Obama SO won that debate. Clear and square and fair. “That one” won, hands down. But don’t take my word. Check out the reaction groups from Fox, CNN, and CBS. HA!

Still annoyed about Sarah Palin’s behavior at the VP debate? Then enjoy this little tidbit: Gwen Ifill on Meet the Press says: “Sarah Palin blew me off.”

Warm wishes,
Deborah (still your girl with the pen)

Today we bring you our first official column from our sociologist from Framingham State College, Virginia Rutter, “Nice Work.” Nice work, Miss Virginia! -Deborah

Lotta talk about markets and the economy right now. But let’s change the subject for a moment and talk about marriage markets.

A “marriage market” refers to the notion that there are in any given community a bunch of people seeking mates, and they will make the best possible match that they can. Using the marriage market metaphor, researchers have noticed that characteristics of “the market” (I’m not talking Wall Street) will influence what kind of “deal” people get. When we say “he has high market value” on the marriage market, we mean he can get a better-than-average mate. When we say, “she can do better than that,” we think that her market value is above her partner’s.

Turns out that the marriage market itself can influence not just how “good” a partner you can find, but also how good the resulting relationship might be, too. An innovative new study in the current issue of the journal Demography examined what happens when there aren’t enough men in a (heterosexual) marriage market. UPenn’s Kristen Harknett compared unmarried mothers who live in communities where women outnumber men with those in communities that had a more favorable ratio. When the marriage market was tight—that is when women didn’t have a lot of men to choose from—their matches weren’t as good.

Now all this is not saying the guys didn’t have the right degree or weren’t cute enough. (In fact, Harknett found that “the economic quality of a male partner has much more to do with unmarried mother’s own characteristics than it does with the marriage market or local economy.”) I’m saying that the relationships themselves aren’t that good—there is more conflict, less supportiveness, and fewer signals of commitment. That’s right. The market forces don’t just affect what product you get. They affect how you enjoy your product! And so it makes marriage for these unmarried mothers less likely.

This is useful information. There’s a lot of research that shows the benefits of marriage—the benefits of a good, well functioning marriage—to the adults and any children who are in it. But, taking Harknett’s study to heart, marriage may not always be the rescue plan for single moms that we might otherwise think it is. Sometimes, a marriage bailout is a bust.

–Virginia Rutter

Yes, we know it’s in the air, but it’s ON the air too.

The WMC’s Robin Morgan and PWV participant (and fellow GWPenner) Courtney Martin will be on the radio tomorrow night, hosted by ABC’s Lynn Sherr who is doing a special radio program on The New Feminism, a one-time special live SIRIUS radio show airing October 7, 2008 from 6:00 – 7:00 pm ET on SIRIUS Stars channel 102.   Columnists Ellen Goodman and Gail Collins are among the panelists discussing feminism and the vote…just before Obama-McCAin debate #2.  I. CAN’T. WAIT.

(Thanks to the ladies at the WMC for the heads up.)

And I’m darn proud of her, too!  On Sunday she walked the walk–or rather, drove the drive–with my father (who I am immensely proud of, of course, too).  They crossed the border from Illinois over to Wisconsin, the swing state up north.  Neither of them had done canvassing like this before.  My father had helped organize trips to the South in the 1960s but his mother wouldn’ t let him go.  My mom took me to shake hands with President Jimmy Carter once when he came to town.  But this election has seriously activated them, as it has so many.  My folks are inspiring the heck outa me.  And before the election, I vow to get myself on the bus to Pennsylvania (if they still need us!) to do the same.

Nope, I’m not talkin about John McSarah Palin-cain. I’m talkin about the new team assembled here at GWP! And what a bunch, heh?

I’ll still be blogging pretty much daily.  Kristen Loveland will join me weekly, and our contributors will be bringing you monthly fare. Click on the names over there (->) to learn more about everyone’s background, and all our hot new column topics as well.

In addition to new regular voices, we’ve got a new look. Goodbye Blogspot, hello WordPress.

