So as promised, a bit about my experience participating in the Progressive Women’s Voices Project, a new media training and spokesperson program from the Women’s Media Center to connect media professionals with media-savvy women experts in a variety of fields. Funded by a grant from the NoVo Foundation, the program provides its participants with intensive media training and ongoing support “to promote their perspective and message into the national dialogue.”

Let me first say that the WMC–founded by Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Robin Morgan–is graced with an amazingly talented staff. The joint expertise of our trainers (Carol Jenkins, Glennda Testone, and Kathy Vermazen) knocked my socks off. On camera practice with these women? Invaluable. Learning from women with tremendous experience being out there in the public eye? Priceless. To wit: Board member Gloria Feldt shared savvy wisdom about the importance of embracing controversy, and Gloria Steinem shared an adage that has stayed with me: “Progress lies in the direction you haven’t been.”

The group of participants is in a word, well, powerful. Aside from soaking up massive doses of inspiration from these women and some of the best messaging training I’ve seen, we supplemented whatever knowledge we already had about a range of media tools–including blogging. And, as readers know, whenever I go somewhere where an experienced blogger shares tips on blogging, I like to pass them on. See one, do one, teach one and all that. Emily McCann of The Motherhood and the Been There Clearinghouse stopped by on Sunday to share her know-how with us and here’s some of what I gleaned:

-Want to post images in your blog, legally? In addition to Wikipedia and Photos from the Library of Congress on Flickr, other sources for open source images include Creative Commons, also at Flickr, and Photobucket.

-Seen some term or techy acronym on a blog recently and had no clue what it meant? Check out blogossary, a site billed as the blogosphere’s dictionary.

-Ready to create your own wiki? Check out pbwiki and wetpaint. (Confession: I came home and created one right away. I’m hooked.)

-Lastly, two hugely popular blogs that I hadn’t heard of and sound interesting include How to Change the World Blog, and 37days.

And speaking of changing the world, did you know that more women than men are now online? And also, women are twice as likely as men to pass forward an idea about a campaign or a cause? More on that in a book coming out in June 2008 by another of the weekend’s speakers, Lisa Witter. The book is cleverly titled The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World–and How to Reach Them.

This little report is the tip of the iceberg. In addition to the trainings, each week we participate in an issues briefing conference call, with experts from different realms. This week’s call was with economist and President of Bennett College Dr. Julianne Malveaux. Today, the economy. Tomorrow, the world!

Ok, I’m getting carried away. It’s only been a week in The Program.

I’ll post here when the WMC posts a notice for future applications. To would-be pundits out there: Trust me. If you have the opportunity, this is something you don’t want to miss.

Some really great recap-blogging going on out there about the Progressive Women’s Voices Project that I’m feeling extremely humbled and honored to be participating in. Here’s Courtney Martin on the evening we all went to dinner and had a collective kiniption fit when the restaurant turned the channel from CNN (it was the night of the South Carolina primary) to the Sports Channel. Here’s Joanne Cronrath Bamberger on what you do when Gloria Steinem calls. And here’s Linda Lowan (of About.com’s Women’s Issues blog) on democracy in action. Thank you to these three for sharing their thoughts so far, and I promise to throw in soon too!

Check out this fresh take on those who are male, single and not your stereotype in the Canadian Press.

In sum, the article argues, a lot of attention gets paid to single women, who can cheer themselves with chick flicks, self-help books and shows like “Sex and the City,” which aim to empower female consumers to think of singledom as independence or self-reliance. But while single women have seemingly banded together to change their image in the popular culture, there’s been no such battle cry for men, who have a whole different set of stereotypes to fight: They’re confirmed bachelors, James Bond-style playboys, cranky old men or gay.

Ok, I get the point. But somehow this just isn’t resonating for me. Thoughts?

Two interesting tidbits about abortion in the news recently:

In American pop culture, the face of abortion is often a frightened teenager, nervously choosing to terminate an unexpected pregnancy. The numbers tell a far more complex story in which financial stress can play a pivotal role. Half of the roughly 1.2 million U.S. women who have abortions each year are 25 or older. Only about 17 percent are teens. About 60 percent have given birth to least one child prior to getting an abortion. Read more.

