{"id":5935,"date":"2013-05-08T11:23:11","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T16:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/?p=5935"},"modified":"2013-08-12T15:12:30","modified_gmt":"2013-08-12T20:12:30","slug":"think-out-loud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2013\/05\/08\/think-out-loud\/","title":{"rendered":"Think Out Loud"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\"Sarah<\/a>n my latest incarnation as a thought leadership coach,<\/a> I\u2019m often on the hunt for excellent examples of \u201cthinking in public\u201d\u2014TED talks, reports, articles, blog posts, even tweets\u2014to share with clients.\u00a0 So, I figured, why not share them, when I find them, with GWP readers, too?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m experimenting with a new column format here (and please, please, tell me what you think!).\u00a0 I envision highlighting from time to time a piece of public thought leadership that I come upon in my travels, one that translates academic or industry-specific knowledge for a broad audience in a stand-out way. \u00a0I\u2019ll let you know why I love it, what\u2019s surprising about it, and what\u2019s fresh.<\/p>\n

To start us off, I bring you Judith Warner’s first report as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.\u00a0 I’ve long been enamored of Judith’s deft ability to bring a structural lens to the public debate around “domestic disturbances,” as her popular New York Times column so famously phrased it.\u00a0 In this new report, Warner melds journalism and policy paper to tackle domestic disturbances writ large.<\/p>\n

Who:<\/b><\/p>\n

Judith Warner<\/a> is a Senior Fellow at American Progress<\/a>. She is also a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Time.com. She is best known for her New York Times bestseller, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, and her former New York Times column, \u201cDomestic Disturbances.\u201d Her latest book, We\u2019ve Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication, received numerous awards, and she is currently a recipient of a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism. A former special correspondent for Newsweek in Paris, she hosted \u201cThe Judith Warner Show\u201d on XM satellite radio from 2005 to 2007 and wrote the 1993 New York Times bestseller Hillary Clinton: The Inside Story, as well as several other books.<\/p>\n

What:<\/b><\/p>\n

Lessons Learned: Reflections on 4 Decades of Fighting for Families,<\/a> a report for the Center for American Progress<\/p>\n

Why I Like It:<\/b><\/p>\n

The topic is a tough one \u2013 and well traveled.\u00a0 Yet I like how Warner gets in there, challenges perceived wisdom, and works to change the frame:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s long been accepted wisdom that Americans view family matters as purely private concerns and that public policy solutions for families\u2014other than the very poorest\u2014have no place in our culture. Yet polls consistently show that support for family-friendly policies is, in fact, overwhelming.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Based on interviews with more than three dozen veterans of the fight for family-friendly policy in America representing a variety of perspectives, generations, and stake- holder groups, she quotes all my favorite experts.<\/p>\n

She pays close attention to language and narrative:<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonal responsibility\u201d plus \u201copportunity\u201d was a winning message combination.\u00a0 Stressing \u201cequality\u201d or the ending of disparities was a nonstarter for conservatives, but talk of \u201cfairness,\u201d \u201copportunities,\u201d \u201cchoices,\u201d and \u201ctools\u201d were acceptable.<\/i><\/p>\n

And she links the issue she\u2019s writing about to others:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe power of the personal played a strong role in building support for the Family and Medical Leave Act, and in recent years such narratives have been essential to shifting public and political opinion on marriage equality.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

But what I like most of all is the sense of possibility Warner invokes.<\/p>\n

Much has been written about why progress has been slow in this arena, and so paltry.\u00a0 What feels different here is the emphasis on the seismic internal shift that must take place in order for the outward change to occur.\u00a0 We need to \u201creplace the belief that \u2018this is just how it is\u2019 with the argument that \u2018it doesn\u2019t have to be this way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The report takes a close look at public policies promoting caretaking\u2014through paid family leave, paid sick days, and high-quality public pre-K\u2014that already exist in some states and cities. Warner looks at why <\/i>they are proving to be highly popular and successful, and how we might replicate what works.<\/p>\n

Refreshingly, she leaves us with hope:<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/i>Bleak though the legislative outlook now seems in our bitterly divided Congress, this is potentially a very fruitful time for thinking creatively and productively about creating a better future for our families.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Since I\u2019m already interested in the unfinished business of feminism, and how the issues travel and repeat across generations, Warner had me at \u201clessons learned.\u201d\u00a0 But the optimism in the report made me want to share it.\u00a0 Warner brings a much-needed burst of energy to a topic that can easily deflate readers\u2014especially those of us living this fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my latest incarnation as a thought leadership coach, I\u2019m often on the hunt for excellent examples of \u201cthinking in public\u201d\u2014TED talks, reports, articles, blog posts, even tweets\u2014to share with clients.\u00a0 So, I figured, why not share them, when I find them, with GWP readers, too? I\u2019m experimenting with a new column format here (and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1902,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22444],"tags":[21968,8959,2951,21967,21938],"class_list":["post-5935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-coach-is-in","tag-center-for-american-progress","tag-families","tag-judith-warner","tag-thought-leadership","tag-worklife"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1902"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5935"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6410,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5935\/revisions\/6410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}