New Book: Rumors of Our Progress

There's a new book out called Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated by Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). How much more timely could a book be? Because it asks those nagging questions like, if women have made so much "progress," why haven't their lives gotten any easier? Why do most American women say they don't get enough sleep and that balancing work and family is getting harder? Why do they make 77 cents to a man's dollar? And why must Maloney still fight to preserve rights—such as educational equality and even birth control—that seemed secure in the 1970s?

Excellent questions, all. Read an excerpt, here.

Praise, from Gloria Steinem: “Carolyn Maloney has given us a factual, lively, life-saving book full of reasons why American women are told we're already equal -- when we're anything but. She also tells us how to move forward anyway. If you have time for only one book to save your sanity, advance women's equality, and connect your life to politics in this election year, Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated is definitely it.”

And from a making-it-pop perspective, I must say I love the title. Nicely invocative, on some level, of phrases like The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, and, of course, that Mark Twain quote, Rumors of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated. Very clever, given the recurring media refrain that feminism is dead.

Mama Comments

Thank you, all, for your comments on yesterday's post about Rebecca and Alice Walker (Mama Drama Take 2), and to all those you emailed me privately to share thoughts. I'm again subverting the post/comment convention to share some highlights because, as always, you GWP readers have so much insight to share:

Gloria Feldt: "I would have found Rebecca's article amusing if it hadn't been such sad statement about how women--once again--are damned if they do and damned if they don't have a life beyond mothering."

Sally: "I think that while it's more about her own issues with her mother than it is about feminism & motherhood, it opens up the discussion about the pressures of motherhood and feminism."

Anniegirl1138: "That was a terribly sad accounting of a childhood and if all true than she certainly does have cause to be upset about it. Past a certain point though our parents failings cannot be blamed for who we are as adults."

Renee Siegel,: "I'm proud to be Debbie's mom even if Debbie (GWP) experienced me as 'overly available.' Relationships need constant nourishing, interaction, and even conflict to continue to grow and evolve. What matters to me is not just conflict, but the repair of broken times when feelings that are hurt can be repaired and oxygenated in order to survive....Relationships are not static things to be put on shelves once we pass childhood. It's a lot of work, but well worth it when two people love and respect each other. It is particularly sad if a mother cannot enjoy her daughter's success and happiness in whatever the daughter choses as a path in life. This works two ways-- daughters can be proud of their mothers, as well."

I interrupt this post for the following message: Mom, I am so incredibly proud of you, and who you've become.

Mama Drama Take 2

When I was writing my book Sisterhood, Interrupted, I knew that my manuscript submission deadline was to be but an arbitrary end. I could have kept writing and writing and writing. Because mama drama (Chapter 5) is a story that just doesn't quit.

In a recent issue of The Daily Mail, Rebecca Walker writes, "My mother may be revered by women around the world - goodness knows, many even have shrines to her. But I honestly believe it's time to puncture the myth and to reveal what life was really like to grow up as a child of the feminist revolution." Rebecca is a colleague of mine, and a peer. She contributed an essay to my anthology Only Child. I'm saddened to hear, as she reveals in The Mail, that she's having trouble conceiving a second of her own. But publicly blaming her mother, and through her mother, flaming feminism, seems extreme.

Like Rebecca, I'm starting my journey to motherhood later. Had it not been for feminism, I might have stayed married to a first husband who was wrong for me (we divorced). Had it not been for feminism, and more specifically, the Pill, I might have conceived in my early twenties, a time when I was still growing up myself and would have failed miserably at motherhood. And let's face it: had it not been for feminism, I would not be a writer publishing feminist articles and books--including some that question and critique the movement's hot contentions and debates.

Like Rebecca, I too have had my share of conflict with my mother. We've screamed, fought, brought each other to our therapists, and duked it out. My mother is not a famous feminist, and to be sure she's been ever present in my life--perhaps unlike Alice Walker in that regard, according to Rebecca's account. My mother was overly available, and therein our troubles began. As one of the writers in our Only Child anthology puts it, sometimes we onlies can long for neglect.

Yes, my mother-daughter troubles were of the fixable variety. Perhaps Rebecca and Alice's are not, and perhaps it is unfair for me to even compare. The personal is by all means political; when your mother is Alice Walker, no doubt those boundaries are bound to slide. But when Rebecca writes that "Feminism has much to answer for denigrating men and encouraging women to seek independence whatever the cost to their families," I fear she is revealing far less about a movement and more about herself.

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Announcing: Fall 2008 GWP Bloginar

The online Making It PoP: Translating Your Ideas for Trade workshop is back!

This fall, I'll once again be offering a 5-week hands-on seminar for researchers and academics on writing book proposals. This teleconference features guests from the publishing industry and is paired with an ongoing online web forum in the form of a closed class blog.

The course is designed to help researchers, scholars, and policy "wonks" bridge the translation gap. I'll encourage you to make bold observations, learn new tricks, and unlearn old ones—like hiding your voice behind footnotes or lit reviews, or subordinating yourself to your topic. You'll learn why it's essential to think about audience and market in a different way. We'll explore the differences between popular and academic writing, why a dissertation is not a trade book, and how to write an effective book proposal--meaning one with the best chances of being sold.