Second, as abortion rate drops (as we all know they have), use of RU-486 is on rise, as WaPo’s Rob Stein reports. On the market since 2000, more than 840,000 U.S. women have used mifepristone since it was approved, according to Danco Laboratories, which sells it. More than half of abortion providers now offer the option, a 70 percent increase from the first half of 2001, according the Guttmacher Institute. Yep, thirty-five years after the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision, a pill that has largely faded from the rancorous public debate over abortion has slowly and quietly begun to transform the experience of ending a pregnancy in the United States. Read the rest.

(Thanks again to CCF for the heads up.)

Just learned this piece of bad news, via the Council on Contemporary Families:

According to an article in WaPo last week by Laura Sessions Stepp, Latinas ages 12 to 17 –- the largest minority group of girls in the country –- are more likely to try to take their lives than any other racial or ethnic group their age. Twenty-five percent say they’ve thought about suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and about 15 percent attempt it, compared with approximately 10 percent of white and black teen girls. Luis Zayas, a psychologist and professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis, is in the middle of a five-year study of more than 150 young Latina girls who have attempted suicide. As experts note, Latina girls rarely seek help partly because they and their parents are suspicious of mental health services and believe in keeping family troubles in the family. And, as Stepp notes, American popular culture encourages girls to be sexy and assertive, but the families of many young Latinas prize girls who are modest and submissive. As they’re pulled in different directions, there’s increasing evidence of their distress.

Another take–or rather, takedown–on the racegenderpolitics discussion, over at HuffPo. GWP guest blogger Cathy Prendergast wrote more about the CNN website debacle Cho refers to in her post, here. (Thanks to Ann at feministing for the heads up.)

Addendum: This just in, via Cathy: Toni Morrison to Endorse Obama. As Cathy suggests, “probably her way of taking the ‘Clinton first black president’ remark.” Um, yep.

You can now read about it, on the GWN blog, here.

And in case you missed this one, you can catch Girls Write Now next at the New School on March 8 (5-7pm), for a beautiful celebration of International Women’s Day, and GWN’s 10th anniversary too! Anne Landsman will be guest reading, along with the girls, and there’s a reception to follow. Other surprises lined up as well. More on it all here.

Join the National Organization for Women Foundation, National Council of Negro Women, and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research for the 2008 Summit on Economic Justice for Women, April 11-12 in Atlanta, Georgia. The summit is dedicated to “Bringing Together Research and Advocacy–from Local to Global–to Advance Economic Justice and Empowerment for Women.” To register, click here.

Goals for the conference include expanding the body of knowledge on critical economic issues; increasing our understanding of the global economic challenges women face; building and strengthening alliances in the economic justice movement; developing recommendations and strategies for enhancing women’s economic empowerment; and informing policies globally and locally, including helping to shape the 2008 U.S. presidential election debate.

It’s not too late to submit a workshop or research paper. Workshops will blend research and grassroots action, offering participants an opportunity to hear from experts and apply action strategies to address economic inequality. The deadline to submit a proposal is Feb. 15 (hey–that’s my birthday!!)

And hey, while we’re on the subject of economic justice and just economics, do check out the latest HuffPo piece from PursePundit, called “Quickfixonomics.” PursePundit suggests we check out what George Soros has to say about the current financial crisis, too. How is this all affecting women? Stay tuned. More on that very soon.

Hey–check out the vibrant conversation going on in comments over at feministing around Courtney’s Thursday post (“Must We Fear Adolescent Sexuality?”), which links back to fresh research mentioned in sociologist Virginia Rutter’s review of Juno here on GWP. (Thanks, C, for posting!)

Young people are giving Hillary Clinton the love, and not just Barak Obama. Just sayin’.

Addendum, later that day: I just read that the NYTimes is endorsing Hillary and John McCain.