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Women’s eNews Joins WMC’s #SheParty for Women’s Equality Day

August 23, 2010 By Becca Stanger

Since its inception in May, Women’s Media Center’s #SheParty has offered women an open forum on Twitter to discuss the issues that matter to them, no matter where they live.  Week after week, women come together at #SheParty  to debate everything from emerging definitions of feminism to the war in Afghanistan to positive role models for girls.

This week, Women’s Media Center is pleased to host special guest Women’s eNews at #SheParty to discuss women’s roles in media and politics in honor of Women’s Equality Day.  Log in to Twitter this Wednesday from 3 to 6 PM ET and search the #SheParty hashtag to participate in the discussion.  Then, join Women’s eNews on Thursday evening for a screening and discussion of The Hand That Rocks the Ballot Box with Marlene Sanders.  For more information, read the Women’s eNews press release below:

Women’s Equality Day Joins the #SheParty

A Special Evening for Women in Media and Politics

Date: Thursday, August 26, 2010
Time: 6pm Start, Film Screening & Discussion

Women’s eNews will be joining the Women’s Media Center and their weekly #SheParty to celebrate Women’s Equality Day–the day in 1920 when women gained the right to vote in the United States–to talk about equality in politics and media on Wednesday, August 25. Women’s eNews and the Women’s Media Center will continue the discussion on Twitter and UStream to bring the conversation to women across America during an event the next day.

Women's eNewsOn Thursday there will be a screening of the 1972 documentary, The Hand that Rocks the Ballot Box, and a talk with its producer, three-time Emmy Award winning correspondent Marlene Sanders, founding board chair of Women’s eNews.

The Hand That Rocks The Ballot Box tells the story of how American women began to run for office and become involved in the political process. The film follows several campaigns with women running and confounding their opponents who didn’t know to act in the process. The documentary includes footage from pre-1972 political conventions.

Marlene Sanders is a three-time Emmy Award winning correspondent, producer, and former news executive who broke barriers for women throughout her career. While a correspondent at ABC News, she was the first woman to anchor a prime time network newscast, subbing for an ailing anchorman (1964). In 1966 she was the first TV newswoman to report from Vietnam and in 1976, while a producer-correspondent for ABC’s documentary unit, became the first woman news vice president at the networks, when she was named Vice President and Director of Documentaries. She is also co-author with Marcia Rock of “Waiting for Prime Time: The Women of Television News“.

After the film, Marlene will open a group discussion about the past and present state of equality in politics, media and the role of technological innovation in both fields. Questions will be fielded from the audience and those watching via UStream.

Location: WeNews Headquarters, 6 Barclay Street, Sixth floor, New York NY 10007

Map: http://tinyurl.com/lfdzqo

RSVP Today to events@womensenews.org – Subject: August 26th RSVP

Wine sponsorship will be provided by Palm Bay International Fine Wines and Spirits.

Women’s Media Center’s weekly She Party’s are held every Wednesday from 3-6PM ET. To join the party and discuss the issues that matter to women, simply log in to Twitter at this time and search the #sheparty hashtag.

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NEWS BRIEF Woman-Friendly Websites, Elizabeth Warren, Stoning

August 23, 2010 By admin

Tomorrow’s Media Needs To Be Wired, Inspired And For Women
8/22/10
Guardian: Many national newspapers have more male readers than female. But that gap is closing fast, and the successes of female-friendly websites like Mail Online are beginning to suggest a clear direction for the future.

Consumers Clamoring For A Leader
8/20/10
NY Times: With the president on vacation, nobody expects him to make an appointment to the new federal bureau until he returns at the end of August. But if he chooses anyone but Elizabeth Warren, he will be widely seen as helping the banks at the expense of the rest of us — something the government has been accused of doing far too often since those grim days of September 2008.

Crime (Sex) and Punishment (Stoning)
8/21/10
NY Times: Much of the outrage generated from stoning in the 21st century seems to stem from the gulf between sexual attitudes in the West and parts of the Islamic world, where some radical movements have turned to draconian punishments, and a vision of restoring a long-lost past, in their search for religious authenticity.

Why Do We Need Female Journalists With Technical Expertise?
8/20/10
Poynter Online: When reading Mallory Jean Tenore’s list of 20 South by Southwest Interactive panels that journalists should vote for, some people wondered: Where are all the women? Only two of the 20 panelists she mentioned are women.