In this course you will also learn:
• Techniques for de-jargonizing your prose
• Why "making it pop" does not mean "dumbing it down" or "selling out," and how to deal with institutional scorn
• How to know whether your book idea has commercial potential
• The elements of a strong book proposal
• The importance of narrative, and what else editors look for
• The role of an agent
• The in's and out's of publshing in different popular media venues (online and print)

When: Five weeks, Tuesdays, October 7th - November 4th, 7:00pm - 8:15pm (via phone; ongoing online forum during the week)

Guest instructors from the publishing industry will share their expertise each week. Past instructors have included:

Alissa Quart, author of Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers and Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child, published by Penguin Press in 2006, and contributor to the New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, The Atlantic Monthly

Laura Mazer, an editor and book consultant who has worked with publishers including Seal Press, Counterpoint Books, Soft Skull Press, Avalon Publishing Group, and Random House (see Laura's Book Smarts column here and here and here on GWP)

Christine Kenneally, author of The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language and a freelance journalist who has written for The New Yorker,The New York Times, Discover, Slate and Salon

Tracy Brown, President of the Tracy Brown Literary Agency

Amanda Moon, an editor at Basic Books and formerly an editor at Palgrave.

Jean Casella, a freelance book editor and formerly the publisher of The Feminist Press

For questions, pricing, and more, please contact girlwpen@gmail.com.

Get Sloooow

So one of my new summer goals--or rather, aspirations--is to get slow. Not too slow, just going for a little summer slow down is all. As you'll see, it looks like I decided to start today, by not posting first thing this morning, as I usually do. Please be patient. A real post is coming soon, and before day's end, I promise. And meanwhile, I invite all you busy GWP readers out there to join me in going slow!

COMING SOON: Blogging Seminar Follow Up

On Saturday I ran a blogging workshop for folks at the National Council for Research on Women's annual conference. And I've promised those who couldn't be there but wanted to that I'd post an informative follow-up here. Just wanted to say it's coming! Stay tuned...

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More Post-Primary Pondering

My Courtney has been writing up a storm! Her latest:

A letter to Hillary on her campaign's end
A piece on keeping youth voters engaged in the political process

Healing the Feminist Generational Rift

Oh boy, I gotta jump in over at Slate's XX Factor -- and likely will -- but just wanted to share this article by Dahlia Litwik with ya'll, called We Need To Talk, which concludes:

[I]n the spirit of reconciliation, I'd ask our mothers and grandmothers to take another look at the young feminists of 2008—supporters of Clinton and Obama alike. We've got money we earned—not by pole-dancing for the most part—and we've chosen to spend it on political candidates! Not shoes! (Or at least on political candidates and shoes.) We are smart and educated and politically engaged. We are passionate about repairing the world for your grandkids and goofily confident that those same granddaughters will be someday number among the joint chiefs of staff and the National League pennant winners. And wasn't that at the core of your dream for us? You are not invisible. But we are not blind. And maybe now's not the best time to confess to this but these rose-colored glasses we've been wearing since January? We borrowed them from you. ...

And for another generational take, do check out Linda Hirshman's piece in The Washington Post, "Looking to the Future, Feminism Has to Focus", in which Hirshman cites my fellow PWVers Gloria Feldt and Sonia Osario as well as feminist bloggers Jessica Valenti and Jill Filipovic.

Your thoughts?

(Thanks, Marco, for the heads up on Slate.)

Hillary Studies, Post-Primary

Well, the primary race may be over, but our fascination with Hillary--with the prospect and reality of a Hillary--has really only just begun. I find myself eagerly tracking the post-mortem analysis, hungry to make sense of it all. If you see any particularly interesting analysis out there, please to send it along. Just a sampling of what caught my eye over the weekend:

Clinton's Real Victory
6/7/08
Washington Post: As someone who trains women across the country to lead across all sectors, it has been easy for me to see, firsthand, the impact of Clinton's candidacy...

Clinton Bloc Becomes the Prize for Election Day
NY Times: Now that a would-be first female president is ending her quest for the White House, the race is more about women than ever before...

And lastly, this letter of gratitude, from Ilana Goldberg, head of the Women's Campaign Fund (thank you, Purse Pundit!):

Dear Hillary -

I say this to you almost daily, but since it's normally to you on the TV screen, I thought I should find a way of saying it where you might actually receive the message: Thank you.

Thank you for what you have done. For your sheer tenacity, strength, and stick-to-itiveness. Thank you for working so hard every day when you must have been exhausted. For showing us what leadership looks like: doing something well, with grace, in good times and bad. Most of all, I thank you for not quitting.

Your many supporters will tell you what your race means to them and history will write what it means to the world, but it also means so much to me and to the little world I live in. I thank you on behalf of the women who have been so special in my life:

For my daughter - who is, as of yet, just an idea in my mind. But I imagine her one day reading the story of this historic campaign. I am so grateful that the story she will read will be of a complete campaign, with the biggest numbers possible - states, votes, and delegates. That story will show that our first woman presidential contender was truly competitive - nearly won competitive - and show a little girl her own vast possibilities in this country. Thank you for giving her a history worth reading.

For my mother - who is one of those women who work tirelessly to support her family, worries over rising healthcare costs and frets that her grandchildren may not have social security. She's always been passionately interested in politics, but never before found a politician who she felt saw and understood her. She'll be 65 next year and she wrote the first political check of her life to you. Thank you for validating the day-to-day concerns that she faces.

For my grandmother - who was, as it was noted at her memorial, "a woman ahead of her time." I think of her every time I see one of your senior women supporters who were born before women first got the vote and were out on the streets filled with hope that they would inaugurate one in their lifetimes. Thank you for showing them that their efforts to make women loud and proud actors in American politics created real change.

For my best friend - who would listen to me talk about just about anything in the world for hours - except politics - until you started to run. Little by little, day by day, she became more engaged in your campaign and what it meant to the country and our place in the world. She started out reading your emails and went on to lobbying her husband and friends to change their votes. Thank you for awakening an incredible woman to her role in the political process.

