Yup, it’s in the works! We’ve been scanning the universe of feminist calendars and have yet to find one that lists public talks, panels, and readings on feminist topics in selected cities. So, at the wise suggestion of one of our editors, we thought we’d start one of our own!

GWP’s Feminism in Public (Public Feminism?) calendar will eventually be available here. In the meantime, if you know of other useful calendars that we should link to on our Public Events page, please share them in comments. We welcome your suggestions.

And by the way, while I was tempted to post this picture to signify “feminist calendar”

you’ll see that I didn’t. Except — whoops — I kind of just did.

This just in, from GWP’s Veronica Arreola (aka Science Grrl)! -Deborah

Once upon a time there was a little girl who had big dreams. She was going to be an archeologist, a teacher, and maybe one day the President of the United States. She knew she wanted to get out of her small suburban town and see the world. When other girls were playing wedding, she joined in, but deep inside didn’t think that she would ever find a boy who would marry her. She did dream about having children one day. A husband was always optional. Fast forward to early adulthood and the little girl did find a boy who said he would marry her and tolerate, some days love, her crazy feminista ways. They married in a tiny chapel in Las Vegas. And they left the hotel-casino to live their Happily Ever After.
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When I hear people talk about defending the institution of marriage, I wonder if my marriage would really qualify. Yes, as a woman I married a man, but we were not married in a house of worship, even thou the justice of the peace did throw in a lot of “God this and God that.” I tried to change up the ceremony so that my dad was not asked “Who gives this woman away” because well, at 18 I left on my own accord, but the JoP still said it. I also thought about having both my parents walk me down the aisle, but was talked out of it. We were introduced as Mr. and Mrs. MYLAST name after we were married, which was a fun surprise for many reasons.

On Tuesday, one of the biggest election days for my generation, Californians will have even more responsibility than usual. The California State Supreme Court has already stated that equal marriage rights are the law of that state. Proposition 8 wants to repeal that and return California to discriminating against same-sex couples.

Why? To protect my marriage? To protect the marriages of Hollywood stars who marry for a few years, get bored, and shack up with their next co-star? As BAC asks, “Hey Newt…Which marriage are you protecting?” This is not about saving us from a crazy judicial system. The same people who want to save us, love that the judicial system gave GWB the election in 2000, and want the judicial system to throw out Roe.

There are times in this country when the judicial system has failed us (Dred Scott) and times when it has pushed us into a new era (Brown v. Board of Education).

Like it or not, this country needed to get its collective butt kicked into this new era of equality and love. Because that’s what it is – Equality for all those things us hetero-married folks take for granted and love between two people. How can anyone vote against love? Seriously.

California VOTE NO on PROP 8!!

-Veronica Arreola

Photo from Ellen & Portia’s Wedding Day album

Crossposted at Viva La Feminista

From GWP’s very own Jacqueline Hudak! For a whole bunch more, be sure to see the posts contributed at Write to Marry Day’s host site, Mombian. – Deborah

I happen to think kids are very smart people.  And there are some kids who have been around my relationship with my partner, Sarah for a number of years.  So I thought I would solicit their opinion about marriage.

With just a little time, I tracked down my daughter Lauren, age 17, a senior at The  Emma Willard  School in Troy, NY, and sent her this email:

“I know you’re very busy honey, so if you don’t have time to answer this, I completely understand.  But, if you get a chance, can you give me a sentence or two? Do you think Sarah and I should be able to get married? Why or why not?”

Here’s her response:

“Honestly, when has discriminating against someone or a group of people EVER ended well?  When has it ever been a good idea to tell someone that they’re not as good as someone else, or that they’re restricted from participating in something because they’re different?  People get married because they’re in love, not because they’re heterosexual, so I think you should be able to marry whoever makes you happy.  You and your husband, wife, or partner deserve the same happiness and benefits as the people who find love in different places than you do.  So obviously you and Sarah should be able to get married =)

I happened to see our friend Lincoln today, who I might add, is an avid GWP reader! His Mom and I are best friends; I have known him since he was 3. Lincoln is now 16 and a junior at Allied Academy for Health Sciences here in NJ.  We were doing a typical drop off/pick up when I posed the same question. He indulged me, as he often does with my queries, took a moment to think and said,

“Of course you should be able to get married.  It’s no different than any other relationship, any other marriage. It’s no different.”

Finally, on the way home from school today, I told my son Vincent about this column.  Vincent is 13, in eighth grade, and has known Sarah since he was 8.

“Mom, you should be able to get married because you guys really love each other.”

And to that I say, “AMEN!”

So here’s what I have to say today in response to the wisdom of these children: Sarah, I love you fiercely, will you marry me?