Read More »

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EXCLUSIVE Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Reminds: “Keep in Mind Your Mission”

August 23, 2010 By Nichola D. Gutgold

By Nichola D. Gutgold

As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg prepares to welcome Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court bench this fall, she reflects on the value of civil discourse in an interview with Associate Professor Nichola D. Gutgold.

Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Photo: Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Photo: Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Earlier this month when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke at the American Bar Association meeting in San Francisco and received the prestigious ABA Medal, she said, “May the U.S. Senate someday return to the collegial bipartisan spirit that Justice Breyer and I had the good fortune to experience.”  Last week she elaborated by considering the differences in the level of civility of questions during her confirmation hearings and those of the newest justice, Elena Kagan. She said that when she and Stephen Breyer were nominated “for this good job” in 1993 and 1994, “it was a time when true bipartisan spirit existed in the Congress.”

In our conversation last week, Justice Ginsburg said, “the amazing thing is to contrast my hearings with the most recent ones.  I had been for several years one of four ACLU general counselors and I had co-founded its Women’s Rights Project.” Yet, she said that during her confirmation hearings, “not one senator asked a question about my ACLU connection.  That would not happen today.” Before it became so divided on partisan lines, she said, “the Senate was a place for reasoned, lively debate,” adding “I think the legislature should act with collegiality across the aisle and I’m looking forward to getting back to that.”

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Dr. Laura Schlessinger: I’m Sorry, But I’m Not Sorry

August 20, 2010 By Fiona Lee

The media has been abuzz with Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s resignation from her radio show when it ends this year after repeating the N-word 11 times at a self-identified Black woman caller. Needless to say, her comments generated criticism, including from the Women’s Media Center, which along with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Media Matters for America, and UNITY Journalists of Color, called on her show’s sponsors to be accountable for the host’s recent racially charged rant. For a full transcript of her comments, see here.

Although she apologized the next day, admitting that she was wrong for uttering the racial epithets on her show, her announcement that she will not be renewing her contract after it expires at the end of this year suggested that her departure had to do with being able “to regain her First Amendment rights.” Making the announcement on CNN, she explained, “I want to be able to say what’s on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry or some special-interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent.” I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry. Some apology, right?

The story continued to gather steam when Sarah Palin defended Dr. Schlessinger on Twitter, posting two consecutive tweets: “Dr.Laura:don’t retreat…reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence”isn’t American,not fair”)” and “Dr.Laura=even more powerful & effective w/out the shackles, so watch out Constitutional obstructionists. And b thankful 4 her voice,America!” “Shackles”??? As Media Matters’ Olivia Willis writes, both Dr. Schlessinger and Palin, influential media figures, are far from shackled. “Unlike slaves who were actually shackled and in shackles, neither Palin or Schlessinger are anyone’s property, and they both have the freedom to speak, marry, vote, and engage in all the other privileges of being a citizen of the United States.”

We’re all familiar with Palin’s appropriation of feminist rhetoric to gain political leverage despite her anti-woman stance on many issues. Her statements on the Dr. Schlessinger incident play the same rhetoric twisting game, this time framing a well-known media figure with her own wildly popular talk show host as someone who interrupted her caller mid-sentence to repeat an offensive word as silenced. Right. Today, she even re-tweeted a comment  that compares Dr. Schlessinger to Shirley Sherrod, whose video of a speech she gave at an NAACP event, was edited out of context to misleadingly frame her remarks as racially inflammatory and published on Andrew Breitbart’s prominent conservative website. Oh, yes, Schlessinger, who admitted to saying the N-word, issued a faux-apology, and appeared on CNN to discuss the incident is just like Sherrod, who was forced to resign from her Department of Agriculture job before she had a chance to explain the controversy that turned out to be a right-wing fabrication. “Not fair,” indeed.

To be sure, Palin has a way with words–I’m sure it’s us “cackle of rads” that she’s addressing in her tweets for supposedly obstructing Dr. Schlessinger–and she will likely take full advantage of her popular media following to launch an offensive (“don’t retreat…reload”) on anyone who dares exercise their First Amendment right to respond to what she and her fellow conservative pundits say.

I can’t say I’m thankful for Dr. Schlessinger or Palin, whose voices are far from unheard in the media. However, I will admit that Dr. Schlessinger is not incapable of giving worthwhile advice. Listen to the Media Matters clip below () that captured Dr. Schlessinger’s conversation with another caller moments before the infamous rant occurred, where she opines that one’s words to another should always “be appropriate to the mood, the moment and other people’s sensitivities” even when it seems undeserved (emphasis mine). If only Dr. Schlessinger and her great defender, Palin, would take her own advice!

