So one of my new summer goals–or rather, aspirations–is to get slow. Not too slow, just going for a little summer slow down is all. As you’ll see, it looks like I decided to start today, by not posting first thing this morning, as I usually do. Please be patient. A real post is coming soon, and before day’s end, I promise. And meanwhile, I invite all you busy GWP readers out there to join me in going slow!
On Saturday I ran a blogging workshop for folks at the National Council for Research on Women‘s annual conference. And I’ve promised those who couldn’t be there but wanted to that I’d post an informative follow-up here. Just wanted to say it’s coming! Stay tuned…
My Courtney has been writing up a storm! Her latest:
A letter to Hillary on her campaign’s end
A piece on keeping youth voters engaged in the political process
Oh boy, I gotta jump in over at Slate’s XX Factor — and likely will — but just wanted to share this article by Dahlia Litwik with ya’ll, called We Need To Talk, which concludes:
[I]n the spirit of reconciliation, I’d ask our mothers and grandmothers to take another look at the young feminists of 2008—supporters of Clinton and Obama alike. We’ve got money we earned—not by pole-dancing for the most part—and we’ve chosen to spend it on political candidates! Not shoes! (Or at least on political candidates and shoes.) We are smart and educated and politically engaged. We are passionate about repairing the world for your grandkids and goofily confident that those same granddaughters will be someday number among the joint chiefs of staff and the National League pennant winners. And wasn’t that at the core of your dream for us? You are not invisible. But we are not blind. And maybe now’s not the best time to confess to this but these rose-colored glasses we’ve been wearing since January? We borrowed them from you. …
And for another generational take, do check out Linda Hirshman’s piece in The Washington Post, “Looking to the Future, Feminism Has to Focus”, in which Hirshman cites my fellow PWVers Gloria Feldt and Sonia Osario as well as feminist bloggers Jessica Valenti and Jill Filipovic.
Your thoughts?
(Thanks, Marco, for the heads up on Slate.)
Well, the primary race may be over, but our fascination with Hillary–with the prospect and reality of a Hillary–has really only just begun. I find myself eagerly tracking the post-mortem analysis, hungry to make sense of it all. If you see any particularly interesting analysis out there, please to send it along. Just a sampling of what caught my eye over the weekend:
Clinton’s Real Victory
6/7/08
Washington Post: As someone who trains women across the country to lead across all sectors, it has been easy for me to see, firsthand, the impact of Clinton’s candidacy…
Clinton Bloc Becomes the Prize for Election Day
NY Times: Now that a would-be first female president is ending her quest for the White House, the race is more about women than ever before…
And lastly, this letter of gratitude, from Ilana Goldberg, head of the Women’s Campaign Fund (thank you, Purse Pundit!):
Dear Hillary –
I say this to you almost daily, but since it’s normally to you on the TV screen, I thought I should find a way of saying it where you might actually receive the message: Thank you.
Thank you for what you have done. For your sheer tenacity, strength, and stick-to-itiveness. Thank you for working so hard every day when you must have been exhausted. For showing us what leadership looks like: doing something well, with grace, in good times and bad. Most of all, I thank you for not quitting.
Your many supporters will tell you what your race means to them and history will write what it means to the world, but it also means so much to me and to the little world I live in. I thank you on behalf of the women who have been so special in my life:
For my daughter – who is, as of yet, just an idea in my mind. But I imagine her one day reading the story of this historic campaign. I am so grateful that the story she will read will be of a complete campaign, with the biggest numbers possible – states, votes, and delegates. That story will show that our first woman presidential contender was truly competitive – nearly won competitive – and show a little girl her own vast possibilities in this country. Thank you for giving her a history worth reading.
For my mother – who is one of those women who work tirelessly to support her family, worries over rising healthcare costs and frets that her grandchildren may not have social security. She’s always been passionately interested in politics, but never before found a politician who she felt saw and understood her. She’ll be 65 next year and she wrote the first political check of her life to you. Thank you for validating the day-to-day concerns that she faces.
