I’m a little late to the table on this one, but interesting post by Susan Faludi over at Women’s Voices group blog, on Hillary and the gender card. Says Faludi, tying it all back to her recent book:

Keep in mind: The gender card is always played. It’s even played in presidential campaigns where all the candidates are men….Given the political culture — and for reasons embedded in our history — that card usually involves a morality play in which men are the rescuers and women the victims in need of rescuing….Hillary Clinton’s rescue of women departs from the previous male version. In the old model, helpless women were saved from perilous danger by men. In the new, women are granted authority and agency to rescue themselves. Understanding the distinction is essential to an evaluation of current American politics.

Following the thread of Faludi’s new book, then, does that make Hillary, um, the girlfriend’s own inner John Wayne?

(Photo cred: The Plate Lady)

Just saw this article in Women’s eNews about that National Women’s Conference 30th anniversary conference at Hunter that I attended part of the other week. Again, while intentions were good, I found the whole thing kind of depressing, as this account kind of details:

Held at a high point of the women’s movement in the United States, Houston ’77 marked the only time the federal government ever sponsored a gathering of women for equality. With $5 million in funding from Congress organizers drew more than 20,000, including three first ladies–Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson.

This time only a few politicians made the event.

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton sent her regrets from her campaign in Iowa.

Media coverage was thin, with most of the coverage going to comedian, television and film star Rosie O’Donnell. And the attention wasn’t on what she had to say on the subject of women. It was more about her losing the deal to host a talk show on MSNBC.

Houston ’77 served as a beacon that lit up the organized women’s movement of its time, and Freedom on Our Terms was designed to rekindle those sparks and galvanize activists across the generations.

“There has to be a re-energizing, a re-igniting between younger women, older women and women in between,” conference leader Liz Abzug said as the two-day event wound up. “I want you to spread the word: Feminism is alive and well and moving into the 21st century.”

Yeah, well, you already know how I feel about that. (Are you seeing the young women in this picture? Cuz I’m not. Though they were definitely in the audience. Hmmm.)

On the up side, participants agreed to develop a 10-point “feminist action plan” to present to the presidential candidates, who will be asked to commit to implementing it during their first 100 days in office. According to Women’s eNews:

Among the issues that could make the top 10 list: elimination of abstinence-only sex education; paid leave for family care; improved child care; ratification of the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; national single-payer health care; reform of the Federal Communications Commission to reverse media consolidation; changes in the tax code to put a value on labor spent for homemaking; and renewal of the fight to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, reintroduced into Congress this year.

All of it sounds pretty good to me, but do young folk know/care about the ERA? Would its passage at this point be a largely symbolic gesture, or would it actually change the quality of young women’s lives? I wonder.

So PunditMom asks a great question over at HuffPo today: Does Lifetime’s Every Woman Counts poll–which is geared toward increasing the participation of women in the political process by encouraging more women to vote and to increase the national spotlight on issues that are important to women–take women seriously? The poll’s questions include:

1. Which candidate would you rather receive a gift from?
2. Which candidate would you be most comfortable leaving your children with?
3. Which candidate would you most like to have dinner with over the holiday season?

PunditMom writes,

What do questions like this add to the “political dialogue” other than making politicians think that we care more about popularity contests than health care or the environment?…If we really want to count and be counted, let’s not provide any more ammunition for the politicians to think that we’re not serious voters.

And I’m with her. But I also wonder this: Since the pollsters are constantly asking men which candidate they’d rather have a beer with, aren’t questions 2 and 3 above really just the equal opportunity equivalent for women? To be sure, I’ve always thought the beer question was a stupid way to choose a President. I’m not sure the babysitter test is any better.

Do more “hook ups” mean less marriage? Well, the December 2007 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family kind of points that way, but I wouldn’t base everything on one study. Still, according to the authors of an article titled “Of Sex and Romance: Late Adolescent Relationships and Young Adult Union Formation,” adolescents involved in romantic relationships at the end of high school are more likely to marry and to cohabit in early adulthood, while those involved in “nonromantic sexual relationships” tend to just shack up. But wait–aren’t we getting married later and later these days? And so I ask the sociologists out there: a study that ends in early adulthood isn’t going to tell us much about the longterm prospects for marriage, oui?

(Image cred)

Shifting Careers guru Marci Alboher has an interesting post up today at her NYT blog, on the changing landscape of journalism. Says Marci, who attended a panel on said subject at the Columbia J-School last week,

“I left the discussion convinced that the future of journalism will rely on good storytelling coupled with an ever-increasing array of new technology, and that those of us who don’t embrace the new technology are not likely to survive.” Read more about it here.

Yet another plug for “learning” to blog, I say.
(Photo cred)

He’s a little bit rock-n-roll? Or maybe it’s the other way around. Not sure, but with the Osmonds all over the news these days, I couldn’t resist. Anyway, this here’s a pic of an engagement present our friends Rebecca and Jeremy Wallace-Segall (aka Rebeccemy) and Katie Orenstein gave Marco and me the other night. The photo on our chests was taken of us, in our cowboy hats, at Rebeccemy’s wedding (runaway bride scene now immortalized on YouTube) earlier this fall.

These here are pics from last night’s party for RED–at a dim sum palace. I finally learned why this title. “RED,” it was explained to me, signals the outpouring of feeling that 58 emerging teenage girl writers spill onto the page of this anthology, which the editor referred to as “The real Daring Book for Girls.” (Hey, I still maintain the original Daring Book is daring too.)

The girls were terrific–talented, moving, and real. And it was fun hanging with Laura from Catalyst, Lauren Sandler, and Lauren’s awesome dude Justin, too (pictured above, from left to right). More on the book here.

I am SO having my next book party somewhere where they serve sticky pork buns. Mmmm.

Tonight on The O’Reilly Factor at 8pm EST,Courtney Martin will be battling it out with conservative pundit Laura Ingraham over issues of sexual freedom, and more. Courtney, you’re my hero. Hang tough.

A quick update from the Woodhull Institute of Ethical Leadership (which has partnered with the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty in order “to share success building tools through online training sessions that promote ethical development and empower women to act as agents of positive social change”):

Right now, Public Speaking trainings instructed by Woodhull co-founder Naomi Wolf and non-profit development professional and poet Tara Bracco are available online, here. There’s also an opportunity to “ask the experts,” Naomi and Tara, your questions.

The next module, Negotiation, will begin on December 3, 2007, and is led by our own dear Susan Devenyi. More info on all the online trainings here.

Sometimes I am just blown away at the talent of friends in my midst. This week, I ran into an old friend (um, crush?) at a film screening, who I found out has cut two CDs of late. I downloaded Racing Grey by “Steven Mark” and love it. His other one is called Aloneaphobe. If you’re into folk rock, I highly recommend.

And if that weren’t enough, my 23-year-old friend Sarah Ann Corkum is part of a band called Cordoroy Days (pictured left). They played on the Lower East Side this week to much acclaim. Their album is called Lose the Map and falls under alt-country-folk-rock. Killer harmonizing, Sarah Ann!

Man, and I can’t even play the tambourine.