Finally! The UN Gets One Right by Robin Morgan
August 4, 2008
Last week, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously confirmed Secretary General BanKi-Moon’s appointment for the post of UN high commissioner for human rights: the distinguished South African jurist Navanethem (“Navi”) Pillay. Women’s rights activists around the world can celebrate.
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Calling All Women and Minority Media Owners (But Not Too Loudly) by Kristal Brent Zook
August 1, 2008
“This is a bit more civilized than usual,” one attendee could be heard saying upon entering the auditorium for the Federal Communications Commission event in New York City on Tuesday. Unlike the emotional collection of media activists, protestors, concerned citizens and artists (some of whom directed hisses and sneers at FCC Chair Kevin Martin) who attended any one of the public hearings held by the commission over the past year, this one featured mostly suits and ties, all of whom coolly assembled without fanfare at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
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Isabel Allende, Loung Ung and the Power of Memoir by Marianne Schnall and Patty Goodwin
July 31, 2008
It’s mind-numbing. Four hundred thousand dead and 2.45 million displaced in Darfur; 5.4 million dead in fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998; epidemic levels of violence against women and children. With the constant repetition of such statistics of devastation, what can move us to action?
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Sexism: The Invisible Ism by Barbara Cohn Schlachet
July 29, 2008
In the aftermath of the primary season, I’ve been puzzling over the lack of reaction, on almost every front, to the degree of overt sexism that was pervasive in the media during this time. With the exception of organizations and websites that supported Hillary Rodham Clinton, and those that are specifically oriented towards the rights of women and the portrayal of women in the media, there has been a deafening silence from the candidates and their campaign organizations, from the mainstream media, from the DNC, the RNC and from the public at large, both male and female.
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A Reflective NOW Looks to the Future by Peggy Simpson
July 25, 2008
Jehmu Greene, a legendary grass roots organizer, plans next to “look laser-like at organizing young women.
“Don’t believe the hype: they are not apathetic,” she said. They volunteer in higher numbers than any other demographic group and will make up a large part of the electorate in the future. “They have technology at their fingertips and can move more people in minutes than we can in years.”
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Women Ahead of the (Blog) Curve by Melissa Silverstein
July 24, 2008
Four years ago Lisa Stone, Jory des Jardins and Elisa Camahort Page wanted to settle the annoying question they were constantly hearing: where are the women bloggers? So they put out a call, on their blogs of course, asking women if they would come to a conference, and, as Elisa says, the "response was immediate, passionate and positive.” Today Blogher has exploded from the 300 early attendees to 1,000 women (and a couple of guys) who just spent two days in San Francisco networking, learning and creating community around the act of blogging.
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Delving Further into Foreign Policy in Afghanistan by Patricia DeGennaro
July 22, 2008
After a grueling 18-month primary campaign, the race for the president of the United States has begun. True to form the candidates have come out sparring.
The topic: experience in foreign policy. The focus: Afghanistan.
After the military reported that the June death toll in Afghanistan surpassed Iraq all eyes refocused further east. Along with an earlier McCain challenge, this new news gave Senator Obama the perfect opportunity to get himself packed up and off to learn more about what is happening in Kabul.
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WMC Election Dispatch Military Women—Ready to Rock the Boat by Jennifer Hog
July 18, 2008
For women in the military, this election season has the potential either to focus a spotlight on long-neglected needs or to continue rendering us invisible. Due to our military training, we often struggle to exercise our right to speak out, but now we need systemic and systematic change both to do justice to service members and to create healthier communities for everyone.
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Ground Zero of the Housing Crisis: Report from Miami by Laura Flanders
July 16, 2008
As the Bush administration unveiled a publicly financed plan to "save" mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, local residents at a town hall forum in Miami were calling for criminal prosecutions of the loan-shark mortgage brokers and investment firms that profited from poor people's housing despair. 
It would be hard to think of a better place to hold a public forum on the housing crisis and sustainable development than Overtown, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Miami, Florida. While Overtown is just minutes from downtown geographically speaking, it's worlds apart economically and culturally.
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When the Bush Becomes a “Desert Shrub” by Mary Thom
July 9, 2008
“It doesn’t rain here the way it used to.” That was a Senegalese woman’s observation, included in a new report on climate change released by the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO). The woman may not have access to the exact numbers—her country, for example, has experienced a 35 percent decline in rainfall since 1996—but she can certainly testify to the frequent droughts and the shorter growing season. And she’s the expert on how these chronic conditions affect her life.
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Update (July 10, 2008): Yesterday, the Senate rejected the amendment that would have stripped the Protect America Act of immunity for telephone and Internet providers who participated in the government’s wiretapping program; the Senate then voted 69 to 28 in favor of the bill, which now goes to President Bush for signing. In contrast to his primary rival Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama voted in favor of the bill. Senator John McCain was not present for the voting. |
“This Constantly Pulsating Fear”—Feingold Talks FISA with Brian Beutler
July 9, 2008
Living up to predictions by Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold of "the caving of very large numbers of Democrats [on] an awful piece of legislation," the Senate remains poised to pass the Protect America Act (PAA) in a form that will allow telephone companies and internet providers immunity from prosecution for forking over consumer
information to government spymasters. The bill confers immunity that would be retroactive to the first days of a warrantless spying program originated by the Bush administration following the 9/11 attacks. In an interview with The Media Consortium's Brian Beutler, Feingold attributed Democrats' weakness to "this constantly pulsating fear of being accused of being soft on terrorism."
