As folks who know me know, I’m endlessly fascinated with the intergenerational divide among women going on around this election. And I’ve come to feel like those my age occupy an odd place here on the cusp of 40. Many of the polls show the cut-off for Hillary vs. Obama support among women voters as being age 40. We all know that cut-off numbers are often random but convenient divisors, false but convenient truths. Still, I can’t help but wonder, does my earlier waffling reflect some kind of generational fence-sitting?

It comes as no surprise that women born at different times in history are going to differ in their attitudes across the board–though the realization does seem to be news for some. In the history of feminism, generational differences has been a central theme for decades. Think back to the 1970s: Betty Friedan (who was by then middle-aged) vs. the radical feminists (who came out of the New Left and antiwar movements and were generally in their 20s). They wanted different things. Some wanted change at City Hall, others rooted their politics in the bedroom. They fought for equality, and fought each other along the way, often destructively. So my question, always, is how do we fight and debate without tearing ourselves apart? How to adamantly disagree and still find the common ground? The questions were relevant in the 1970s, and they’re relevant today.

And speaking of, I’m currently gathering data and ammo for the talks I’m giving around the country for Women’s History Month and would love to be pointed to any articles you’ve seen that focus on this latest generational division among women. The way it’s all being framed has tremendous consequences, I believe, for the future of women’s organizing, for the health of intergenerational relations, and for national politics overall. Thanks in advance for any links. Please feel free to post em here in comments–along with any thoughts of course!–or email me.

P.S. The intergenerational panel I’m traveling with through 2008 may be coming soon to a campus near you! Our March is pretty filled up, but we’re booking into the fall, so for more info, please click here.

Image cred

GUEST BLOGGER: Jacqueline Hudak, M.Ed., Ph.D. is a feminist family therapist who has been working with individuals, couples and families for over twenty years. On a more personal note, Jacqueline is the mother of Lauren, 16, and Vincent, 12 and together with her partner Sarah, they live in Atlantic Highlands NJ. When not thinking about relationships, Jacqueline is a devoted student of yoga, which, as she has said, teaches her to go forward with an open heart, and see the world in different ways. She’s a popular teacher, speaker, and family therapy supervisor, and has lectured widely on a variety of topics that impact family life. Jacqueline is an Adjunct Faculty at Drexel University’s Programs in Couple and Family Therapy and is currently at work on two books: a memoir, and a compilation of stories from her years in practice. She is also a “graduate” of my Making It Pop: Translating Your Ideas for Trade seminar, and I’m SO EXCITED to read her books, and to share this guest post from her here! Here’s Jacqueline. -GWP

Intimate Justice at Bluestockings NYC!

Intimate justice – doesn’t the sound of it just make you want some?

It was a beautiful scene on the evening of February 13th: a venerable old feminist bookstore, chock full of folks to celebrate the publication of Making Love Playing Power: Men, Women and the Rewards of Intimate Justice by my pal, Ken Dolan-DelVecchio. What an amazing book!

I was admittedly thrilled, but nervous, when upon our arrival at Bluestockings Ken asked me to introduce him. Given my heartfelt respect for this man and the work that we share, I of course, said ‘yes.’ I knew I could find the words, because in my mind, well, perhaps mostly in my heart, I knew how ready we are for a book like this, and how urgently it is needed.

This is because those of us who transgress the lines between doing ‘therapy’ and social justice work try to open our clients and families to new ways of seeing their lives. In my clinical work, I pursue the questions that might help someone see possibility where previously there was none. In this book, Ken provides a clear map of how gender, race, class and sexual orientation influence power in a relationship – and how the imbalance of power is at the root of most conflict. This dynamic is generally not talked about – even by supposed ‘experts’. Ken helps focus our understandings of how we are taught to be male or female, and what cost that exacts from relationships with those we love. This book enacts the revolutionary ideas that men are fully capable of deep intimacy and connection, and women, of empowerment and self-love.

