WomenPowerPeace

And now for the good news! Our own Nan Orrock named best of the best

Nan is president of WiLL (Women Legislators' Lobby) -- the arm of WAND that organizes and rallies women state legislators to take action on the federal budget.

She's also a State Senator in Georgia, and a spitfire with a long history in fighting the good fight -- civil rights, women's rights, labor, and more.

For all that, she just got recognized as the Best Local Politician in Atlanta 2008...

For decades, she’s fought the good fight, starting in the ’60s with the March on Washington and her work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In the ’60s and ’70s, she helped oversee counterculture zine the Great Speckled Bird, which was created as a backlash against the Vietnam War. From there, she climbed the political ranks slowly and paid her dues, taking the time to see her ideas and proposals reach fruition. For nearly 20 years, she’s served in the Georgia General Assembly, initially in the House, where she was the first woman to hold the position of House minority whip, and more recently in the Senate. And as president of the Women’s Legislative Lobby, she’s assumed the task of opposing excessive military spending to guide those funds toward human services and environmental cleanup. NAN ORROCK is one of those rare politicians who makes you proud – a class act with steadfast values and nary a sensational headline in sight.

Why WOULDN'T I support Sarah Palin? She's a girl.

Love it! Please view this bit from Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee. It's brilliant.

What I find most intriguing about the beauty queen from Alaska is not her lady parts, though.

It's her working class credentials. It's a painful bow not just to anyone who owns lady parts; but to anyone who's ever shopped at Wal Mart; or owned a gun; or gone fishing; or had a passle of kids; or watched a beauty pageant; or worn an updo; or joined a union...

But like any gesture of this kind, it's so condescending, it hurts. Because the woman is so profoundly unqualified to be president, it's quite frightening. Could someone tell McCain that there are actual working class people who ARE qualified to be president? there are even women who are qualified. There are even working class women who are qualified.

However, there may not be many working class conservative anti-choice young hunting women... And if that's all you're willing to take, you may be in a tight spot...

WAND's Sayre Sheldon in The New York Times today

Re “Second-Place Citizens” (Op-Ed, Aug. 26):

Susan Faludi’s list of the ways women are still being left out should energize as well as anger us.

There is a positive gender gap in how women in politics support adequate education, health care for all, protecting the environment, ending the war in Iraq and lowering our ruinous military spending.

We cannot vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton, but we can vote for and actively work for the progressive women running for Congress and state offices around the country.

Sayre Sheldon

Arlington, Mass., Aug. 26, 2008

The writer is emerita president of WAND, Women’s Action for New Directions, a national peace organization.

No way. No how. No McCain.

NICE!

Women at the convention. Big, strong, loud, composed, articulate women.

Thanks.

Fox News finds a new low

Ya didn't think it was possible, didya? But here it is:

Yes, my friends, Fox News stooped that low. They called Michelle Obama a Baby Mama.

Rather than blather on, I refer you to this guy and his summary:

So here’s the thing (because during this campaign I’m apparently learning that we black people have our own secret code and hand signals so this stuff has to be explained like you are speaking to a child at times), using the phrase “baby mama” to describe this woman implies that like too many people in the black community, she is a mother on her own with no man around doing his job.

Except, Barack and Michelle Obama are the exact opposite of this, and that is one of the reason America - especially black America - are so proud of them.

But Fox News is the network that tears down those who do not toe the line, and if that means they should resort to jive to describe a black woman as a “baby mama” despite the strength of her family and her own personal success, so be it.

For other particularly smart voices on this, here's more...

Does a Black First Lady matter? It certainly does to me, but I wanted to ask other Black women about it so I started with my grandmother.  I called and asked if a Black First Lady would make a difference to her and she thought that she heard me wrong and asked if I was kidding her.  Ditto for my aunt, who is also my grandmother's sister. "Are you kidding me? In my lifetime?  Both of them would do us well.  Everything about them is such a plus for us.  I'm just so proud of them already."