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Blogging While Brown (and Female) by Kristal Brent Zook
July 2, 2008
“People consider me the 411 on what goes wrong with black women in America,” says Gina McCauley, founder of www.whataboutourdaughters.blogspot.com.
The attention started about a year ago, when McCauley, an Austin, Texas, personal injury attorney, was compelled to respond to the demeaning characterizations of black women that she saw making headlines.
“I was actually looking for something I could do when the whole Don Imus thing happened. It was at a time when I was ready to be more engaged with the world. I was sitting on the computer, writing on blogs, and my initial idea was that black women could use our power as consumers. I hit a perfect storm. People were ticked off.”
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The Essence of It All: WNBA Rookie Lands Far from Rutgers Controversy by Shanelle Matthews
June 25, 2008
With a name derived from one of Americas most recognized landmarks, the New York Liberty has a rich past. One of the eight original teams to begin the WNBA in 1997, the team has retired basketball greats such as Teresa Weatherspoon and Rebecca Lobo, and has graced the WNBA finals four times. The women’s league, however, still struggles for attention. Neither history nor media has been kind to women’s sports. But for New York, newcomer Essence Carson might just be the attention grabber the Liberty needs.
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Her Pueblo Round Place—A Remembrance of Paula Gunn Allen by Joy Harjo
June 23, 2008
It was the summer of 1973 when I first met Paula Gunn Allen, the teacher and poet who was destined to create on her own terms a scholarly framework for native women’s culture. I was hugely pregnant, and Paula was still recovering from the death of one of her twin sons. We were two Indian students in a summer school class at the University of New Mexico, in what was probably one of the earliest attempts at an American Indian literature course. The professor knew nothing concrete about Indians or our literatures. She was either very brave or foolish, for in those times we had been admonished that no such thing as American Indian literature existed. She was non-Indian, which gave her more credibility. Still, the course held a glimmer of what might be possible.
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Doc Film Makers Keep Women's Issues on the Agenda by Melissa Silverstein
June 18, 2008
The news regarding women directors of fictional films in Hollywood continues to be bleak: in 2007, only 6 percent of these films were directed by women. But the non-fiction film world is a whole different story. While no one has exact figures, anecdotally most experts in the documentary community believe that women directors make up at least 50 percent of the directing ranks. Take a look at all the major film festivals that include documentaries and you will see women's names as prominent as the men’s.
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WMC Election Dispatch Shaky Economic Times are Shakier for Women by Heidi Hartmann
June 16, 2008
Over the last three months, primary voters in increasing proportions have said this presidential election is about the economy. In November, if recent trends hold, women will vote in greater numbers than men. As both parties turn from the business of primaries to crafting their messages for the fall, they will need to address the economic realities of these women voters.
In a recent survey of Americans’ economic insecurities, the largest difference in attitudes between women and men emerged on Social Security. Large proportions of both groups worry that social security benefits may be reduced or eliminated, but women are especially concerned, whatever their income level. Even women with very high family incomes ($92,000 and above) are worried. In fact it’s at this highest income range that the gender differences are largest—only about 30 percent of men at that level worry about Social Security’s future, compared with 53 percent of women. It’s also one area of economic security where white women are nearly as worried as minority women: across all income levels, 55 percent of white women and 58 percent of minority women worry that Social Security may be cut back.
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Farm Women, an Unsung World Treasure by Regina Cornwell
June 13, 2008
In the midst of a global food crisis, advocates are trying to convince the world that women farmers are an essential part of the solution. Women are responsible for over half of the world’s food production. Yet, says Jeanette Gurung, a key organizer of a new network of agricultural women leaders, the international sector concerned with climate change and food policy is so “heavily male dominated in its very core” that women, often isolated on small holdings in the developing world, are ignored.
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Nicaraguan Activist Embarks on Democracy Hunger Strike by María Suárez Toro
June 9, 2008
A legendary Sandinista leader and political activist launched a hunger strike of indefinite duration on June 4, 2008 against the current president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega to protest his authoritarian policies. Dora María Tellez, who fought against the Somoza dictatorship during the 1970s and is currently a leader in the MRS (Renovated Sandinista Movement, Movimiento Renovación Sandinista)—an alternative Sandinista party—is among many who have launched protests against Ortega Administration actions, including recent threats to eliminate the legal status of the MRS party. ''I have decided to start this hunger strike in defense of our right to democracy and our right to life” she stated.
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Hillary Asks the Question of the Day by Peggy Simpson
June 4, 2008
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| Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Some rights reserved. |
Hillary Clinton preempted the morning-after critics. She asked the question herself in a Tuesday night speech after the delegate count from South Dakota and Montana pushed Barack Obama over the top as the Democrats’ probable nominee for president.
“I understand that a lot of people are asking: ‘What does Hillary want? What does she WANT?’”
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Once touted by conservatives as the number one wedge issue, immigration has slipped off the table in these 2008 presidential elections. In part, this is because conservative candidates across the country lost when they tried to make immigrant-bashing a winning issue. (Witness the 2006 losing campaigns of Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and John Hostettler of Indiana, as examples.) 