PS. Katie, Sammi, Aaron and Georgia, I am so sorry I didn’t have time to talk to each of you about this! Please post your comments and get your voice heard!

-Jacqueline Hudak

I’m so pleased to share this post today from Bob Lamm, in honor of Write to Marry Day, and in protest of Prop 8. Bob is a freelance writer and teacher in New York City whose articles and personal esays have appeared in more than 40 periodicals, including the New York Times, the Village Voice, and Ms. magazine.  Among many other things, Bob is the author of the essay, “Learning from Women,” which was recently reprinted in Shira Tarrant’s anthology Men Speak Out.  Here’s Bob! -Deborah

Mildred Loving, who became famous for battling the ban in the United States on mixed-race marriage, died on May 2, 2008. Late in her life, she spoke out against banning same-sex marriages.

In 1958, Mildred Loving and her husband Richard Loving were in bed in their home in Virginia when police arrested them. The Lovings had married in Washington, D.C., five weeks earlier. Since Richard was White while Mildred was African American, their marriage was invalid in Virginia, one of 16 states which barred interracial marriages. (The Virginia statute applied not only to marriages actually performed in that state but also to marriages performed elsewhere.)

Both the Lovings were briefly jailed by the authorities. Under a plea bargain, they left Virginia and agreed not to return together for 25 years. A judge told them that if God had meant for Blacks and Whites to mix he would not have placed them on separate continents. But, years later, because they decided they wanted to return to live in Virginia, the Lovings launched a legal battle with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union. Eventually, in the 1967 case of Loving vs. Virginia, a unanimous United States Supreme Court ruled that miscegenation laws violated the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. This ruling effectively ended all bans on laws against racial intermarriage in the United States.

In 2007, in a statement prepared for the 40th anniversary of the Loving vs. Virginia ruling, Mildred Loving wrote:

“I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

“I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”

-Bob Lamm

Happy Almost Hallowe’en?!

Now this is just the kind of blog action/activism that makes our hearts sing over here.

Join bloggers around the country and around the world tomorrow to blog in support of marriage equality for same-sex couples and against California’s Proposition 8! It’s Write to Marry Day.

The event will give bloggers a chance to voice their opposition to Prop 8 and highlight what they may have already done, online or off, to stop the measure. The campaign will also educate California voters of the need to “go all the way” down the ballot to vote on the proposition.

We’ve got some posts of our own in store, but if any GWP readers are interested in sharing their ink with us tomorrow, please feel free to submit your wares!

Thanks to our own Gwen B for the heads up, and to Mombian for organizing.

I’m pleased to offer you a little Domestic Violence Awareness Month Madness from previous GWP guest poster Madeline Wheeler. Madeline is a newly single mother of two and writer of the social action theater piece Revealing Frankie, a memoir of childhood abuse. She is currently the Coordinator for the Palmer, MA Domestic Violence Task Force. Madeline earned a BA from Harvard and credits the positive changes in her life to the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership (yay Woodhull!) –Deborah

Wife Beating, Speaking Out, and Army Wives
It’s National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. This fact is getting lost amongst the bailout and the fabulous SNL skits about Sarah Palin. It is not an issue that the candidates address with the passion it deserves; quips and VAWA sound bites don’t cut it.  It seems Becky Lee’s polite suggestion for a debate question “Freedom from Domestic Violence: Right or Responsibility?” on the Huffington Post went unheard by Bob Schieffer.

I admit, I love the SNL skits, and recently have been distracted by the accusation that my willingness to speak out as a survivor of abuse is a form of Munchausen–but what has really caught my eye last week?

1) The new Sunny Side of Truth ad revealing evils of the tobacco industry.  Blow up figures of women resembling Weebles sway in the background as young women sing a ditty about smoking preventing men from beating their wives. “If you smoke it may take your life, but if you don’t you might beat your wife.” The ad claims that in 1998, according to the New York Times a tobacco executive said, “Nobody knows what you’d turn to if you didn’t smoke.  Maybe you’d beat your wife”.

2) Last week I received an email from Lori Weinstein, Executive Director of Jewish Women’s International (JWI), informing me that in the past four months, the deaths of three Fort Bragg-based female soldiers have resulted in murder charges brought against the victim’s husband or lover.  I googled the murders and was shocked to find that in June and July 2002, four military wives at Fort Bragg were murdered by their spouse within a six week period.  Officials acknowledged that three of the men had recently served in Afghanistan but that there was “no common thread among the cases, and suggest[ed] it may simply be an “anomaly.”