And, as you might have guessed, that is the same answer I got over and over.  I figured as much, but I didn't want to assume.   One of my friends also just came right out and said it.  "It's our Camelot.  To see a man like Barack Obama run such an amazing campaign is one thing, but to see his dynamic, pretty, relatable Black wife by his side is a huge (make that HUGE!) plus in his column."

I don't know if people realize just how deep this sentiment runs with many black women.  I have received lots, and I do mean lots, of email forwards from other black women, simply filled with gorgeous family photos of the Obama family or especially affectionate pictures of Barack and Michelle hugging, snuggling... dancing.  Seriously!

Melons. Apples. Grapefruits. These things hang low...

Actually, to be fair, melons do not hang, but who can resist them as a parallel to women? Melons! Ha! get it? Huh?

Women are so many things... like, you know, OVER HALF THE POPULATION. But that doesn't mean we can't be reduced to a stupid metaphor, oh no it doesn't.

Today, I will recommend to you this cool org that keeps track of just how crappy our media is... about women in particular. They issued a new alert today. Here's a bit. The whole thing is here.

Matthews says Obama's running mate should be "[s]omeone who's palpably patriotic," calls women voters "low-hanging fruit"

Summary: MSNBC's Chris Matthews said that Sen. Barack Obama should pick as his running mate "[s]omeone who's palpably patriotic, who sort of exudes it." Also, referring to Sen. John McCain's 6-percentage-point advantage over Obama among suburban white women in a recent poll, Matthews asserted, "[W]omen are low-hanging fruit, though, in the terms of politics. You can reach up and say, 'I'm pro-choice, he's not.' "

On the OTHER HAND, however, there is some argument that women have a lot to hate in John McCain... and they really oughta steer as far clear as they can from the guy. The lovely Sheila recommends this story. From the new book about him:

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

I hope this helps convince those people that if they can't have Hillary, they'll go for John "Strindberg" McCain... Hey you! Don't you value your right to choose?

Oh, man.

52nd Commission on the Status of Women at U.N.

by Sayre Sheldon, NGO Representative for WAND at the U.N. and on the NGO Working Group for Women, Peace and Security.

I attended two days of meetings at this event which lasts for 2 weeks and is held for the purpose of summing up and furthering progress in the advancement of women, culminating in a celebration of International Women’s Day on March 6th. It is sometimes laughingly referred to as the time when the U.N. pays attention to women and their issues and then goes back to their usual way of operating.

Of course we know from WAND that women’s issues include everything and in recent years thanks to the efforts of millions of women, the women’s agenda at the U.N. has greatly broadened. This year’s main theme was financing for achieving women’s equality and empowerment which of course are closely linked to the other major goals women share including education, health, security, and freedom from violence.

Two meetings were especially powerful for me: one was on the effect of guns on women, sponsored by IANSA (The International Action Network on Small Arms) which WAND is a member of. The second was “Where Are We Now on Security Council Resolution 1325?” sponsored by the NGO Working Group on Women Peace and Security which I represent WAND on. In both meetings women spoke passionately for the changes they wanted, the obstacles they were up against, and the successes their often ingenious ways of defusing the violence in their countries. Today “small arms” can be shoulder-fired missiles so we can be talking about threats on many levels.

The statistics on guns and women’s lives are absolutely devastating and as U.S. citizens know full well we have one of the highest levels of gun-related murders in the world as well as being one of the largest exporters of guns. News from around the world was discouraging although a delegate from Argentina told of the success of their national gun buy back, due to be continued under their new woman president. I was dismayed to hear of the high levels of gun violence and manufacture in India and how hard it was for women there to work on disarmament. As the chairperson pointed out, gun control policies are usually made by the gun users—would we rely on drug users to make drug policy, she asked?

