Following on the heels of Virginia’s post from yesterday, I just saw this Reuters article (“Job Losses Hitting Men Harder Than Women”) about how the economic crisis is hitting men much harder than women in the workplace, largely because male-dominated industries like construction and transportation are bearing the brunt of job losses, figures show.

Women, meanwhile, dominate sectors that are still growing, like government and healthcare.

But I have to ask: Are articles like these minimizing the recession’s effects on women?  What about the hard times for women seeking to re-enter the workforce because hubby just got laid off?   When calculating unemployment, do you count the number of jobs lost or jobs unfound?  I’m not an economist and I’m SO not into playing the recession oppression Olympics here, believe me, but Linda Hirshman had an interesting take on it all in Slate the other week and I just wanted to share.

Seven point two. And counting. As the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports, the most recent unemployment rate is 7.2 percent. On February 6, we will get the next installment of bad news. The big number gives us a backdrop for what bloggers like Deborah have been reporting on in a more personal way–that the Great Recession we’re in requires that us all to learn new things about ourselves. The downturn also helps us understand some old things, like inequality.

In the New York Times the other week, a blogger took a look at gender and unemployment and put the following together: the rates of unemployment are increasing for everyone, but they are increasing at a higher rate for men than for women, and at a higher rate for African Americans and Latinos than for other groups. As men fall out of their jobs at a higher rate, women are coming very close to being 50% of the workforce. The Times blogger asked, is this “A Milestone for Working Women?” The question is meant, I think, to be ironic: could it be that this bad news for the economy is kinda good news for the ladies?

Like so many other things, though, this employment question is not a a zero sum—in other words, men’s losses are not women’s gains, or any one else’s. As an alternative to any kind of zero-sum thinking, I suggest that we think about the meaning and function of work.

The meaning of work, as well as of “unemployment” and “employment,” continues to be something different for men and women. As I pointed out in November, recent research shows that on the job women work harder for less pay their male counterparts. And not because women have less experience. (For the latest on this, see Center for American Progress’s Equal Pay for Breadwinners report by Heather Boushey.)

Here’s an idea. Working status might best be understood as lying on a continuum: there are the unemployed (want a job, can’t find one), the underemployed (have some work, want more), the employed, and the overemployed (let’s call it the second shift category). (By the way, the BLS offers a bunch of alternative measures of unemployment; that 7.2 percent figure is called “U-3″—the official unemployment rate. But there’s another number, the “U-6″—or the underemployment rate, which in December 2008 hit 13.5 percent.)

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I joined the Board of the Council on Contemporary Families this year, and we are currently soliciting nominations for the 2008 Media Awards for Outstanding Coverage of Family Issues, so if you’re a journalist and published something you’re particularly proud of in 2008, please read on!

Submissions are due Friday, February 6, and the form is at the bottom of this post.

This will be our Seventh Annual Media Awards competition, honoring outstanding journalism that contributes to the public understanding of contemporary family issues, in particular the story behind the story: how diverse families are coping with social and economic change; what they need to flourish; and how these needs can best be met.

The Council will present three awards for outstanding coverage of family issues during 2008:
*      two for journalism in text form (print- or web-based); and
*      one for broadcast journalism (audio or video)

The awards will be presented at the 12th Annual CCF Conference on Friday, April 17th, in Chicago, Illinois. (I’ll be there!)  Check out the conference program.  It’s pretty amazing.

Winners will receive up to $500 towards travel expenses (depending on employers’ contributions). At the plenary session where awards are presented, winners are invited to speak for five minutes on emerging issues affecting American families and how CCF members and supporters can help the media cover these stories effectively.

Here’s more schpiel:

CCF recognizes that America needs a balanced national conversation about the cultural, legal, and psychological issues that shape both private life and public policy. Essential partners in this process are the reporters and producers who present complicated family issues in their broader social context.