And see Women’s Media Center President Jehmu Greene discuss the issue on Fox News:

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Calling all future Steinems, Maddows, Amanpours and Courics!

August 20, 2010 By Jehmu Greene

Calling all future Steinems, Maddows, Amanpours and Courics! Do you want to become a political commentator or journalist serving as a strong voice in the media? Apply for the last class of Progressive Women’s Voices in 2010 today!

Apply for Progressive Women’s Voices here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CNNFP8G or click here to nominate a friend: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CNFRD93.

Progressive Women’s Voices is the premier media and leadership training program for women. Participants receive 50 hours of intensive in-person training to master effective interview techniques, craft strong media messages and newsworthy pitches, incorporate video into their work, and develop and place op-ed articles — improving their skills to serve as thought leaders for the media. By becoming a part of Progressive Women’s Voices, you will join a roster of thought leaders who are visibly and powerfully commenting on the important issues of the day. In the words of Meggan Watterson, Executive Director of REVEAL and a recent participant, Progressive Women’s Voices “handed her soul a megaphone.”

Progressive Women’s Voices starts with a competitive application process, with final candidates chosen by a committee that includes WMC founders Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, and Robin Morgan. The application deadline for the last class of 2010 is September 3, 2010, with trainings to be held November 5-7 and December 3-5 in New York City. Travel, accommodation, and training expenses are covered by the WMC.

With the 2010 elections just around the corner, the Women’s Media Center is working to ensure that broadcast, print and online commentators represent the diversity of our nation. Women representing diverse backgrounds, areas of expertise, professions, ethnicities, ages, geographical regions and levels of experience are encouraged to apply (including those who have previously applied). For more information about Progressive Women’s Voices, click here.

PS: It costs the Women’s Media Center $10,000 to train each participant. Can you contribute $50, $250, or $500? www.womensmediacenter.com/donate

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Kirsten Powers is a Professional – Treat Her Like One

August 19, 2010 By Jehmu Greene

The first words that come to mind when I think of Kirsten Powers, liberal pundit for Fox News, might be “trailblazer,” “powerful,” or perhaps “exceptional professional.” “Attractive,” the first adjective Matt Lewis uses to describe Powers in his interview with the rising media star, does not belong on her CV.

I was delighted to learn that Lewis featured a progressive woman on AOL’s Politics Daily.  Then I read his article, and discovered that he was not interested in Powers’s skills as a commentator.  Her gender was too distracting.

Powers’s family and home life were more important to Lewis than the career that had earned her the interview. Lewis asked about her role as a liberal among conservatives, her social media strategy, and the difference between written and televised punditry, but only after he inquired about Powers’s husband. When he finally addressed one of her popular video segments, he attributed the attention it had received to the appeal of “two attractive women arguing.”   As Powers noted in her response, an
argument between Geraldo Rivera and Bill O’Reilly was not called a “cat fight,” but it still went viral.

I welcome coverage of women media professionals, but only when they are treated as professionals.  Kirsten Powers is an accomplished pundit, and her career should not be an excuse to measure her by sexist standards.

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NEWS BRIEF Dr. Laura, GOP Breakthrough, Bangladesh Prostitutes Win Job Title

August 19, 2010 By Jamia Wilson

Dr. Laura to Leave Radio Amid N-Word Controversy
8/18/10
LA Times: Schlessinger, under fire since using a racial slur on her radio show, won’t renew her contract. ‘I want my 1st Amendment rights back,’ she says, citing threats.

A Breakthrough for the GOP: More Women Running
8/19/10
Time: Nikki Haley, Meg Whitman, Linda McMahon, Sarah Palin’s “Grizzly Mamas,” suddenly this year there seems to be a plethora of women Republican candidates.

Bangladesh Prostitutes Win Job Title Identity Ruling
8/17/10
BBC: The Election Commission in Bangladesh says prostitution will be recognised as a job title on new voter ID cards.

Tea Party Choice Scrambles in Taking On Reid in Nevada
8/17/10
NY Times: Sharron Angle leaned across a table in her campaign office here, defending her suddenly embattled campaign to defeat Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, under the gaze of a half-dozen advisers and an official videographer packed into the room.