For my former junior staffer- who did not necessarily believe that sexism was still an issue alive and well today. She watched pundit after pundit behave in ways that even she could not deny were ... crude. Then she saw it pass as kind of acceptable. And then she saw it happen again and again. Finally, she took up her pen and now Chris Matthews and the MSNBC brass know her name ... well. Thank you for reminding her of how much work we all still have to do.

For me - who has been, at times, described as direct, forward, forceful, pushy and a few other choice adjectives. Thank you for helping make the world a little safer for aggressive, ambitious women. Because isn't aggressive just one way of saying "she gets things done" and isn't ambition just another word for "dream?" Thank you for pushing for my dream - and that of so many others - to elect a phenomenally talented and capable woman to lead our country and change our world.

As you promised from the outset, you have, and will continue to, make history.

Thank you, for all us.

Sincerely,
Ilana Goldman
President, Women's Campaign Forum

Girls, Girls, Girls

A CFP to share - but hurry. The deadline is June 12!

The 18th Annual Women's Studies Conference
"Girls' Culture & Girls' Studies: Surviving, Reviving, Celebrating Girlhood"

To be held on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University Friday and Saturday, October 17 and 18, 2008

The 18th Annual Women's Studies Conference at Southern Connecticut State University explores girlhood. What does it mean to be a girl? Who defines girlhood in an age when puberty and sexualization are happening at younger ages? How do girls assert their own identity in an increasingly medicated and consumerist culture which targets girls as a prime audience? Why are U.S. girls preoccupied with perfection? What challenges do girls across races, classes, religions, nations, and cultures face in an ever more globalized world? What is the relationship between girls and feminism? What effect can feminism have on constructions of boyhood and masculinity and how in turn can this affect girls?

In the 18th annual SCSU Women's Studies conference, we will take a close look at girls' culture and girls' studies, among the most vibrant areas in women's studies. The Conference Committee invites individuals, groups, scholars, feminists, activists, girls and all to submit proposals that address topics related to all aspects of girlhood.

More info available here.

Mambo-mania

Taking a break from all the heavy stuff to share a moment from my weekend, post-NCRW conference. Marco and I took our first mambo lesson yesterday from Glenda Heffer (aka La Mambera), who is dancing here in this video with her partner Mambo D. We are not quite looking like them yet. Ok, so we will never dance like them. But hey, we've learned the basic step - it's a start.

No to NObama-mania

Ok, now I, too, have been feeling sad as the next Hillary supporter about our gal's loss. But are there really going to be Hillary supporters out there sporting t-shirts with "NObama"? I have a hard time believing it. And if I see one, you better believe I will have something to say.

Do check out Gail Collins' thoughtful oped in today's NYTimes, "What Hillary Won," and Bob Herbert's too (thank you Catherine!). I'm moved by them both. Herbert reminds us not to overlook the wonder of this moment:

"Racism and sexism have not taken their leave. But the fact that Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, and that the two finalists for that prize were a black man and a white woman, are historical events of the highest importance."

Indeed, we should not overlook this moment. Nor should we take it for granted. Doing a search for this t-shirt just now made me crazy. I found SO much anti-Obama propaganda online -- xenophobic stickers, racist cartoons, and worse. As of today, I stand with Obama. And we have so, so much work to do.

Part of our work, of course, is to continue to analyze the impact of race and gender on this campaign. And I hope those of you in the area will join me at a forum on June 17th, "From Soundbites to Solutions: Bias, Punditry and the Press in the 2008 Election," from 9am-noon, sponsored by The White House Project, The Women's Media Center and the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. The forum is free of charge and open to the press and the public and will take place at the Paley Center for Media, 25 West 52nd Street (Between 5th & 6th Ave). Register here.

16 Months of Sustained Misogyny

A must-read today from Judith Warner in today's NYTimes ("Women in Charge, Women Who Charge") in which she argues that in a nation indifferent to the sexist attacks on Hillary Clinton over the past 16 months, no wonder a film like “Sex and the City” is a hit. Writes Warner:

How antithetical Hillary’s earnest, electric blue pants-suited whole being is to the frothy cheer of that film, which has women now turning out in droves, a song in their hearts, unified in popcorn-clutching sisterhood to a degree I haven’t seen since the ugly, angry days of Anita Hill and … the first incarnation of Hillary Clinton. How times have changed. How yucky, how baby boomerish, how frowningly pre-Botox were the early 1990s. How brilliantly does “Sex” – however atrocious it may be – surf our current zeitgeist, sugar-coating it all in Blahniks and Westwood, and yummy men and yummier real estate, and squeakingly desperate girl cheer....

Read the full piece here.

ADDENDUM: As per urbanartiste's comment, I have yet to see the movie yet and I do expect I'll enjoy it, having been an SATC addict, nevertheless!

LIVE BLOGGING: Why So Slow?

NCRW Panel on Corporate and Academic Diversity - Post#2

Moderator Ana Duarte McCarthy (pictured) leads the next bit of the session by noting that less than 3% of senior management and corporate officers are people of color. The numbers for women are extremely low. What is it that isn’t working? And what can we do about it?

Melinda Wolfe responds: "Until organizations recognize that women bear children and are primarily the caretakers for them, there will continue to be barriers for women to move up. Some women might come off the track; there are times when women take the scenic route but want to get back on and make a difference, but our systems don’t allow that. There are still huge underlying unconscious bias factors that go on in these institutions, that without critical mass, will continue. In some ways we’re at a dangerous inflection point, in that there are now more people who’ve heard about diversity and think that they get it. But they don’t. Because they think that they get it, their behaviors are more insidious."