For my grandmother – who was, as it was noted at her memorial, “a woman ahead of her time.” I think of her every time I see one of your senior women supporters who were born before women first got the vote and were out on the streets filled with hope that they would inaugurate one in their lifetimes. Thank you for showing them that their efforts to make women loud and proud actors in American politics created real change.
For my best friend – who would listen to me talk about just about anything in the world for hours – except politics – until you started to run. Little by little, day by day, she became more engaged in your campaign and what it meant to the country and our place in the world. She started out reading your emails and went on to lobbying her husband and friends to change their votes. Thank you for awakening an incredible woman to her role in the political process.
For my former junior staffer- who did not necessarily believe that sexism was still an issue alive and well today. She watched pundit after pundit behave in ways that even she could not deny were … crude. Then she saw it pass as kind of acceptable. And then she saw it happen again and again. Finally, she took up her pen and now Chris Matthews and the MSNBC brass know her name … well. Thank you for reminding her of how much work we all still have to do.
For me – who has been, at times, described as direct, forward, forceful, pushy and a few other choice adjectives. Thank you for helping make the world a little safer for aggressive, ambitious women. Because isn’t aggressive just one way of saying “she gets things done” and isn’t ambition just another word for “dream?” Thank you for pushing for my dream – and that of so many others – to elect a phenomenally talented and capable woman to lead our country and change our world.
As you promised from the outset, you have, and will continue to, make history.
Thank you, for all us.
Sincerely,
Ilana Goldman
President, Women’s Campaign Forum
A CFP to share – but hurry. The deadline is June 12!
The 18th Annual Women’s Studies Conference
“Girls’ Culture & Girls’ Studies: Surviving, Reviving, Celebrating Girlhood”
To be held on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University Friday and Saturday, October 17 and 18, 2008
The 18th Annual Women’s Studies Conference at Southern Connecticut State University explores girlhood. What does it mean to be a girl? Who defines girlhood in an age when puberty and sexualization are happening at younger ages? How do girls assert their own identity in an increasingly medicated and consumerist culture which targets girls as a prime audience? Why are U.S. girls preoccupied with perfection? What challenges do girls across races, classes, religions, nations, and cultures face in an ever more globalized world? What is the relationship between girls and feminism? What effect can feminism have on constructions of boyhood and masculinity and how in turn can this affect girls?
In the 18th annual SCSU Women’s Studies conference, we will take a close look at girls’ culture and girls’ studies, among the most vibrant areas in women’s studies. The Conference Committee invites individuals, groups, scholars, feminists, activists, girls and all to submit proposals that address topics related to all aspects of girlhood.
More info available here.
Taking a break from all the heavy stuff to share a moment from my weekend, post-NCRW conference. Marco and I took our first mambo lesson yesterday from Glenda Heffer (aka La Mambera), who is dancing here in this video with her partner Mambo D. We are not quite looking like them yet. Ok, so we will never dance like them. But hey, we’ve learned the basic step – it’s a start.
Ok, now I, too, have been feeling sad as the next Hillary supporter about our gal’s loss. But are there really going to be Hillary supporters out there sporting t-shirts with “NObama”? I have a hard time believing it. And if I see one, you better believe I will have something to say.
Do check out Gail Collins’ thoughtful oped in today’s NYTimes, “What Hillary Won,” and Bob Herbert’s too (thank you Catherine!). I’m moved by them both. Herbert reminds us not to overlook the wonder of this moment:
“Racism and sexism have not taken their leave. But the fact that Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, and that the two finalists for that prize were a black man and a white woman, are historical events of the highest importance.”
Indeed, we should not overlook this moment. Nor should we take it for granted. Doing a search for this t-shirt just now made me crazy. I found SO much anti-Obama propaganda online — xenophobic stickers, racist cartoons, and worse. As of today, I stand with Obama. And we have so, so much work to do.