Read More »

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Documentary about “Honor Killings” in Kurdistan Opens in NY and LA

August 18, 2010 By admin

A new film by first time filmmaker Mary Ann Smothers Bruni opened this week in New York and LA documenting the alarming rise in ‘honor killings’ and the people who are fighting to end these crimes in several middle eastern countries, focusing on Kurdistan. In Quest for Honor, Bruni exposes the heinous act of men killing daughters, sisters, and wives who threaten “family honor,” endangers tens of thousands of women in Iraq, Turkey,Jordan and adjoining countries.

Global communication through satellite television,Internet, and cell phones has raised the expectations of young Middle Eastern women, who now are not content to marry a much older relative their father might chooses and live a life of servitude. While young women respond to new ideas from cyber pals in Los Angeles or episodes of popular Western sit-coms, their fathers and brothers demand strict tribal justice for their acts. Particularly in rural areas women have been killed simply for having unfamiliar phone numbers on their cell phones or speaking to men who are not relatives.

Check out the trailer here: http://questforhonor.com/home/

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Women’s Media Center Calls for Apology from MN Republican Group for Posting Sexist Video

August 18, 2010 By Jehmu Greene

August 18. 2010 (New York) – An outrageous lapse in judgment was made by the Republican Party of the 56th district of Minnesota yesterday when they posted a highly offensive YouTube video that plays the song “Who Let the Dogs Out?” over unflattering pictures of Democratic women, after first playing the song “She’s a Lady” over Republican women’s pictures. This incident is symptomatic of a larger illness: the widespread sexism and objectification of women in politics. Though the video clearly prefers Republican women over Democratic women, it does a disservice to women across the political spectrum by evaluating them solely based on their appearances rather than on their merits or platforms.

The group has since taken the video off its website due to attention the Minnesota Independent drew by exposing it publicly, but the Women’s Media Center calls upon this group to not merely take back this offensive video, but to make a public apology.  Furthermore, the Women’s Media Center urges all political parties to take this opportunity to pledge to avoid participating in similar sexist attacks, and encourages media to continue to actively fight them in the future.

To speak with Women’s Media Center President Jehmu Greene, please contact Yana Walton, (212) 563-0680, yana@womensmediacenter.com

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Neglected Rape Kits Getting Second Life in Mainstream Media

August 18, 2010 By Caroline Framke

When I picked up the September issue of Marie Claire, my expectations began and ended at the cover– a Mary-Kate Olson profile, some insights from Tim Gunn, an expose on online dating and, to my slight irritation, “Diet Secrets: What Women Really Eat.” Imagine my surprise, then, when I flipped to page 166 and saw the faces of 28 women staring back at me, each with a caption: “Still waiting after 17 years,” “Waited 9 months,” “Case closed without testing,” “Rape kit destroyed.”

MARIE CLAIRE RAPE KIT

One of the startling pages detailing the time every woman has waited for her rape kit to be test (photo courtesy of Marie Claire)

Marie Claire’s feature on the devastating consequences of neglected rape kits is one that leaps off the page and hits you in the stomach. It tells the story of Helena Lazaro’s brutal rape in 1996 and the non-response that took place afterward in painstaking, disturbing detail. Lazaro then waited 13 years for her rape kit (a compilation of DNA evidence taken after the crime) to be tested, only to discover that the same man who had raped her went on to rape others, including his wife– because Lazaro’s rape kit went untested, it took thirteen years and three victims for the perpetrator to get the conviction he deserved.

The article serves as a warning to those precincts who let rape kits pile up untested in back corners, often letting sexual offenders free to keep assaulting people for years, that the consequences of such laziness can be dire. Its quote from Kaethe Morris Hoffer, legal director of the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, may unfortunately say it best: “For one woman to be believed,” she told Marie Claire, “someone else has to be raped.”

The feature has brought mainstream media attention to this critically underestimated issue, with news outlets such as The Daily Beast, Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times picking up on the story of backlogged rape kits and the proposed laws that would – finally – prevent the backlogging.

More interesting still is the upcoming Law and Order: SVU episode that will feature a story based on Lazaro’s own, with Jennifer Love Hewitt playing a woman who is the victim of multiple unsolved rapes. The episode airs September 29th, and will hopefully continue the already burgeoning public interest in rape kit testing.

The unapologetically bold Marie Claire feature sticks with you far past the confines of your commute, and is thus a definite step towards eliminating rape kit backlog for good. We can only hope, however, that this media moment for the issue becomes a driving force rather than a mere moment; that way, definitive change can be affected, and rape victims can be guaranteed the chance to have the crimes of their assaults solved as is their right.

(Read the Marie Claire article in its entirety here, and then let us know what you think in the comment section below.)

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