Love,
Tula the Hannukah Kitty
On the 90th anniversary of women’s suffrage in Britain, Observer reporter Rachel Cooke asks how far have we come in a thoughtful article titled “Post-feminist backlash – or new dawn for equal rights?” Read up on the latest around Amy Winehouse, Georgina Baillie, politics, wages, the sex industry, much more…
I’m quoted!
Folks are often asking me for various status-of-women stats. As we get ready to usher in a new year, I thought I’d post some, right here right now. Warning: they’re pretty dismal. Here’s hoping for improvement in 2009!
Politics
- The US ranks 68th of 134 nations worldwide with only 16.8% women elected to the House of Representatives and 16.0% women elected to the Senate. (SOURCE)
- The US ranks 27th in terms of women in power (measured as “top political and decision-making roles, including relative access to executive government and corporate postsâ€) – below Germany (11th), Britain (13th), France (15th), Lesotho (16th), Trinidad and Tobago (19th), South Africa (22nd), Argentina (24th) and Cuba (25th). (SOURCE: 2008 Global Gender Gap report by the World Economic Forum)
- In 2008, 87 women serve in the U.S. Congress. Sixteen women serve in the Senate, and 71 women serve in the House. The number of women in statewide elective executive posts is 74, while the proportion of women in state legislatures is at 23.7 percent. SOURCE: Center for American Women in Politics)
- Of those 87 women, 20 (or 23%) are women of color, all serving in the House. Women of color constitute 3.9% of the total 535 members of Congress. No women of color serve in the US Senate. (SOURCE: Center for American Women in Politics)
Business
- Women currently make 78 cents to the male dollar.
- Percentage of female Fortune 500 corporate officers: 15.4%
- Percentage of female Fortune 500 board seats: 14.8%
- Percentage of female Fortune 500 top earners: 6.7%
- Percentage of female Fortune 500 CEOs: 2.4% (SOURCE for all above: Catalyst)
- Number of female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies: 12
- Number of female CEOs in Fortune 501-1000 companies: 10
- Total female CEOS in Fortune 1000 companies: 22 (SOURCE for all above: Catalyst)
- In Silicon Valley, for every 100 shares of stock options owned by a man, only one share is owned by a woman. (SOURCE)
- Only 1% of the world’s assets are in the name of women. (SOURCE)
And there’s more — Poverty, Violence… more...
Hate is on the rise. It is. Really.
Sunday, the CNN Headline read: “New York immigrant dead in apparent hate crime.â€
A 31-year-old Ecuadorean man who was beaten last Sunday in what New York City authorities say may have been a hate crime has died at a Queens hospital, his brother said Saturday.
Jose Sucuzhanay and his brother, Romel, had left a party on December 7 at St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church when several men approached them in a car in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, police said. The men allegedly began shouting anti-gay and anti-Latino vulgarities at the two men.
Jose Sucuzhanay suffered severe head trauma and was taken to Elmhurst Hospital. He died Friday night from his injuries.
The ironic twist? Sucuzhanay is not even gay. Evidently, the two men were walking arm-in-arm, which is likely the cause of the confusion.
It sounds more like the next Cohen Brothers movie than an actual news headline, but it is a perfect example of complete ignorance and hatred prevailing over any kind of logic or human decency—something which has become more and more frequent in our society, of late.
In October of this year, the FBI released a report whose findings showed: “6 percent increase in anti-gay hate crimes.†The report “is purely statistical and does not assign a cause,†but it certainly begs the question: what is it about this cultural moment that is causing people to act out against the gay community?
So what IS the reason behind this surge? Is it the economy? Proposition 8, or the recent election of Obama (which seems unlikely, since Obama has made no effort to align himself with the gay community)? Could it be Susan Faludi’s observations about our increased reliance on gender roles post-9/11 in her book Terror Dream
One thing is for sure: the federal government is doing very little to address the issue. “Neither the federal hate crimes statute nor 21 states include sexual orientation in their hate crime laws,†reports Chip Alfred to Out and About.
In nature, a period of general chaos typically ensues before a major change occurs. I am hopeful that this, and other expressions of hatred, ignorance, and fear, are merely people’s natural response to the anticipation of change in our country (although Obama’s not painting a very hopeful tomorrow for LGBT–cough cough–Rick Warren–cough cough).
-Melinda Parrish
Rick Warren as Obama’s choice for the inaugural invocation, for reals?
The best critique I’ve seen so far is this one, by Michelle Goldberg over at Religion Dispatches. (Addendum: See also Gloria Feldt, “Say It Isn’t So, O!”)
I get the bridging of constituencies intended through this pick, but still SO not cool. Why why why?
Please feel free to post links to any organized efforts you’ve seen to send messages of outrage to Obama HQ in comments.