So welcome to the new site, sit back, take a good look around, enjoy the read, and get your pen on. We’ll be posting posts with your comments in them–under the title “Your Ink”–coming soon!

P.S. The GWP e-blast goes out this morning. If you haven’t received it and you’d like to, please be sure to sign up in the box up on the right.

Jacqueline Hudak’s column Family Stories appears the first Monday of the month. Here’s Jacqueline! -Deborah

As a feminist family therapist, my work is filled with stories.

I’ve wanted to add my voice to the conversation about Sarah Palin, and was reminded of this particular story from my practice, which I heard several years ago. I finally knew what I needed to say to Sarah Palin.

My patient was a 70-year old mother. I was working both with her and with her grown children, all in their forties at the time. The oldest daughter, who I’ll call Cathy, had been a client of mine, so I was familiar with her particular family story. On this day, only Cathy and her mother were able to attend the session; looking back, it was bit of divine providence.

Early in the session, the white-haired, frail mother looked at Cathy and said, “I’ve been thinking about telling you something. I haven’t spoken about it since it happened forty years ago, and always thought I would take this to my grave.”

The mother asked Cathy if she remembered a time when she was about 5 years old, and was left with her younger brother at her mother’s friend’s house. I knew for certain Cathy did remember. In fact, those days were vivid in her otherwise cloudy memory. The time her mother left her was part of a narrative she constructed about being abandoned as a young child to care for her younger sibling until her mother returned days later without explanation.

“Well, at that time I was dating, and trying to finalize the divorce from your father,” her mother now explained. “I got pregnant, and I knew we couldn’t manage another child. The year was 1964. Abortions were illegal. But I learned about an underground connection to someone who would perform one. I was so scared, and this was against everything I had believed in. Still, I felt it was the only option I had at the time.”

Cathy stared at her mother. Her mother went on.

“Something went terribly wrong, and I started to hemorrhage. I had to be rushed to the hospital. It was obvious that I was having complications from an illegal abortion. The police were called, and they began to interrogate me about who did the abortion, and where.”

Cathy’s mother described how the police shone a light in her eyes and shouted at her that if she did not report the person who performed the abortion, her other children would be taken away. “I was pleading with them to leave you and your brother alone. Begging to just let me go home,” she said.
Cathy and I sat in stunned silence.

It was surreal to gaze across the room and see this conservative-looking 70-year old woman talk about being the victim of such a brutal police interrogation. I pictured her as that terrified young mother in 1964. This storytelling between mother and daughter shifted a narrative that had existed for forty years, and indelibly altered the fabric of their relationship going forward.

I was reminded of the abortion rights march I attended in Washington DC in the late 1980’s. Thousands of women, marching with scraps of paper pinned to their shirts that read “Illegal abortion, 1959” or “Sister died from illegal abortion, 1960.” All of those stories, once silenced, pouring forth and demanding to be reckoned with.

Which stories are told and which are silenced?
What are the consequences for women of all that goes unspoken?
Can we even begin to imagine the relational impact of the silences that mothers bear alone?

That day, so unexpectedly, we were dealing with the consequences of illegal abortion, not just for that individual woman, but also for her web of intimate relationships. She had been compelled to withhold the truth from her daughter, out of fear, out of shame – the result of a policy that denied a sense of mastery over her own body.

While checking out feministing.com the other day, I saw the following in the margin: “If good doctors are not there for women, who will be?” It led me to this amazing site, which I urge you to check out: www.howmuchtime.org. One of the issues highlighted is that most women who have abortions are mothers.

So Sarah Palin, listen up! I must tell you that if you enact your anti-choice, anti- women policies, women, children and families will suffer, more, again, for generations to come. Come, sit and talk with me, Sarah. I have far more stories to tell.

–Jacqueline Hudak

And on the heels of Kristen’s awesome Palin/Morgan/generational commentary this morning, here’s one from my fellow graduate of Progressive Women’s Voices program, Avis A. Jones-DeWeever:

Where Have Our Standards Gone?

Sarah Palin survived the debate, but her down-home message can do little to reassure voters who have every reason to demand a change of direction.