I searched several websites before I found the Baltimore Sun article about the 2008 Fort Bragg murders.  Carol Darby, spokeswomen for the Army’s Special Operations Command, said the Army had no reason to be “overly concerned for [the] personal safety of female soldiers.”  Can this be considered an anomaly?  Where’s the smoking gun?

3) An article on Politico proffers that Michelle Obama’s new focus group is military families quoting her saying “The commander in chief doesn’t just need to know how to lead the military, he needs to understand what war does to military families.”  This isn’t just a political move—it’s a necessity.  An October 14th editorial in The Fayetteville Observer, a military newspaper for Fort Bragg, made the shocking comment, “In a way, it’s surprising that there aren’t more bodies piling up at military bases all over this nation.”

If this doesn’t catch your eye, maybe a polite stats reminder will. According to the National Committee Against Domestic Violence one in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime and an estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year.

I know objectors will say that women are violent too, but 85% of domestic violence victims are women.  I’ve taken a stand with JWI, which is still in the process of spearheading a petition to make domestic violence an important position for the candidates.  In addition, each day in October they feature a survivor’s story.

Barack Obama should take note, since the wife of his supporter and friend Massachusetts’s Governor Deval Patrick’s joined with Jane Doe, Inc. and made a public service announcement revealing that she was a victim of violence in her previous marriage.

Women’s voices are strong and powerful! A survivor’s voice is powerful and to be respected!  Though I have received recent backlash, I will continue to be an advocate and continue to speak as a survivor.  Survivors are not to blame and should not be shamed. As the Bay State’s First Lady, Diane Patrick exclaims, “Talk. It could save someone’s life.”

–Madeline Wheeler

Sometimes things come through my Inbox that are just too good not to share.  This here’s a resource–a newsletter–for those of you who, like me, are feeling baffled by the economic crisis, hungry for explanations in non-super-specialized language, and in need of a savvy woman’s perspective on the whole thing.  It’s from Jacki Zehner, author of the blog PursePundit, and a dear dear friend.  Writes Jacki:

As a retired partner of Goldman Sachs and now a partner of Circle Wealth Management Group, I spend a lot of time thinking about the financial markets and the world in general. I feel so privileged to have access to some of the smartest people on the planet, and for me, life is about sharing and about community. I am deeply committed to writing about what I consider important issues and topics related to money, markets and changing the world.  I started a blog at the beginning of the year because I wanted to create a platform to share knowledge and information as I thought it would be a historical one in the financial markets. Little did I know it would be that and more.

Next to come will be some newsletters that will contain resources on a variety of different topics with the main subject areas being money, investing, philanthropy and social change. That will come to your Inbox if you subscribe. My dream is it becomes a DAILY CANDY type newsletter–not around where to get the latest deals of cashmere sweaters, but rather on subjects that keep us informed and empowered.

Please take a minute to add you email to the subscriber icon on my blog and pass it on to your friends. For me, at this moment, it is what I can do to try to be the change I want to see in the world.  What I can do is take a minimum 30 minutes a day to put something out there in the world that I think is relevant based on what I have read or who I talk to. I believe in the power of women working together to make the world a better place.

I’ve found it fascinating to read here and there that some Civil Rights leaders are fearing a decrease rather than an increase in focus on civil rights and affirmative action issues should the first African American President assume office come January 2009.

Call it the Bill Cosby Effect?

The thinking goes like this: With a black man in office, Americans will be lulled into thinking that all our racial issues have now been solved.  With the election just days away and (dare I say it without jinxing?!) the possibility of a President Obama very real, just thought I’d share these two cheery tidbits about racial and other disparities, just in via the Council on Contemporary Families Briefing, cause I’m feeling all chipper like that today:

Income Gap Between Whites, Latinos Has Grown at Universities

Over the past three decades, the income disparity between Latino and non-Hispanic white students entering four-year colleges and universities has increased fourfold, with the difference in median household income growing from $7,986 in 1975 to $32,965 in 2006.

Declining Black Enrollments at Many of the Nation’s Highest Ranked Law Schools

Over the past eight years black enrollments have declined at a majority of the top-ranked law schools. At nine high-ranking law schools black enrollments are down by 19 percent or more. Three prestigious law schools in the nation show declines of more than 40 percent.

Hmm. Just sayin is all.

So we’re just discovering some of these here at the new GWP. For those not yet in the know, a blog carnival is where someone takes the time to find really good blog posts on a given topic, and then puts all those posts together in a blog post called a “carnival”. Here are some of our faves:

carnival of feminists
feminist carnival of sexual freedom and autonomy
scientiae carnival
carnival against sexual violence
carnival of the liberals

Know of other good ones? Please share in comments!