Anne Erni responds: “Several years ago, several of us worked with Sylvia Ann Hewlett on her Brain Drain study. We found that nearly 43% of women in corporations want to step off the track for a while, and 93% of them want to get back on. But less than half are successful in finding fulfilling fulltime roles. So some firms created models, like Lehman’s Encore program, to address. It’s been successful. The key is getting men to empathize. Many of these guys marry women on the Street [Wall Street, that is - GWP], so they are more likely to get it. There were also incentives: people would get paid for referring women who wanted to on-ramp.”

Ah, how money talks. Poignant conversation about race going on next. A woman from the audience comments that she's often the only African American student in the room. How do we move past that? Rosemary Cocetti shares a personal story about her son, who is an athlete, and a great writer, and who experienced straight out racism at college. His professor didn't believe that a paper he submitted was his. Ironic, given that Cocetti is the diversity officer on campus. Actually, less ironic, more telling of how far we have to go. On the corporate front, how do coworkers deal with it the first time they see a colleague wearing a head scarf? The dilemma of being the first.

Stomachs are rumbling and the panel is wrapping up. A question asked earlier by Meryl Kaynard, Lehman Brothers, who is sitting next to me, has yet to be addressed. Rats, as this was my question too. The question: What's going on in terms of Generations X and Y? And I want to know: to what extent does the comfort with a more global community--the one in which we've come of professional age--shape our expectations for inclusion here at home?

Ok, signing off now. Fear of carpel tunnel kicking in!

LIVE BLOGGING: NCRW Conference

I'm back here at the Kimmel Center at NYU, blogging the session called "Diversity and Inclusion in Corporations and Academia," moderated by Ana Duarte McCarthy, Lehman Brothers. The panelists are talking about how they each got into diversity work at their corporation or university. Here's how:

Subha Barry, Merrill Lynch:
“One of the best ways to see the diversity awakening is to see it happen around you. For me, it happened in my community. When I first moved to Princeton, NJ, I had to drive to Edison to go to Indian grocery stores, as there were no such stores in Princeton. And I thought, think about the amount of business we leave on the table simply because we don’t recognize the diversity around us.”

Melinda Wolfe, American Express: “Whether it’s Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Citigroup, or Merrill Lynch, the investment banking world is dog-eat-dog. It’s only been recently and through the efforts of the people around this table and others that we have been able to work cooperatively around diversity. Across firms, those of us who work in this field go around with linked arms. It’s not typically what you see among competitive firms. But we all recognize that it takes truly a village to fix this one.”

Rosemary Cocetti, Georgetown University
"I got into my position because the President of the university created it and offered it to me."

Anne Erni, Lehman Brothers
"I was on the trading floor, one of the few women who continued to move up. Most of my friends dropped out and became SAHMs. I got a call one day—the Friday of the last week in August—and I was taken aside and told by my boss: ‘Men run in packs. Women don’t. Go create your pack.’ Eventually, I was asked to leave the floor and become Chief Diversity Officer. And I told him, yes. You got me at hello."

Ana Duarte-McCarthy next asks the million dollar question: What Makes Diversity Efforts Work? Some responses:

Melinda Wolfe: “If you don’t have breadth, depth, and leadership, your organization’s effort at diversity is not poised for success.”

Anne Erni: “The firm set aside an 8-figure bonus pool to reward inclusion. When you’re on Wall Street, you’re entire focus during the year is on how much bonus you’re going to get. So we challenged each division to do an analysis and a plan. The head of each division then presented the outcome of their plan. Six months ago, we completed the fourth round of reviews. In the beginning, you could tell some of them had just been handed the powerpoint script and were struggling about whether to say ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian,’ ‘African American’ or ‘black’. My colleague asked one guy who was stumbling to close the book and just tell him from his heart what inclusion meant for him. The next year, he won.”

Moving now to some Q&A...

GUEST POST: It Isn't Nice

This morning I'm pleased to bring you another rockin guest post from Virginia Rutter, sociology prof at Framingham State College, who is, in my estimation, quite nice. And a sassy writer to boot. Enjoy! -GWP

It Isn't Nice, by Virginia Rutter

"It isn't nice." That is how I explained my extremely negative response to Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair article on Bill Clinton and to TP's press interviews this week. It isn't nice to go around speculating about people's sex lives (at least in public), but TP did. It isn't nice to speculate about their health either. TP did.

Todd Purdum dedicates his first several paragraphs drawing tawdry atmosphere—we get the whiff of "Air Fuck One" that whisked Bill's attendant "motley crew" to a wedding last summer in Paris. This sets the tone. And then for balance, there's a line or two about, oh jeepers y'all, I'm not saying there is any evidence of philandering. Golly, I just want to tell you that some of Clinton's old staffers worry about it. And then more paragraphs of tawdry atmosphere.

(1-800-CALL FOUCAULT is how my friends in the English department respond.)

One of the nice things, to me, about leaving behind the 1990s was leaving behind this kind of pants-sniffing political story telling. (Is that a not-nice thing to say? I'll ponder that.) Remember, the story telling we have this decade is about the big lies we know about – on the economy, the war, on civil liberties, not little hypothetical lies we heard someone say someone said something about. That's just not nice.

But here is what was pathetic: In interviews, TP is all like, I wasn't insinuating anything about Bill Clinton's behavior. The facts I am reporting are about how some Clinton staffers are worried about some people who are talking and thinking it might be possible that maybe Bill is, has, or will mess around. The news: someone feels anxious thinking about sex.