With so many self help books on the market, it is so refreshing to find one that has a chapter entitled “What Patriarchy Teaches Men.” AND it is written by a man. I can only begin to imagine the ways in which sharing this book will enhance my clinical work with couples and families. The dominant psychology of our culture teaches us to look inside the person or relationship for “the problem.” Yet “the problem” is so often outside of the relationship – and the tricky thing is, we don’t talk about it. As a culture, we don’t acknowledge the ways in which the presence or absence of racism, poverty, gender privilege, or heterosexism (to name a few) shape and give meaning to our lives. Instead, we couch the struggles in pseudo-diagnostic terms: “communication problems”, “anger management,” “codependency.” We thus never get to talk about or take action against the structures that support these hierarchies of privilege and oppression within which all families live.

As the mother of an almost teenage boy, I am also deeply concerned about the ways in which he is taught by our culture to be a man. Can he stay the big-hearted, emotional and tender person I have known for 12 years? Must he become indoctrinated into the traditional world of masculinity? I know all of the rhetoric about how men have changed, but has the culture of masculinity? (that’s a whole other blog!) I see the extreme self reliance, the inability to ask for help or be viewed as dependent, in many “younger” men in my practice. I know Ken shares that concern for his son and share that in his dedication: “For your generation, may you know love more than domination and truth more than fear.”

Making Love Playing Power: Men, Women and the Rewards of Intimate Justice is the relationship guide we have been waiting for. Thank you, Ken, for opening so many possibilities to couples and families. Your clarity, dedication and tenderness shine through!

You can reach Jacqueline at jack4fta@comcast.net.

I don’t know about you, but I’m about ready for some election levity. If in need of a laugh, watch below, courtesy of The Onion (and Marco).

An article in the Houston Chronicle today notes that women in Texas are torn. But I just got off a briefing call with pollster Celinda Lake, who reminded that women in both Texas and Ohio are leaning Hillary.

Celinda also noted the following 5 things about this extraordinary election:

1. The magnitude of the gender gap has reached historic proportions.
2. Turnout models have never been so off.
3. The extent to which the economy has supplanted Iraq as the #1 issue is momentous.
4. Early voting is 4-5 times what it’s been in the past.

And my personal favorite:

5. Younger voters are turning out 2,3, and 4 times as much in certain states as in the past.

So women these days are more likely to work during pregnancy, says the U.S. Census Bureau. As someone who grew up in a time when working while knocked up is so common, I’m tempted to say “duh.” But my inner historian knows well, and appreciates, that this hasn’t long been the case. And here are the facts, courtesy of the Council on Contemporary Families:

Two-thirds of women who had their first child between 2001 and 2003 worked during their pregnancy compared with just 44 percent who gave birth for the first time between 1961 and 1965, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The report, Maternity Leave and Employment Patterns: 1961–2003, analyzes trends in women’s work experience before their first child, identifies their maternity leave arrangements before and after the birth and examines how rapidly they returned to work.

Women are more likely to work while pregnant than they were in the 1960s, and they are working later into their pregnancies. Eighty percent who worked while pregnant from 2001 to 2003 worked one month or less before their child’s birth compared with 35 percent who did so in 1961-1965.

Women are also returning to work more rapidly after having their first child. In the early 1960s, 14 percent of all mothers with newborns were working six months later, increasing to 17 percent within a year. By 2000-2002, the corresponding percentages had risen to 55 percent and 64 percent. (The period of analysis is restricted to women who gave birth by 2002 because some who gave birth in 2003 did not have one full year of employment data by the time of the interview in 2004.)

Other highlights:

— In 2001-2003, 49 percent of first-time mothers who worked during pregnancy used paid leave before or after their child’s birth, while 39 percent used unpaid leave. Twenty-five percent quit their jobs: 17 percent while they were pregnant and another 8 percent by 12 weeks after the child’s birth.

— Forty-three percent of women in 2001-2003 used paid leave after their child’s birth compared with 22 percent before their child’s birth.

— Sixty percent of mothers with a bachelor’s degree or more received paid leave benefits compared with 39 percent of mothers with a high school diploma and 22 percent of those who had less than a high school education.

— Eighty-three percent of mothers who worked during pregnancy and returned to work within a year of their child’s birth returned to the same employer. Seven in 10 of these women returned to jobs at the same pay, skill level and hours worked per week.

Hmmm. Very interesting.

Hey you femalesportsfans, check it out!