The panel on 1325 was outstanding: Toshlya Hoshino Japanese member of the Permanent Mission to the U.N., Phil Saltonstall, Peacebuilding Advisor from the United Kingdom, and Comfort Lamptey, the gender advisor to the Department of Peacekeeping. Mr. Hoshino praised women’s efforts highly, saying that  the “gender gap” was necessary for filling the “peacebuilding gap.” All three described the many roadblocks to accomplishing their goals, especially from the countries who do not acknowledge women’s rights, but all provided workable strategies for getting around the obstacles we face. No country wants to look bad and opposition to violence against women can lead to the beginning of understanding how much women contribute to actually preventing violence as well as rebuilding their societies after war. But at the end when a woman from Sudan stood up to say “I need my gun—I’ve had it for 22 years. How else could I keep from being raped or killed?” we were all thrown back to a sense of how far we have to go to build a world where this will not be true.

Getting things done

OH, Tina Fey. We all admire you so. The writing, the baby, the glasses, the personality to make it in comedy show business, the vulnerability on "30 Rock."

And then this diatribe... have a look.

So, I get that voters in the end vote more for personality than policy. That's how we got W, and Reagan, and JFK, and Bill Clinton. And why we likely will get Obama. These guys are cool, and we feel comfortable with them.

(And why we didn't get Kerry or Mondale or Dukakis or, you know, all the rest of the guys who aced their polisci exams and then bored their friends at the lunch table.)

And I get that Barack is winning over Hillary because he's got that winning personality. He's got charisma, and he talks about values in a way that makes people cry.

And she's the executive type who would do things, and do them right -- but she doesn't have the It factor.

Which is all fine -- except. Except it feels like it allows us to feel comfortable with a certain amount of women-hating. It gives license to the niggling sensation that any woman who got this far has got. To be. A bitch. And we don't like that.

Well, she probably doesn't have the coziest personality you've ever met. Just like anyone who's gotten that far in political life, having accomplished real things. Man or woman.

(Unless they're a certain kind of clueless. And among those I include W, and Reagan. Who just always got by so far on the jovial, and were born into the role, and were maneuvered into place by other hands, that they didn't need to bother with the ambition.)

I believe Bill Clinton is a master politician who makes anyone in a room with him feel special; I also believe he's probably a philanderer and a egotist.

If he were a woman, she'd be a slut and a bitch. (Can you IMAGINE the s_itstorm if she were discovered with a male intern?)

If Barack were a woman, she'd be unqualified and soft on defense.

If Huckabee were a woman, she'd be in the kitchen. (Unless she was a nun, in which case she would be in a school. Or a church. Or a hospital.)

It's just too easy to dismiss her as a bitch. It's just too easy to tap into our very own misogynist tendencies and pull them out -- to disapprove of her pantsuits, her sagging skin, her harsh laugh, her political skills, her hawkish foreign policy.

It's much harder to examine why we feel this way about a woman with power. With brains. With ambition. With even beauty, that has aged.

We still don't feel comfortable with a woman who wants more than a woman's lot -- a mom, a movie star, a model, a teacher, a nurse...

At some level, I think, we want women to find that to be enough.

Because if they don't... Well, I dunno. But at the end of the day, I'm grateful to Hillary for helping us to find out.

Hi there

Hey.

Our holiday greeting is here:

http://www.wand.org/wand_dove.htm

Our message of thanks is here:

http://www.wand.org/action%20thanksgiving%2007.htm

Click through here to buy on amazon and donate some money to WAND.

And give me some treats RIGHT NOW.

A lovely bit of poem

To the Indifferent Women

by Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman

...Yet you are mothers! And a mother's care

Is the first step toward friendly human life.

Life where all nations in untroubled peace

Unite to raise the standard of the world

And make the happiness we seek in homes

Spread everywhere in strong and fruitful love.

You are content to keep that mighty love

In its first steps forever; the crude care

Of animals for mate and young and homes,

Instead of pouring it abroad in life,

Its mighty current feeding all the world

Till every human child can grow in peace.

You cannot keep your small domestic peace

Your little pool of undeveloped love,

While the neglected, starved, unmothered world

Struggles and fights for lack of mother's care,

And its tempestuous, bitter, broken life

Beats in upon you in your selfish homes.

We all may have our homes in joy and peace

When woman's life, in its rich power of love

Is joined with man's to care for all the world.