(1-800-CALL FREUD is how my friends in the psychology department respond.)

In interview after interview, TP keeps to his message, I repeat I am not insinuating about Bill's sex life, I have no information about that. Sounds (ironically), a little bit like "depends upon what the definition of is is." That's soooo 1990s. That's not nice—wasn't then, isn't now.

Here's the deal, TP: write your "sleazy" story whatever way you want, whatever way your editors will tolerate or goad you into. If you can tolerate not being nice, and it passes muster in your business, go ahead. And, if you do it in the service of asking the hard questions, about financing his foundation, his livelihood, well, reasonable minds can accept that. But don't also be pathetic.

And that brings me to the health stuff. The TP anxiety report extends the apprehension among well meaning FOBs about the psychological impact of his heart by-pass surgery. Makes you cranky. Impulsive. Changes your personality. No doubt big medical interventions, similar to a trauma, influence--or have the odds of influencing--state of mind. But if you are going to speculate about that, some other facts in evidence merit consideration—aka speculation—too. What else could influence Bill's state of mind and make him irritable or impulsive? Let's see, there's the trauma of the 2000 election, the doubledarktrauma of the 2004 election, the traumatimesinfinity that has been the Bush administration. You could say, well we should all be a little irritable (aren't we?)—but as irritable as the regular folk are, think about this happening when the party and the government are your baby.

And then there is the issue of gender. Just like there are no good gender scripts available for a woman in a powerful position and how best to respond when people market a nutcracker in her image (and the like), there are equally no good gender scripts available for a man in a powerful position to respond to this kind of treatment of the woman he loves.

What I mean by gender scripts is that nearly all women—whether feminist or not—are raised with ideas about delicacy; nearly all men—whether a former president or not—are raised with ideas about protectiveness. What can give a person irritatsia is when the scripts are uncertain. Bill Clinton is a feminist man who has forged a partnership with a woman who is his equal; he has given real support to her. He hasn't been perfect. But the gender trap in this situation isn't his clinging to old ideas of male privilege, it is not having a way to reconcile all those expectations about gallantry with the expectations Bill has bought into about equality in his marriage. And if you are a man reading this you may recall times when you have felt damn irritable, maybe even sometimes reactive, when it seems impossible to get it right.

From the look of Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair piece, it seems impossible for Bill to get it right. Turns out it is impossible for any of us to get it right. Including TP. And I think that understanding that is being nice.

Heated Emotions

NCRW Plenary - Post #7

Ok, it’s Q&A time—generally the best part of any panel IMHO. And here we have Sandi Morgen taking the mike, expressing deep frustration about the “down tone” of this panel. We have an African American running for President, people! Applause. Says Morgen, “Women’s organizations that take a down tone right now are not helping to build the coalition that we need right now to build.”

Kim Gandy responds, asking for recognition that it’s only been a few days, and that there’s a group of people who are hurting out there (HRC supporters), and in a little bit of mourning—just as it would be in the case of the reverse. She calls for an understanding of that. And then she references a column she wrote last night about her daughters who were too young to pay attention to the 2004 election, but who were engaged in this one. Says Gandy, “They saw a woman and an African American run against each other for President. For them, forever, that’s what a Presidential election is. That’s who runs for President. My daughters will grow up never knowing a time when only white men could be considered serious candidates for president. And that is truly groundbreaking.”

Interesting convo about race and gender follows….Feminism’s uncomfortable history with race….How did women of color make their choices in this election?....An audience member says that Frederick Douglas was the only one of all the people at Seneca Falls to truly address a human rights agenda and frame women’s rights as human rights….

Ok, I've got to sign off. 'Til tomorrow!

Diana Salas on a National Human Rights Agenda

NCRW Plenary - Post #5

Diana Salas, Women of Color Policy Network at NYU, is working to teach young women of color about how to influence policy and become “research advocates," teaching them, in other words, to collect data in ways that are truly representative. Snippets:

“We need to frame our issues in terms of a human rights agenda, and human development—the notion everyone has the right to live in dignity.”

“The abortion rights message has not been working for women of color.”

“We cannot ignore the issues of women who are too young to vote.”

Marie Wilson on Women’s Time

NCRW Plenary - Post #6

Marie Wilson, The White House Project, who has a history of being a good trend predictor, predicts that this is the cutting edge of the women’s time. (Agree? Disagree?) Snippets:

“This election has been research on the hoof, if you will.”

“Things have changed permanently because of HRC’s run. To begin with, we’ll never have to poll the question ‘would you vote for a woman president?’ again. Because they did!”

“If HRC had come out of the gate talking about bringing people together, it wouldn’t have worked for her. It worked for Obama. But HRC had to come out ‘tough’ and ‘competent.’ She got into fierce mode—‘I will fight for you.’”

“The sexism in America came flat out. So now at least you can talk about it. That’s always a step forward.”

“Because of HRC, three-year-old women are talking about politics.”

“We need research. The Humphrey Center in Minnesota is doing research now on a new women’s political movement, and that we need to do much more.”

Kim Gandy on Who’s Going to Decide the Election

NCRW Plenary - Post #4

Kim Gandy, National Organization for Women, reminds us that 16% is not great, but that we are moving steadily. However, we’re moving not because some critical mass has been reached in society but rather because there are women like those here who have been funding and running campaigns.

Gandy notes that women’s unemployment is rising faster and our median earnings are falling faster (esp single mothers) than men’s, and it’s affecting us longterm, in terms of savings. This demographic, this one that is hurting most, is going to be the one to decide this election. Whichever candidate can reach out to them is going to win.

