Wow — some very cool authors speaking on the radio together tonight. Tune in to City Visions Radio, 91.7 FM, KALW or online at www.cityvisionsradio.com at 10pm ET to hear Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life coeditor Caroline Grant in conversation with Mary Ann Mason, author of Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers, and Joan Williams, author of Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It.

You can participate too.  During the show, call in with your questions and comments to 415.841.4134 or email feedback@cityvisionsradio.com

I’m pleased to offer you a little Domestic Violence Awareness Month Madness from previous GWP guest poster Madeline Wheeler. Madeline is a newly single mother of two and writer of the social action theater piece Revealing Frankie, a memoir of childhood abuse. She is currently the Coordinator for the Palmer, MA Domestic Violence Task Force. Madeline earned a BA from Harvard and credits the positive changes in her life to the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership (yay Woodhull!) –Deborah

Wife Beating, Speaking Out, and Army Wives
It’s National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. This fact is getting lost amongst the bailout and the fabulous SNL skits about Sarah Palin. It is not an issue that the candidates address with the passion it deserves; quips and VAWA sound bites don’t cut it.  It seems Becky Lee’s polite suggestion for a debate question “Freedom from Domestic Violence: Right or Responsibility?” on the Huffington Post went unheard by Bob Schieffer.

I admit, I love the SNL skits, and recently have been distracted by the accusation that my willingness to speak out as a survivor of abuse is a form of Munchausen–but what has really caught my eye last week?

1) The new Sunny Side of Truth ad revealing evils of the tobacco industry.  Blow up figures of women resembling Weebles sway in the background as young women sing a ditty about smoking preventing men from beating their wives. “If you smoke it may take your life, but if you don’t you might beat your wife.” The ad claims that in 1998, according to the New York Times a tobacco executive said, “Nobody knows what you’d turn to if you didn’t smoke.  Maybe you’d beat your wife”.

2) Last week I received an email from Lori Weinstein, Executive Director of Jewish Women’s International (JWI), informing me that in the past four months, the deaths of three Fort Bragg-based female soldiers have resulted in murder charges brought against the victim’s husband or lover.  I googled the murders and was shocked to find that in June and July 2002, four military wives at Fort Bragg were murdered by their spouse within a six week period.  Officials acknowledged that three of the men had recently served in Afghanistan but that there was “no common thread among the cases, and suggest[ed] it may simply be an “anomaly.”

I searched several websites before I found the Baltimore Sun article about the 2008 Fort Bragg murders.  Carol Darby, spokeswomen for the Army’s Special Operations Command, said the Army had no reason to be “overly concerned for [the] personal safety of female soldiers.”  Can this be considered an anomaly?  Where’s the smoking gun?

3) An article on Politico proffers that Michelle Obama’s new focus group is military families quoting her saying “The commander in chief doesn’t just need to know how to lead the military, he needs to understand what war does to military families.”  This isn’t just a political move—it’s a necessity.  An October 14th editorial in The Fayetteville Observer, a military newspaper for Fort Bragg, made the shocking comment, “In a way, it’s surprising that there aren’t more bodies piling up at military bases all over this nation.”

If this doesn’t catch your eye, maybe a polite stats reminder will. According to the National Committee Against Domestic Violence one in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime and an estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year.

I know objectors will say that women are violent too, but 85% of domestic violence victims are women.  I’ve taken a stand with JWI, which is still in the process of spearheading a petition to make domestic violence an important position for the candidates.  In addition, each day in October they feature a survivor’s story.

Barack Obama should take note, since the wife of his supporter and friend Massachusetts’s Governor Deval Patrick’s joined with Jane Doe, Inc. and made a public service announcement revealing that she was a victim of violence in her previous marriage.

Women’s voices are strong and powerful! A survivor’s voice is powerful and to be respected!  Though I have received recent backlash, I will continue to be an advocate and continue to speak as a survivor.  Survivors are not to blame and should not be shamed. As the Bay State’s First Lady, Diane Patrick exclaims, “Talk. It could save someone’s life.”