I’ve been posting lately on writing resolutions, and now here’s a post for anyone with a resolve — or aspiration — to blog. For those of you who are interested in becoming bloggers but don’t know how or where to start, two fresh guides to check out, chock full of useful sounding tips:
1. This Slate article: “How to Blog”
2. This book: The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging
(Thanks to Annie for the heads up!)
Hells yeah, as long as folks like Andi Zeisler are running the show. Check out this interview with Bitch magazine’s editor, by Jessica Wakeman, over at The American Prospect. And GO, BITCH! I think I’m gonna make it a holiday gift for some folks this year.
Thank you to those who responded to my question about what helps you stay on track with long writing projects the other day! The collective wisdom out there always humbles me. Writing can be so isolating, but I think it helps hugely when we share our difficulties and, importantly, our strategies for keeping it going. So in that spirit, here’s what some of you said:
Sez Dawn, of This Woman’s Work:
“Sanity comes from accepting that my life doesn’t have a neat, predictable schedule and not fighting that too hard. Writing around kids and clients (and currently without childcare) means missed opportunities and making myself crazy about that just makes me crazy — it doesn’t help. So acceptance. (sigh) Which is hard.”
Sez Anniegirl:
“Setting word counts and periodic deadlines for myself is helpful but sometimes taking a day or two away from the project lets me recharge or think or mentally reboot myself when I am wondering who the hell will I ever sell this to. I recall a writer who recommended physical activity as a way to literally run or walk yourself past the low spots or over the humps. I find I do my best writing while thinking during a workout. All I need is about 4 miles under my feet to get back on track.”
Sez Alison Piepmeier, of Baxter Sez:
“A little more than three years ago, I was at the beginning of writing my book on zines by girls and women….I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to say, and I got to the point of realizing that my writing days were done. Unbeknownst to me, I had already written the last intelligent thing I was ever going to write. The semester was about to start, I hadn’t finished a chapter, and I was sliding into a pit of despair.
Fortunately, I encountered Conseula at a campus meeting on a day that I was trying not to cry, and she, too, was feeling pretty despairing about her own writing project. So we decided to start a writing group. Claire, Conseula, and I have been a writing group ever since. It’s fantastic. The group buoys us emotionally, keeping us from staying long in those places where we feel like we have nothing to say, and it helps us to be productive: all three of us have finished book manuscripts in the time we’ve been together.”
Alison posts guidelines for starting such a group right here. Really great guidelines. I second them all!
Got more suggestions, wisdom to share? Keep it coming, GWPenners! I learn from you.
Like others who work in education, I was eager to see who President-elect Obama would select for his Education Secretary, and what that individual would represent. Obama’s selection of Chicago school superintendent Arne Duncan was announced yesterday.
I am heartened by the fact that Duncan represents a both-and approach to school reform, recognizing that both teacher improvement and social support for children outside of school will play a critical role in taking the US education system to a new level of excellence (we can hope, right?).
But I’m left with an important question: Will we see federal leadership for curricular reform? Peggy McIntosh recently pointed out to me that the central structure of the American education system (math, science, English, social studies, etc.) has remained unchanged since the 18th century. To be sure, approaches to these subjects are updated and the curriculum has certainly changed over time. Yet I’m also convinced from experience that the more things change the more they stay the same, and that the status quo reinforces traditional gender stereotypes (along with stereotypes about race and class).
For example, I noticed that my daughter’s kindergarten teacher had divided the girls’ and boys’ workbooks by color-coded baskets (red=girls, blue=boys: hm, at least it wasn’t pink!). I notice when I pick my daughter up from her after-school program that the room is frequently segregated by gender and toys (girls playing with dolls while boys play with Legos).
No doubt you’ve noticed that my examples point to classroom arrangements rather than classroom content, and you might think I’m being too nit-picky. After all, they’re just colored baskets, right? No way! I’m convinced that the classroom arrangements and curricular content reinforce each other (see my previous post where I mention a sex-stereotyping book series that my daughter discovered thanks to her first-grade teacher). It may be red baskets now, but when women still have to fight for equal pay for equal work (among other things), I want to be sure I’ve done my part to make a difference.
When I mentioned my concerns about the color-coded baskets during a conference, my daughter’s kindergarten teacher was shocked to think that she might be perpetuating gender stereotyping. She gave me examples of ways she challenged the students’ gender stereotyping in the classroom (talking about her own love of math, “requiring†girls to play in the block corner). The next morning the baskets were changed, with the kids finding their workbooks based upon the first initial of their last name.
I’m sure that won’t be the last conversation I have with a teacher about gender inequality in the classroom, but I hope that we can expect national leadership and fresh thinking about what goes on in the classroom. Any word on whether Duncan is a feminist? And GWP readers, have you taken any steps to make your sons’ or daughters’ classrooms more feminist learning environments?
A friend just showed me this video and it really moved me. And I’m a Jew 🙂