Kathy Bonk: “I’m a Values Voter”

NCRW Plenary - Post #3

Kathy Bonk, Communications Consortium Media Center, offered as a sidenote that she hitch-hiked in college and got involved in the Shirley Chisholm campaign! But that's not what she's talking about here. Snippets from her comments:

“What’s been very painful for me is that in the past 2 election cycles, the only ‘women’s issue' that’s up for debate seems to be abortion. It wasn’t always that way. If we’re going to do anything for women, we need to move away from personality and back to issues.”

“’Values voters’ is a code word for evangelicals. But I too am a values voter. We should shift the debate so that we look at feminists—and not just evangelicals—as values voters.”

“We can’t loose ground on abortion. In Colorado, there’s a 'personhood' referendum on the ballot—meaning the antis are advocating that personhood starts with conception. But abortion issues can’t be all.”

Note: Bonk was involved in spearheading a public opinion poll called “Moving Forward”, which polled voters on their ideas for an agenda that’s not just about abortion but a broader range of issues. She’s got data, if anyone is interested in following up.

Barbara Lee on Hemlines, Husbands, and Hair

NCRW Plenary - Post #2

Among her many other projects and accomplishments, Barbara Lee, of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, helped the Center for American Women and Politics with a study on women as governors. Snippets from Lee:

“Whether it’s for President or governor, it is the highest glass ceiling of all. Ann Richards once said of media coverage of women: ‘If you’re single, you couldn’t get a man. If you’re divorced, you couldn’t keep a man. If you’re a widow, you’ve killed a man.’ The same holds true with women candidates.

The White House Project was created to create a climate of acceptance for women running for office. Our most recent study asked voters to rate incumbent women governors. Voters rate women govs higher than male counterparts on managing a crisis, problem-solving, and getting things done. Once they’ve seen the women in action, they like them. But the hard part is getting them elected.

Women still face double burdens—they must be viewed as both likeable and capable. Voters tend to meld these qualities for men. Women must prove that they’re qualified whereas men are just assumed to be. Everything about a woman candidate has to be 'just right'—her hair, her husband, her hemline.”

Headbands, Monica, Cleavage-gate anyone?

Ruth Mandel on Not-So-Sweet 16

NCRW Plenary - Post #1

Ruth Mandel, Eagleton Institute of Politics, is moderating. Snippets from Mandel:

“This year I’ve been reading nonstop about this emotionally, analytically demanding election. When you start your professional career at something called the Center for American Women and Politics at a time when women were fewer than 5 percent of all elected leaders in the country, and then you watch someone run and be taken seriously as a potential presidential nominee by one of the major parties, that, certainly, is coming a distance. But we still have a long distance to go. We’ve started this year at the Center by looking at that number 16 – 16 women in the Senate. That’s not even a quarter. Thirty-seven years after we opened the Center, what does this mean? Sixteen used to be a good number – sweet 16. Not so sweet anymore when we think about that as a level that we’ve seen to arrive at in the political leadership arena after so many years, so much work, so much effort.”

Later, Mandel lists the questions on everyone’s minds:

"What was the impact of gender on HRC’s race? What will HRC do next? What should she do next? What will HRC’s voters do next? What has she achieved beyond this campaign? What’s the legacy of the campaign? Has HRC’s run opened paths for women going into politics? Or has it deterred women from deciding to run, after seeing how she was treated? Why didn’t more young people see HRC’s run as something they wanted to be a part of?"

Stirring It Up @ NCRW

Last night I went to a 90th birthday party for NCRW’s founding president Mariam Chamberlain (pictured here, in blur, being toasted by a current Mariam Chamberlain Fellow). I felt the love, and I waxed nostalgic for my days doing program work for this amazing network.

And now I’m here at the opening plenary of NCRW’s annual conference, in the Kimmel Center just south of Washington Square Park, the conference I used to plan.

The room is packed. NCRW president Linda Basch takes the podium noting that this year, an election year, they are focusing on what they’re calling The Big Five: economic security, education, immigration, violence, and health. She talks about “that pernicious 16” – the 16% of women in corporate officer positions, the 16 women in Congress. (And I just learned that women are also 16% of the military, 16% of police and fire departments, and 16% of law firm partners. Eerie, that same number each time. What up?!)

Catherine Stimpson (aka Kate to friends), Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at NYU and former NCRW board chair, had emergency dental surgery yesterday but is looking sharp. She’s up there doing the host’s welcome, speaking of this network’s sense of “gritty realism” and “unreasonable hope.” Next comes NCRW Board Chair Eleanor Horne, who reminds the crowd of our need to remind everyone not here that even though a woman ran for prez not all is hunky dory. She asks participants to not just “confer” here these next few days, but to go out and act.

Nicole Mason, Director of Research and Policy Initiatives at NCRW, who I know has been eating breathing and sleeping (or rather, not sleeping) this conference for the last year is last, and now here we go. The next bunch of posts are snippets from the opening plenary, “Stir It Up: Women’s Activism Reframing Political Debates.”

Live Blogging the NCRW Conf This Afternoon

Wireless pending, I'm going to try to live blog from the opening plenary of NCRW's conference today. More soon!

GIRLDRIVE: The Book, the Blog

Two of my favorite 23-year-old bloggers, artist/photographer Emma Bernstein and writer Nona Willis-Aronowitz, have made some major changes to their blog of late, and I love what they've done with the place. Check it all out, over at GIRLdrive. Here's what I like about this blog:

It's a platform for their forthcoming book from Seal.

