Women in History

(Audio) Book Review: 'Girls Don't Cry':

Teaser:

NPR: Maureen Corrigan reviews Rebecca Traister's new book: Big Girls Don't Cry: the election that changed everything for American women, and details how Traister dissects the cultural narratives that held so much power during the 2008 campaign and elction--the narratives about femininity and the demands of wife- and motherhood, as well as narratives about how women should "play nice" and let the other historically discriminated-against guy go first through the door of the White House.

Editorial:

Traister surveys a changed political landscape in 2008 where women were key players, not only as candidates but also sometimes outspoken spouses of candidates, as well as reporters and pundits. She brings a historically informed perspective to her reading of the cultural curveball that was Sarah Palin and her undoing — at least during the campaign — by the tag team of Tina Fey and Katie Couric, in addition to the sexist criticism lobbed at her even by her fellow conservatives.

But far and away the longest and most eye-opening part of Traister’s book is devoted to Hillary Clinton and her gender misadventures in, as Traister wittily calls it, "Campaigning While Female." Traister charts the attitudinal shifts in the campaign: how Hillary, arguably misguided by her campaign manager, Mark Penn, embraced a stiff-upper-lip "gender free" strategy early in her campaign that ironically ceded the more traditional womanly role of appealing to passions and ideals to Barack Obama, particularly after he was endorsed by the nation’s emoter in chief, Oprah Winfrey."

Source:

National Public Radio

URL:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129938556

Date:

September 21, 2010

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

The Female Factor: will three women really change the court?

Teaser:

Newsweek: For the first time in history, there will be three women on the Supreme Court. The presence of three women will give the female justices a chance to have their voices heard, influence the male judges on gender-related issues, and affect the way that decisions are made on issues that affect women such as education, compensation and reproduction.

Editorial:

"Much has been made of the fact that Elena Kagan’s ascent to the Supreme Court means that for the first time in American history there will be three women on the high court.

Social scientists contend that the difference is more than just cosmetic. They cite a 2006 study by the Wellesley Centers for Women that found three to be the magic number when it came to the impact of women on corporate boards: after the third woman is seated, boards reach a tipping point at which the group as a whole begins to function differently. According to Sumru Erkut, one of the authors of that study, the small group as a whole becomes more collaborative, and more open to different perspectives. In no small part, she writes, that’s because once a critical mass of three women is achieved on a board, it’s more likely that all the women will be heard. In other words, it’s not that they bring any kind of unitary women’s perspective to the board—there’s precious little evidence that women think differently from men about business or law—but that if you seat enough women, the question of whether women deserve the seat finally goes away. Women speak openly when they don’t feel their own voice is meant to reflect all women.

Social-science data show male judges may change their views on gender-related issues when they sit on a panel with a female judge. Perhaps you just don’t know what you don’t know about women until someone is there to explain it.

For centuries, the Supreme Court has been zealously opining on whether or not women are fit to practice law, tend bar, work a 10-hour day, support their families, use birth control, or terminate their pregnancies. For most of that time, women influenced that debate only if they were married to a justice. The presence for the first time of three women on the Supreme Court may not reshape constitutional law in any profound way. It may not even change the court. But as the justices continue to decide cases that affect the ways in which women are educated, hired, compensated, and afforded control over their bodies, maybe it’s high time there were three voices at the table with actual experience in the field."

Source:

Newsweek

URL:

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/30/can-three-women-really-change-the-supreme-court.html

Date:

August 30, 2010

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Women and Leadership in America

Submitted by jonathan on Thu, 08/26/2010 - 5:31pm

By Shyama Venkateswar, Ph.D.*

I’m just back from a family vacation in India where I was struck by the healthy public debates and frequent news hour analyses on the current Women's Reservation Bill that would provide for 33% “reservations” (quotas) for women in parliament and local state assemblies. This is a part of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s larger commitment to laws providing for gender equality in a country where millions of women and their families struggle to live on less than a $1 a day without regular access to food, water, housing, livelihoods, reproductive care or education.

Clearly, this is now a world-wide trend to bring more women into decision making positions in government and corporations. Norway, Spain, Netherlands have already passed legislation that would help to bring 30% to 40% women on corporate boards.

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Texas Scaredy-Cats

Submitted by Kyla Bender-Baird on Mon, 08/16/2010 - 11:57am

By Rylee Sommers-Flanagan*

History is a collective story. It is selectively written, representing even unintended preferences of its author, and it is selectively understood, transforming as the mind of the reader practices a sort of cognitive dissonance to contextualize it.

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A Brief History of the Women's Donor Activist Movement

Submitted by jzeilinger@ncrw.org on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 10:49am

This video was inspired by historian Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner who brilliantly determined to preserve and document the writings of suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage. In the 19th century, Gage complained that women of means funded their husbands' alma maters, churches and the ballet, but rarely stepped forward to fund their suffragette sisters. Imagine how different the world would be today if women had begun funding women sooner! This fast-moving video shows how today's women's funding movement, and new giving trends like Women Moving Millions, are literally changing the course of history. Video produced for The Sister Fund by Chicken & Egg Pictures, The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation and Great Plains Productions.

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Charlotte Bunch Tribute to Rhonda Copelon

Submitted by Kyla Bender-Baird on Tue, 05/18/2010 - 1:12pm

In today's WMC Exclusive, "An Architect of Feminist Human Rights Law," human rights leader and feminist foremother Charlotte Bunch offers a tribute to Rhonda Copelon, who had a profound impact femininst human rights law. Says Bunch,

Feminist and human rights lawyer Rhonda Copelon often worked behind the scenes, but her finger prints, or perhaps I should say brain waves, are all over many of the most important breakthroughs in progressive feminist advances both in the United States and globally...Feminist scholar Ros Petchesky called Rhonda her “model of a life fully realized.” Even more than her brilliance, Ros cited her friend’s “practice of a truly feminist humanity in the everyday—her devotion to younger generations, her fierce and loving presence for her many friends; and her passionate embrace of both politics and fun.”

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CSWS Noon Talk: Literary Privacy and Feminist Politics

Submitted by jmumbey on Fri, 05/07/2010 - 12:37pm

Member Organization:

Center for the Study of Women in Society

Date/Time:

06/02/2010

Bryna Tuft, East Asian Languages and Literatures (graduate student and GTF), “A Fine and Private Place: Literary Privacy and Feminist Politics of the Self in the Works of the Avant-Garde Women Writers.”

Obama hails Height as humble force for equality

Submitted by jmumbey on Thu, 04/29/2010 - 4:36pm

By BRETT ZONGKER and JULIE PACE, Associated Press Writer Brett Zongker And Julie Pace, Associated Press Writer – Thu Apr 29, 12:24 pm ET

Indoor Air May be Hazardous to Women's Health

Submitted by jmumbey on Mon, 04/26/2010 - 4:25pm

Vacuuming the carpet, making the bed, cooking dinner, or using room freshener may be hazardous to women’s health. These activities all release potentially harmful allergens and pollutants. However household air pollution is not regulated, putting respiratory health at risk.

URL:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/gender/cgi-bin/wordpressblog/2010/04/indoor-air-may-be-hazardous-to-women%e2%80%99s-health/

Member Organization:

Clayman Institute for Gender Research

Happy Birthday, Mariam!

Submitted by Kyla Bender-Baird on Thu, 04/22/2010 - 3:07pm

The founding president of the National Council for Research on Women, Mariam Chamberlain, just turned 92. Gwendolyn Beetham, a former NCRW staff member, posted a "tribute a gender studies godmother" on Feministing in Mariam's honor. Mariam's many contributions to the feminist and social justice movements include:

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