What does it say about a nation, when the true take away message from a vice-presidential debate is that one of its participants actually does have the ability to string together a series of coherent sentences? Talk about the poverty of low-expectations. Sure, Sarah Palin made it through last night without adding to her long list of cringe inducing moments. But for a nation facing its greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, two sustained wars, and the lingering concern of the whereabouts and activities of Osama Bin Laden, being folksy just isn’t good enough. Competence matters. And clearly, Palin falls short.

Over and over, Governor Palin evaded questions, returned to the well-worn “Maverick” crutch, and sang the same ole’ Republican tune about the evils of government. But it’s hard to sell the tired anti-government spiel when your running mate pseudo-suspends his campaign to make sure that very government comes to the rescue of interconnected economies here and abroad.

It is true though, that Palin had her moments. She was most effective when she directed barbs against her opponents. But despite the provocation, Senator Joe Biden refused to rise to the bait and avoided any patronizing comments, focusing steadily on why Barack Obama should be president and not John McCain.

Still, what sort of a Maverick would pass up the opportunity to painstakingly spell out how her ideas differ from the status quo? Despite ample opportunity, time and time again, the governor failed to specify just how a McCain/Palin administration would differ in any substantive way from the debacle of the Bush/Cheney years. Whether it be the issue of making permanent the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans, or reviving America’s badly tarnished image around the world, the McPalin Express is easing on down the tracks laid by their woefully unpopular Republican leader. Maverick or not, Palin failed to provide any daylight between the domestic and foreign policy failings of the Bush Administration and just where she and John McCain plan to take the nation in the critical years ahead.

If there is one thing we’ve learned since the earliest of days of this historic electoral season, it is the hard and fast fact that Americans want change. And for good reason. Over the past eight years we’ve gone from peace and prosperity to none of the above. In this year alone, we’ve lost over 600,000 jobs, hit a five-year high unemployment rate, and had millions of families face the personal tragedy of foreclosure. In Iraq we’ve seen the number of American deaths top 4,000, had over 30,000 suffer injuries, and approached a record number of former service men and women who could no longer live with the lingering horrors of war; and as a result, took their own lives.

It’s time for this insanity to end.

Palin may have very well saved her political future from going down Dan Quayle’s road to political oblivion—that is if she avoids like the plague any future in-depth interviews inclusive of follow-up questions that press for specificity. But in the end, of the two candidates who took the stage last night, only one displayed a mastery of the facts, articulated clear plans for the nation’s precarious days ahead, and spoke genuinely of the challenges of raising a family in uncertain and unfortunate times. Joe Biden passed that bar and kept his ticket on the road to success.

For all her winks, smiles, and good-ole-girl vernacular, Palin failed to make a convincing case for McCain’s faltering campaign. We’ve already seen what it’s like to have Joe Six-Pack and a Grumpy Old Man run the nation. Reversing the order on the ticket and changing Joe to Jane, just isn’t good enough.

-By Avis A. Jones-DeWeever for the Women’s Media Center. The WMC is a non-profit organization founded by Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, and Robin Morgan, dedicated to making the female half of the world visible and powerful in the media.

Live, from the National Council for Research on Women, it’s The Real Deal! The Council and its network of 115 research, advocacy, and policy centers are rolling up their sleeves to make sure that women’s and girls’ real-life challenges and concerns are placed front and center in the national debate. The blog will feature guest bloggers and lively commentary from a wide variety of experts and thought leaders.They’ve launched a mini-site that serves as a resource center of fact sheets, policy briefs, and reports produced by women’s research and policy centers and the more than 2,000 researchers in our network.

Check it out, and a hearty welcome to The Real Deal!

Yep, you heard it hear, and I’m not sure what this alligator has to do with it but it seemed a fitting image. This Monday will officially see the (re)launch of Girl w/ Pen as a group blog. We’ll post the new url here on Monday, and eventually (sniff sniff) this trusty blogspot site will shut down. So take a final look these next few days, and then it’s see ya at WordPress! But don’t worry. The content will be the same.

Only better.