.” She was highly competent, serious, diligent, prepared (sometimes overly so)—a woman who cloaked her femininity in hawkishness and pantsuits. But she had, to use an unfortunate term, likability issues, and she inspired in her detractors an upwelling of sexist animus: She was likened to Tracy Flick for her irritating entitlement, to Lady Macbeth for her boundless ambition. She was a grind, scold, harpy, shrew, priss, teacher’s pet, killjoy—you get the idea. She was repeatedly called a bitch (as in: “How do we beat the … ” and a buster of balls. Tucker Carlson deemed her “castrating, overbearing, and scary” and said, memorably, “Every time I hear Hillary Clinton speak, I involuntarily cross my legs.” Career women, especially those of a certain age, recognized themselves in Clinton and the reactions she provoked. “Maybe what bothers me most is that people say Hillary is a bitch,” said Tina Fey in her now-famous “Bitch Is the New Black” skit. “Let me say something about that: Yeah, she is. So am I … You know what? Bitches get stuff done.” At least being called a bitch implies power. As bad as Clinton’s treatment was, the McCain campaign’s cynical decision to put a woman—any woman—on the ticket was worse for the havoc it would wreak on gender politics. It was far more destructive, we would learn, for a woman to be labeled a fool. When Sarah Palin first stepped onto the national stage, I was, like many women, intrigued by her. Here was a woman who—even if you didn’t agree with her politics—seemed to have achieved what so many of us were struggling for: an enviable balance between career and family. She was “a brisk, glam multitasker,” to quote the Observer’s Doree Shafrir, with a good-natured stay-at-home husband at her side and several adorable young children in tow. She was running a state and breast-feeding a newborn and yet, amazingly, did not seem exhausted. There was something inspiring about seeing a woman so at ease with her choices, even as both liberal and conservative critics chided her for running for vice-president when her family needed her. Politics aside, when, at the convention, she delivered a politically deft speech like a pro, it was pleasing to witness the first woman on a Republican ticket perform so well. Of course, the myth of Sarah Palin unraveled almost as quickly as it was spun. By now, her bizarre filibustering, discomfiting blank stares, weird locutions, and general tendency to trip over herself verbally are familiar. First, there was the painful Charlie Gibson interview, in which Palin adopted a Toastmasters-style technique of repeating her interlocutor’s name in a vain attempt to sound authoritative. Then Katie Couric, with a newfound air of gravitas, smothered Palin with her simple questions and soothing manner: Palin appeared stunningly uninformed, lacking a basic fluency in foreign policy and economic theory. Even if she had frozen up out of nervousness, or fell into the category of smart-but-inarticulate, it was still unacceptable that she couldn’t recall Supreme Court decisions she disagreed with or name a single periodical she reads. Time? Newsweek? Hello? Palin was recast as the charmer, the glider, the dim beauty queen, the kind of woman who floats along on a little luck and the favor of men. In a recent issue of The New Yorker, Jane Mayer recounted how a handful of conservative Washington thinkers became besotted with Palin during a trip to Alaska and subsequently began to promote her [ send green star]