Tonight is the This Is What Women Want Speak Out here in NYC. So here is what I want, what I’d like to tell the candidates, what I want them to hear. And a bigtime thanks goes to the National Council for Research on Women for their Big 5 website – a motherload of information for those of you similarly wanting to put it out there and help bring our issues to the candidates’ attention.

As a woman hoping to bring a child into this world, I have a lot of wants right about now.

As a working woman, I want guaranteed leave. Yes, it’s true, some limited unpaid leave is made mandatory under the Family Medical Leave Act. But I find it pretty disgusting that the United States is not among the 168 countries worldwide that provide paid maternity leave. And did you know, dear candidates, that mothers without paid leave in our country take fewer weeks off from work after childbirth than women with leave benefits, putting both mothers and infants at risk for health complications? And while we’re at it, nearly half (47%) of private-sector workers and 22 million women workers do not have any paid sick days. Nearly half the women who take off from work to care for a sick child give up their wages to do so. Three-quarters of women living in poverty sacrifice wages to look after sick children. If I sound frustrated, it’s because I am. Fix this, puleese?

When I become a mother, I’m going to want affordable childcare. Did you know, dear candidates, that nationwide, nearly 12 million children under age 5 are in childcare each week and, in every region of the United States, childcare fees surpass the average amount families spend on food? And of course, childcare costs are particularly weighty for poor and low-income families, who pay a significantly higher share of their income for care than higher-level income groups. Providing childcare subsidies reduces work schedule-related problems for single working mothers by about 56%. So why not supply more of these?

As the future mother of a future daughter or son, I want a personal promise from you that Roe v. Wade will never be overturned. And I want you, dear candidates, to take the lead in promoting women’s reproductive rights and health, especially the preservation of reproductive rights and health for low income women and women of color. I want honest sex ed in our schools, and an end to this federally-funded abstinence-only hoohah.

That’s for starters. What do YOU want? Tell it to mic tonight at LaGuardia Community College if you happen to be in the NYC vicinity. The “This Is What Women Want Pre-Debate Speakout” is taking place tonight @ 7:00 PM and it’s free: Mainstage Theater, 31-10 Thomson Avenue, LaGuardia Community College, Long Island City, Queens. More info available here.

Now, I am not one to trust the polls or to stop from knocking on wood every time a little flicker of hope rises in that maybe, just maybe, we’ll see President Obama in office come January. But in the spirit of things that may brighten up the day a bit, take a look at this analysis from the super-analyzers over at the FiveThirtyEight blog, which does some intense number-crunching and analyses of these way-too-many-too-confusing (ok, at least for me, who in studying for the GRE last night made some pretty red-faced math mistakes) poll numbers. According to their analysis, John McCain only has a 5.9% chance of winning the electoral college. Now this may seem overly optimistic even to the most glass-full of us, but take a look at their reasoning. You may find a little smile tugging at the corner of your lips.

UPDATE: Hey, is this the first time Gawker and Girl with Pen are on the same page?

First, thanks to all who commented last week on our newly relaunched GWP! We’re still catching up over here but promise to get back to ya’ll!  We loves your comments.

Second, while obsessing over the weekend about the state of the world, I decided we all need a little lightness right about now. So here’s a new (momentary?) feature this morning: your Daily Relief Package. I’ve never created a meme before but how cool would it be to make this one. Daily Relief Package: 3 Reasons the World Is Not All Going to Pot or maybe just the cornier version: 3 Things That Made Me Smile. Give it a try. I recommend. Here are mine:

1. The creators of Song for Sarah Palin created another one.
2. I got friends like Buddhagirl, who says, “I meditate on all the things in the next day that I am uncertain about…and then I draw my attention to what I can be certain about in each situation, and what I have.”
3. Random acts of humor (Marco’s latest, while walking in Riverside Park: “Squirrels in New York City are just rats in their cute suit.”  HA!)

Your turn?

Did ya’ll know that next Wednesday, October 15, is Wednesday is Blog Action Day on Poverty? A number of bloggers are participating in the event, including those of us here at GWP.  If you are a blogger and haven’t already signed up, you can register your blog here: http://blogactionday.org/en/blogs/new .  And do spread the word!

If you’re looking for ideas, check out Linda Basch’s post over at HuffPo, “The Missing Debate on Poverty,” and also the National Women’s Law Center’s analysis of recent Census data on women and poverty. Great stuff.