–Madeline Wheeler

Sometimes things come through my Inbox that are just too good not to share.  This here’s a resource–a newsletter–for those of you who, like me, are feeling baffled by the economic crisis, hungry for explanations in non-super-specialized language, and in need of a savvy woman’s perspective on the whole thing.  It’s from Jacki Zehner, author of the blog PursePundit, and a dear dear friend.  Writes Jacki:

As a retired partner of Goldman Sachs and now a partner of Circle Wealth Management Group, I spend a lot of time thinking about the financial markets and the world in general. I feel so privileged to have access to some of the smartest people on the planet, and for me, life is about sharing and about community. I am deeply committed to writing about what I consider important issues and topics related to money, markets and changing the world.  I started a blog at the beginning of the year because I wanted to create a platform to share knowledge and information as I thought it would be a historical one in the financial markets. Little did I know it would be that and more.

Next to come will be some newsletters that will contain resources on a variety of different topics with the main subject areas being money, investing, philanthropy and social change. That will come to your Inbox if you subscribe. My dream is it becomes a DAILY CANDY type newsletter–not around where to get the latest deals of cashmere sweaters, but rather on subjects that keep us informed and empowered.

Please take a minute to add you email to the subscriber icon on my blog and pass it on to your friends. For me, at this moment, it is what I can do to try to be the change I want to see in the world.  What I can do is take a minimum 30 minutes a day to put something out there in the world that I think is relevant based on what I have read or who I talk to. I believe in the power of women working together to make the world a better place.

I’ve found it fascinating to read here and there that some Civil Rights leaders are fearing a decrease rather than an increase in focus on civil rights and affirmative action issues should the first African American President assume office come January 2009.

Call it the Bill Cosby Effect?

The thinking goes like this: With a black man in office, Americans will be lulled into thinking that all our racial issues have now been solved.  With the election just days away and (dare I say it without jinxing?!) the possibility of a President Obama very real, just thought I’d share these two cheery tidbits about racial and other disparities, just in via the Council on Contemporary Families Briefing, cause I’m feeling all chipper like that today:

Income Gap Between Whites, Latinos Has Grown at Universities

Over the past three decades, the income disparity between Latino and non-Hispanic white students entering four-year colleges and universities has increased fourfold, with the difference in median household income growing from $7,986 in 1975 to $32,965 in 2006.

Declining Black Enrollments at Many of the Nation’s Highest Ranked Law Schools

Over the past eight years black enrollments have declined at a majority of the top-ranked law schools. At nine high-ranking law schools black enrollments are down by 19 percent or more. Three prestigious law schools in the nation show declines of more than 40 percent.

Hmm. Just sayin is all.

Sarah Palin’s wardrobe continues to have political traction nearly a week after Politico first reported that the McCain camp spent $150,000 to outfit their vice presidential candidate for the campaign trail. The New York Times then reported that Palin’s makeup artist was the single highest paid employee in the campaign during a recent two week period (thanks to Allison for the link!). The McCain/Palin team has done their best to explain and back track on the “clothes kerfuffle.” McCain now claims that a third of the $150,000 worth of clothes has been given back, Palin says that she isn’t wearing the designer duds any more and has gone back to wearing her clothes from her “favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska” (which just seems pretty disingenuous and transparently silly at this point), and Elizabeth Hasselbeck from The View, who is on the trail with her, argued “This is deliberately sexist.”

As I said in my first post, I think it is deliberately sexist, but on the McCain camp’s side. They thought it more important to make sure that Palin was perfectly outfitted and make-upped than well-coached on the issues and prepped for interviews and speeches. Perhaps it was to bring in those “Dudes for Palin.” As Bob Lamm noted after my first post, a huge story was made out of John Edwards’ $400.00 haircut during primary season. Like Palin, he ran a campaign based on being one of the people. And like Palin, he experienced a backlash, not to mention a good ribbing from Republicans when his expensive haircut was revealed. Compared to Palin, $400 doesn’t seem so bad now, and it makes me skeptical of the “sexist” arguments.

Our readers had some great comments on whether the wardrobe matters:

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Hey all, I am completely excited to announce that GWP will be going global with a new column from Gwen and Tonni called Global Exchange. Global Exchange will be appearing the last Wednesday of every month. Here’s an intro from the authors so you know what to expect. — Kristen