(Welcome new blogger, and thanks to Daph for the heads up)

Personal hero Gloria Feldt–who is also on the Board of the Women’s Media Center, where I’m part of that first class of Progressive Women’s Voices–is about to hit #11 on the New York Times Bestseller list with her new book with Kathleen Turner, called Send Yourself Roses.

I met Kathleen at their book party earlier this week and was appropriately star struck.

But what I want to share via Gloria this morning is something she shared with us at PVW a few weeks ago. She was asked about the lessons she learned leading a social movement where she worked a great deal with the media and messages as vehicles of social change. And she told us about the importance of embracing controversy–something I’m still learning. I seem to keep playing it safe when reporters contact me to talk about intergenerational divide among women around the election. I’m working on how to respond without fueling a notion of “catfight.” Still working on it. Meanwhile, Gloria’s general comments to us are now posted on her blog, here.

In a nutshell, the 6 C’s of Embracing Controversy:

Controversy is the Courage to risk putting your Convictions out there to the world, using the controversy strategically, because controversy is a Clarifier—it gets people’s attention so you can use your platform to present your Case at a time when people are paying attention, and therefore controversy is a Change agent—because to make change you have to make people think differently, learn new things, and clarify their values.

May we all learn to follow Gloria’s example, I say. The woman knows from whence she speaks.

Personally, I think we should have Girls Write Now Month! But I’ll settle for a day.

To commemorate International Women’s Day, GWN is hosting several fantastic readings and, in collaboration with SIC (Smart Is Cool) Movement, a fashion show, all at the New School next Saturday, March 8 (5-7pm). It’s a day to encourage girls of all ages everywhere in the world to put pen to paper and explore the beauty and power of their unique, creative voices. And it’s a day to celebrate girls, girl writers, and overall girl awesomeness.

For more information, please contact nikki@girlswritenow.org.

Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo is unleashed into the world again today, in paperback this time. My coeditor Daphne Uviller and I are spreading word through parenting blogs. (If you write for one or are a journalist interested in a review copy, please write CrownMarketing@randomhouse.com, with ONLY CHILD in the subject line.)

On Sunday, right smack in the middle of the Oscars, at 9pm, there was a one-hour show on Only Child on WKCR, 89.9FM. It will soon be available for download from the WKCR website. It’s a This-American-Life style arts show called Studio A, and the host is Michelle Legro. The show includes a long interview with us (in which a preggers-again Daphne tells why she’s having number 2 and I ‘fess up to my newfound embrace of a hoped-for only), a reading from the book, some interviews with oc experts, and some readings by other onlies.

And on April 7, 2008 Daph and I will be teaching a Mediabistro intensive on putting together anthologies, here in NYC. Come one, come all! You’ll learn about the process, from soup to nuts: how to write a proposal, find contributors, manage and edit submissions, work with purchasing editors, make the best use of your in-house publicist, and learn how to self-publicize (yep, no getting around that, case in point). You’ll leave with a timeline in hand detailing the process by which you could reasonably expect to complete a salable anthology. Mediabistro also has a nice lil article on anthology making, by one of my fave ladies Rachel Kramer Bussel, available on their site.

Doing this anthology with Daph changed my life, for reals. For one, it launched me into the book publishing world. Writing my essay for it helped me come to terms with my own experience of being an only child who got divorced. But more than all that, it gave me a taste of writing collaboration at its best. For that, I am forever grateful to our amazing contributors, my agent Tracy Brown, and to Daph.

In the latest Women’s Media Center Exclusive, Sara Voorhees reports on the findings of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Children in the Media (GDIDM). Here’s the summary:

“For actress Geena Davis, who had galvanized women with movies such as Thelma and Louise and A League of Their Own, and her recent television role as the first female president of the United States (Commander in Chief), ‘where are the girls?’ was a question that needed to be answered. She started her own non-profit, and with the help of USC Annenberg School of Journalism professor Stacy Smith, Davis began research to assess portrayals of males and females in children’s media. On January 30 and 31, 2008, at the University of Southern California, under the auspices of GDIDM, she presented the findings at a forum for studio heads, writers, educators and students.”

Findings available here.