Past winners include journalists from USA Today, Time magazine, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Bergen Record (New Jersey), WUFT/WJUF-FM, Thirteen/WNET, AlterNet, the Associated Press and many other organizations. Subject matter has ranged from the effect of the AIDS epidemic on children in South Florida to hunger in Oklahoma and the role of religion in American family life. You can read about last year’s winners here.
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Those of you who know me know that Daphne Uviller is my beloved friend/sister-type whose backyard I got married in and who coedited the anthology Only Child with me.  So it brings me HUGE pleasure to spread word this morning about Daphne’s new novel, Super in the City, which goes on sale TODAY.

I seriously love this book, and not just because Daphne is my friend.  A comic mystery about a young woman who becomes the superintendent of her parents’ Greenwich Village brownstone, Super is, well, super. Publishers Weekly called it “…gleefully unpretentious… undoubtedly smarter and funnier than most other girls-in-the-city novels,” and Kirkus called Super “a funny, enjoyable caper.” The lovely and talented Elizabeth Gilbert christened it “intelligent candy.”  But find out for yourself. You can buy Super on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

For those in NYC, join me at Daphne’s readings, which you can learn about here.

A confession: I was so geeky excited about this friendlaunch that I took myself to the Border’s at Columbus Circle last night to see if the book was on the shelves.  And there it was, smack on the New Paperbacks table, as pictured here. When a friend as dear as Daphne publishes a book, it’s nearly as fun as when it’s my own.

Actually, maybe moreso.

Twice the fun and half the fret?!

(Congrats, my coed, YOU DID IT!!!!!!)

For all those as intrigued as I was by the sexyhot cover of the NYTimes magazine this weekend, do check out GWP’s own Jacqueline Hudak’s review of the work of one of the researchers profiled in the cover story. Jacqueline’s “Heteroflexibility” can be found here. I admit, I haven’t yet finished the Times article, but for a critique of it, see Tracy Clark-Flory at Broadsheet, “Narcissism: The Secret to Women’s Sexuality!”

Just went up over at AlterNet: Will Creativity Become a Victim of the Economy?

This is the layoff that just keeps giving–writing-wise, at least 🙂

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Oh, happy day! I was alerted by an email from NARAL Pro-Choice America announcing that President Obama has signed an executive order putting an end to the Global Gag Rule after eight arduous years. Yesterday, on the thirty-sixth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Obama put out the following statement:

“On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose.”

The Global Gag Rule was first implemented by Reagan and banned tax-payer money from going to international family planning groups. Clinton ended it, Bush reinstated it, and now Obama has ended it again. Let’s hope it’s gone for good.

CBS News reports also on how an anti-choice group has used Obama’s image once again in an ad, just as his image was used in the Prop 8 battle, despite his opposition to their cause.

Image Credit.

Is this a new day, or what?! Check out these two headlines, both from this morning:

First Embryonic Stem-Cell Trial Gets Approval from the FDA – WSJ

Obama Ends Funding Pan for Abortion Groups Abroad – Yahoo

(Thanks, Virginia, for the heads up!)

As Barack and Michelle (hey, are we all still on a first name basis, now that they are official?) settle into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, I find myself fascinated by every move they make.  And it’s hard not to make comparisons.  Everyone from Jezebel to the WSJ has compared Michelle O to Jackie O (try here, here, and here) and the fashion mags are all gaga over her style, but it seems to me there are some far more interesting–and more substantive–historical analogies going on.

Check out these excerpts from a March 1933 AP article reported by Lorena Hickock, about Eleanor Roosevelt’s first day as First Lady.  The article is titled “New ‘First Lady’, Made Solemn By Inaugural, Lays Plans To Simplify White House Life; To Cut Expense”:

“The crowds were so tremendous,” Mrs. Roosevelt added softly. “And you felt that they would do anything – if only someone would tell them what to do.

“I felt that particularly, because when Franklin got to that part of his speech in which he said it might become necessary for him to assume powers ordinarily granted to a President in war time, he received his biggest demonstration.”