(Thanks to Mary at NWLC for the heads up.)<

At a pre-debate speakout here in NYC on Tuesday, to which anyone who can make it is invited!  The gals at The Center for New Words (the women who bring us the WAM! conference) cleverly launched a This Is What Women Want Tour of speakouts across the country, taking place in each debate city the night before the debate.  These speakouts are a chance for individual women to say exactly what they want from the candidates, the media and the next President.  The organizers will be sending the best speakouts to the media and the candidates.

Here are deets, for any who are up for joining:

The NYC event will feature speakouts from Kate Bornstein , Kety Esquivel , Shelby Knox , Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz , Betsy Reed , Amy Richards , Luz Rodriguez, Deborah Siegel , Carmen Van Kerkhove and numerous other national and community leaders, plus a range of real, diverse women taking advantage of our open mic.
Can’t make it? We’ll miss you.  But you can still visit ThisIsWhatWomenWant.com and declare and describe what you want from the candidates and the media online.

In the excitment of our launch here this week, I–oops!–forgot to post my own column, XY FILES (myths and facts about a new generation of men).  So here we go…

Remember all that stereotyped talk during the primaries about how Barack leads like a woman (meaning, collaboratively) and Hillary leads like a man (meaning, I suppose, pantsuits)?  In a Boston Globe column last Feburary, Ellen Goodman described Barack as “the quality circle man, the uniter-not-divider, the person who believes we can talk to anyone, even our enemies.” He finely honed a language “usually associated with women’s voices,” she said.  Goodman quoted political science professor Kathleen Dolan, who saw Obama as “the embodiment of the gentle, collaborative style without threatening his masculine side.”

Well now that it’s Obama vs. McCain, the gender of leadership has become, well, a little homogenized.  It’s dude v. dude.  Again.  And one of my newfound heroes Jackson Katz (educator, author, filmmaker, bigtime FOF — that’s friend of feminism, mind you) is currently working on a book about “presidential masculinity”  that I can’t wait to read.

According to an article in UCSF Today, Katz says this election is nothing new when it comes to the important role that race and gender have historically played in campaigns for the White House.   While the level of diversity among this year’s crop of candidates is of course unprecedented, Katz suggests that the battle between the two presidential contenders still boils down to a question of who best represents the stereotypically masculine qualities of a leader: strength, steadfastness and vitality.

“This year, it’s still about masculinity,” he says. “It’s just white masculinity versus person-of-color masculinity.”

Or is it?  Isn’t the Hillary/Sarah effect (ew – I hate putting them so close together like that) still having an impact on the way we talk about leadership’s gender these days?   GWP readers J.K. Gayle and Renee Cramer had some interesting comments on this all back in February, when HRC was still in the race.  I’d love to pick up the thread again, now that the debates are all black man vs. white man.  Read the rest from Katz, and let me know what you think!

Two quick hits:  While Obama and McCain were duking it out in Nashville this week, a rather brilliant student I met while speaking last month at USC Upstate shared her thoughts on alternative portrayals of masculinity on TV, and its social implications, over at the Popular & American Culture Associations in the South conference taking place this week in Louisville, KY.  More here.

And speaking of, finally a guy doesn’t have to be a pussy to love a cat, reports my fellow Invisible Institute-er Abby Ellin in the NYTimes.  Most funny quote from one of the guys Abby interviewed for “Sorry Fido, It’s Just a Guy Thing”: ” A man with a cat… ‘is secure with himself.  He’s sharing his space with a predator.'”

So, cats are the new macho accessory?  Amelia (whose picture I am not posting only because Kristen has yet to give me my remedial lesson in Flickr) purrs approvingly.

The Ms. Committee of Scholars is an advisory board that meets annually to strengthen women’s studies visibility in Ms. Magazine and to encourage women’s studies scholars to translate their research for a wider audience–hey, kinda like us here over at GWP!  They’re currently inviting folks to apply to the Ms. Academic Project for some distance-learning webinars and a live two-day workshop/conference in Washington, DC. Transportation and accommodations will be provided.  For more info, click here.

Application deadline: October 27, 2008

Full disclosure: Ok, so I’m a little sore at Ms. for not having, ahem, reviewed Sisterhood, Interrupted (?!), but hey I still think this is a great program!

(Thanks to our own Allison and Elizabeth for the heads up.)