Part of our work, of course, is to continue to analyze the impact of race and gender on this campaign. And I hope those of you in the area will join me at a forum on June 17th, “From Soundbites to Solutions: Bias, Punditry and the Press in the 2008 Election,” from 9am-noon, sponsored by The White House Project, The Women’s Media Center and the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. The forum is free of charge and open to the press and the public and will take place at the Paley Center for Media, 25 West 52nd Street (Between 5th & 6th Ave). Register here.
A must-read today from Judith Warner in today’s NYTimes (“Women in Charge, Women Who Charge”) in which she argues that in a nation indifferent to the sexist attacks on Hillary Clinton over the past 16 months, no wonder a film like “Sex and the City†is a hit. Writes Warner:
How antithetical Hillary’s earnest, electric blue pants-suited whole being is to the frothy cheer of that film, which has women now turning out in droves, a song in their hearts, unified in popcorn-clutching sisterhood to a degree I haven’t seen since the ugly, angry days of Anita Hill and … the first incarnation of Hillary Clinton. How times have changed. How yucky, how baby boomerish, how frowningly pre-Botox were the early 1990s. How brilliantly does “Sex†– however atrocious it may be – surf our current zeitgeist, sugar-coating it all in Blahniks and Westwood, and yummy men and yummier real estate, and squeakingly desperate girl cheer….
Read the full piece here.
ADDENDUM: As per urbanartiste’s comment, I have yet to see the movie yet and I do expect I’ll enjoy it, having been an SATC addict, nevertheless!
NCRW Panel on Corporate and Academic Diversity – Post#2
Moderator Ana Duarte McCarthy (pictured) leads the next bit of the session by noting that less than 3% of senior management and corporate officers are people of color. The numbers for women are extremely low. What is it that isn’t working? And what can we do about it?
Melinda Wolfe responds: “Until organizations recognize that women bear children and are primarily the caretakers for them, there will continue to be barriers for women to move up. Some women might come off the track; there are times when women take the scenic route but want to get back on and make a difference, but our systems don’t allow that. There are still huge underlying unconscious bias factors that go on in these institutions, that without critical mass, will continue. In some ways we’re at a dangerous inflection point, in that there are now more people who’ve heard about diversity and think that they get it. But they don’t. Because they think that they get it, their behaviors are more insidious.”
Anne Erni responds: “Several years ago, several of us worked with Sylvia Ann Hewlett on her Brain Drain study. We found that nearly 43% of women in corporations want to step off the track for a while, and 93% of them want to get back on. But less than half are successful in finding fulfilling fulltime roles. So some firms created models, like Lehman’s Encore program, to address. It’s been successful. The key is getting men to empathize. Many of these guys marry women on the Street [Wall Street, that is – GWP], so they are more likely to get it. There were also incentives: people would get paid for referring women who wanted to on-ramp.â€
Ah, how money talks. Poignant conversation about race going on next. A woman from the audience comments that she’s often the only African American student in the room. How do we move past that? Rosemary Cocetti shares a personal story about her son, who is an athlete, and a great writer, and who experienced straight out racism at college. His professor didn’t believe that a paper he submitted was his. Ironic, given that Cocetti is the diversity officer on campus. Actually, less ironic, more telling of how far we have to go. On the corporate front, how do coworkers deal with it the first time they see a colleague wearing a head scarf? The dilemma of being the first.
Stomachs are rumbling and the panel is wrapping up. A question asked earlier by Meryl Kaynard, Lehman Brothers, who is sitting next to me, has yet to be addressed. Rats, as this was my question too. The question: What’s going on in terms of Generations X and Y? And I want to know: to what extent does the comfort with a more global community–the one in which we’ve come of professional age–shape our expectations for inclusion here at home?
Ok, signing off now. Fear of carpel tunnel kicking in!