Mrs. Roosevelt moved over to one of the wide windows and stared thoughtfully out across the White House grounds at the Virginia hills, softly outlined against a grey afternoon sky.

“No one,” she said, “at all close to people in public life today can fail to realize that we are all of us facing extremely critical times.

“No woman entering the White House, if she accepts the fact that it belongs to the people and therefore must be representative of whatever conditions the people are facing, can light-heartedly take up her residence here.

“One has a feeling of going in blindly, because we’re in a tremendous stream, and none of us knows where we’re going to land.

“…Neither Franklin nor I would want to do anything that would detract from the White House dignity, which we both love,” she said. “But I believe things can be made a good deal simpler without that.

“It should be done, I think, to save the time and the strength of a man as busy as a president must be. And now, of all times, there is no occasion for display.

“…My feeling about the White House is that it belongs to the people. Their taxes support it. It is really theirs. And as far as possible they should be made to feel welcome here. They shouldn’t have the feeling that they are shut out.

“I realize, of course, that there are limitations. There are times when one can’t receive visitors. There are times when a family has got to have privacy. After all, we’re living here, you see.

“But the lower floors, away from our living quarters, will be open to the public even more, if I can manage it, than they have been in the past. And I want the visitors to be given every courtesy.”

Interesting, given the way the Obamas opened the White House to public visitors on Day 1.  For a good counter to the Jackie-Michelle comparison, check out this historically-informed little piece in Newsweek, “Why Michelle Obama Is Not the Next Jackie O”.

And on a less serious note, how’s this for bit of useless yet kind of interesting First Lady trivia: Eleanor Roosevelt was the only first lady taller than Michelle Obama (who stands at 5’11).  Eleanor topped her by an inch.

(Thanks to Marco for the heads up.)

In the continued spirit of sharing sentiments about the historic day on Tuesday, this afternoon we bring you (via Shira Tarrant!) the one and only Wendy Griffin.  After a checkered past as a college drop-out, diamond courier, Off-Broadway actress, folk singer and cocktail waitress, Wendy received her Ph.D. at the University of California Irvine, in the interdisciplinary social sciences with an emphasis on sex and gender. Her book, Daughters of the Goddess: Studies of Healing, identity and Empowerment, was the first scholarly anthology on Goddess Spirituality, and her scholarly articles in Pagan Studies are published internationally.  She is the Chair of the Department of Women’s Studies at California State University Long Beach and the co-chair of the Pagan Studies Group for the American Academy of Religion.  Her remembrance below gives me the serious chills.  Here’s Wendy! –Deborah

In 1953, I went to Washington D.C. to see Eisenhower’s presidential inauguration. I had entered a national contest for students and written in my “25 words or less” essay with great enthusiasm. I remember my older sister saying smugly that she wouldn’t hold her breath until I won.

But I wasn’t really surprised when I won; I expected to with all the confidence of an 11-year old white girl whose world had not yet been limited by her gender. It wasn’t until years later that I realized my winning probably had more to do with being in the same class as the daughter of the corporate sponsor rather than my essay.

Each of the 35 winning students got to take an adult along, and I choose my mother. There are special things about that trip that I still remember. I used my mother’s movie camera and used up almost a whole reel filming clouds out the airplane window. I climbed the Washington monument and heard Spike Jones and his band play in a night club. I remember the inaugural parade and how cold it was. At the inauguration festival that evening, I used my own box camera to take photos of Marge and Gower Champion as they danced across the big stage. I was little for my age, so I managed to weave in and out of the crowd and squeeze in up close so I could get a better shot of John Wayne, who was my hero that year. Apparently I gave someone a push and stepped on his foot, because I was suddenly lifted up in the air and moved unceremoniously to one side.

My mother later told me it was Vice President Nixon’s foot I stepped on. She was mortified. Years later, after Nixon’s resignation, she told the story with great pride.

I came home and put together a scrapbook of my adventure. I still have it, 56 years later. But what I remember most about that trip never made it into the scrapbook.
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