Their blog's tagline, "roadtripping america, mapping out feminism," is a great example of a tagline that nails it.

Their "Mid-Week Memo" feature covers timely topics and interesting projects they're involved in around issues like women and the arts, mentoring teenage girls, intergenerational conversations, and other juicy tidbits from the feminist frontier.

The press their project has generated.

And, of course, the fact that they profiled my dear friend in Wyoming, Shelby.

Do visit them over at GIRLdrive and see for yourself.

BlogHer Study Shows Women Embracing It

More this morning on last week's AdAge article by Beth Snyder Bulik, about a new study showing how "mainstream" blogging is now among women. The study was based on surveys of two sample groups which together included several thousand respondents: one composed of participants in the BlogHer community and the other of online women selected to represent the general population of U.S. women. Demographically, BlogHer users are fairly similar to average online women, although they skew much higher in the 25- to 41-year-old Gen X range, with 68% of the BlogHer users in that age range vs. 42% of overall women.

Writes Bulik,

"Blogosphere" may not be a pretty name for it, but it is a pretty attractive destination -- for women at least, and maybe for marketers courting them, too. According to a recent study by BlogHer and Compass Partners, more than one-third (35%) of all women in the U.S. aged 18 to 75 participate in the blogosphere at least once a week. And that number increases if less-frequent visits are factored in. Of those women who are online any amount of time, 53% read blogs, 37% post comments to blogs and 28% write or update blogs, according to the study.

Other tidbits of interest from the study:

-Of the general population of online women who write blogs, 58% post entries at least weekly -- and of those who read blogs, 80% do so at least weekly.

-Most women who blog do so for fun (65%); to express themselves (60%); to connect with others (40%); as a personal diary (34%); and to give advice or educate (26%).

-Women read blogs for fun (46%); to get information (41%); stay up to date on family and friends (36%); stay up to date on specific topics (34%); connect with others (28%); and entertainment (26%).

-Some 24% of the women overall watch less TV, as do 43% of BlogHer users; another 25% and 22% of the general consumers read fewer magazines and newspapers, respectively, as do 31% in each category of BlogHer users.

Is this a specialized population that applies to early adapters, or is this study a harbinger of what's generally to come?

The full report is available for download from Blogher's site, here.

Check Out List of Speakers at NCRW's Conference - Jeesh!

Ok, I'm in ridiculously good company this weekend. Don't miss out on the year's premiere conference for researchers, policy analysts, gender thinkers, women leaders, and activists. The opening plenary this Thursday (4-5:45pm) is free and open to the public:

Stir it Up: Women's Activism Reframing Political Debates
The possibility of a woman or an African-American presidential candidate has galvanized voters and moved citizens to become more actively engaged in the political process. It has also provided real opportunities to place women's issues and concerns on the national agenda. Join leading experts, thought leaders, and advocates as they discuss how issues need to be framed so they influence political debates at local, state, and national levels, and strategies for ensuring that women's voices are heard and their votes counted in the upcoming election.

Featured Speakers:
Ruth Mandel, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University (Moderator)
Kathy Bonk, Communications Consortium Media Center
Kim Gandy, National Organization for Women
Barbara Lee, Barbara Lee Family Foundation
Diana Salas, Women of Color Policy Network at NYU
Marie Wilson, The White House Project

And here's the list of the rest of the speakers at the conference:

Mimi Abramovitz, Hunter College
Liz Abzug, The Bella Abzug Leadership Institute
Amy Allina, National Women's Health Network
Patricia Antoniello, Brooklyn College
Veronica I. Arreola, University of Illinois at Chicago
Margaret Bailey, Rochester Institute of Technology
Subha Barry, Merrill Lynch
Linda Basch, National Council for Research on Women
Kathleen Barnett, ICRW
Julia Beatty, Twenty-First Century Foundation
Kathleen Barnett, International Center for Research on Women
Taina Bien-Aime, Equality Now
Elodie Billionniere, Arizona State University
Lynn Bolles, University of Maryland, College Park
Kathy Bonk, Communications Consortium Media Center
Kristin "KB" Bowman, Columbia College
Vicki Breitbart, Planned Parenthood of New York
Jaweer Brown, Planned Parenthood of New York
Connie Buchanan, Consultant (formerly with the Ford Foundation)
Victoria Budson, Harvard University
Charlotte Bunch, Rutgers University
Tamara L. Burk, Center for Engaged Learning
Johnella Butler, Spelman College
Kathryn Peltier Campbell, Association of American Colleges and Universities
Hope Campbell, Anti-Violence Project, New York
Timothy Casey, Legal Momentum
Amanda Cassel, Women's Foundation of California
Lybra Clemons, American Express
Ellen Chesler, Hunter College
Carol Cohn, Boston Consortium on Gender, Security, and Human Rights
Elizabeth Colton, International Museum of Women
Aimee Meredith Cox, University of Michigan
Kimberle Crenshaw, Columbia University
Jane Daniels, Luce Foundation
Anisha Desai, Women of Color Resource Center
Brittany Denitzio, College of New Jersey
Patricia Deyton, Simmons School of Management
Bonnie Dill, University of Maryland
Catherine Dixon-Kheir, Alignment Strategies
Sharon Doherty, The College of St. Catherine
Stephanie L. Drahan, University of Massachusetts
Ana Duarte McCarthy, Citigroup
Rosanna Durruthy, Aequus Group
Kirsten A. Elling, University of Michigan
Patricia Eng, Ms. Foundation for Women
Joan Entmacher, National Women's Law Center
Jessica Fields, San Francisco State University
Michelle Fine, CUNY Graduate Center
Susan Forde, University of South Florida
Gisela Fosado, Barnard Center for Research on Women
Andrea D. Friedman, Global Justice Center
Ellen Friedman, College of New Jersey
Stacie Geller, University of Illinois, Chicago
Paula J. Giddings, Author Ida: A Sword Among Lions
Lilyane Glamben, The Sister Fund
Sangita Gopal, University of Oregon
Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice
Cheryl D. Gray, The College of New Jersey
Autumn Green, Family Economic Initiative, Boston
Michele Rene Gregory, York College of the City University of New York
Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Spelman College
Connie Sutton, NYU
Carol Hardy-Fanta, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Bill Harvey, University of Virginia
Katherine Henderson, Texas A&M University
Rita Henley Jensen, Women's eNews
Silvia Henriquez, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice
Rebekah Heppner, University of South Florida
Ines Hernandez-Avila, University of California at Davis
Lyndi Hewitt, Vanderbilt University
Sarah F. Hill, The Human Rights Initiative of North Texas, Inc
Mary Hopps, The College of New Jersey
Eleanor Horne, Educational Testing Service
Evelyn Hu-deHart, Brown University
Hae Ja Shin, Dongseo University
Janet Jakobsen, Barnard College
Annalisa Jenkins, Bristol-Myers Squibb
Carol Jenkins, Women's Media Center
Cheryl Johnson, Miami University of Ohio
Heather Johnston Nicholson, Girls Inc.
Kate Kahan, National Partnership for Women and Families
Erika Kates, Wellesley College
Don Kulick, New York University
Helen LaKelly Hunt, The Sister Fund
Barbara Lee, The Barbara Lee Family Foundation
Tobe Levin, University of Frankfurt
Janet E. Malley, University of Michigan
Ruth Mandel, Rutgers University
Courtney Martin, feministing.com
C. Nicole Mason, National Council for Research on Women
Lisa McClain, Boise State University
Kathleen McHugh, University of California, Los Angles
Caryn McTighe Musil, Association of American Colleges and Universities
Monique Mehta, Third Wave Foundation
Soraya Mekerta, Spelman College
Elaine Meyer-Lee, Saint Mary's College
Shari Miles-Cohen, American Psychological Association
Yuriko Mita, Merrill Lynch
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Syracuse University
Meredith Moore, Weil, Gotshal, & Manges LLP
Linda Moran, Cox College of Nursing and Health Sciences
Sandra Morgen, Pennsylvania State University
Roweena Naidoo, The Women's Foundation of Colorado
Kimber J. Nicoletti, CARe: Communities Against Rape Initiative
Anne Marie Nicolosi, The College of New Jersey
Catherine Orenstein, The Op-Ed Project
Ramona Ortega, Women of Color Policy Network at NYU
Rupal Oza, Hunter College
Heather Panahi, MassNOW
Eesha Pandit, MergerWatch
Judy Patrick, The Women's Foundation of California
Linda Perkins, Claremont Graduate University
Ros Petchesky, Hunter College
Marj Plumb, Women's Foundation of California
Katie Quan, Cornell University/University of California, Berkeley
Dina Refki, State University of New York at Albany
Ashley Reichelman, College of New Jersey
Jane Roberts, 34 Million Friends of UNFPA
Brenda Ross, Cottey College
Sue V. Rosser, Ivan Allen College
Ariella Rotramel, Rutgers University
Anne Runyan, University of Cincinnati
Larry Ruisi, Credit Suisse
Elizabeth A. Sackler, Elizabeth Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum
Lynda M. Sagrestano, University of Memphis
Judith R. Saidel, State University of New York at Albany
Kimberlee Salmond, Girl Scouts of the USA
Rebecca Salonen, Godparents Association
Kathy Sanders-Phillips, Howard University College of Medicine
Ruth Schwartz Cowan, University of Pennsylvania
Cynthia Secor, NCRW Board of Directors
Donna Shavlik, American Council on Education
Deborah Siegel, Woodhull Institute
Jael Silliman, Ford Foundation
Ellie Smeal, Feminist Majority Foundation
Taleigh Smith, Mothers on the Move
Donna Stewartson, University of Massachusetts,Boston
Catharine Stimpson, New York University (NYU)
Taleigh Smith, Mothers on the Move
April de Stefano, University of California, Los Angles
Carla Stokes, Helping Our Teen Girls in Real Life Situations, Inc
Ivy O. Suriyopas
Donna Tambascio, Wellesley College
Mary Thom, Author
Deborah Thomas, University of Pennsylvania
Gloria Thomas, American Council on Education
Gosia Tomaszewska, MassNOW
Suzanne Tomatore, City Bar Justice Center
Virginia Valian, Hunter College
Sarah VanHooser, Vanderbilt University
Sia Vang, The College of St. Catherine
Kathleen Vermazen, Women's Media Center
Delores M. Walters, National Council for Research on Women
Susan Wefald, Ms. Foundation for Women
Seth Wessler, Applied Research Center
Patricia Williams, Columbia University
Marie Wilson, The White House Project
Ludmilla Wikkeling-Scott, National Minority AIDS Council
Jane Wishner, Southwest Women's Law Center
Lisa Witter, Author, Fenton Communications
Melinda Wolfe, American Express
Gina Wood, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
LaLa Wu, The Bella Abzug Leadership Institute
Diana Yadria Salas, Women of Color Policy Network
Joy Zarembka, Break The Chains Campaign, Institute for Policy Studies

More info on the conference here.

Wake Up, Hollywood, and Smell the Latte

For a good while now, blogger Melissa Silverstein has been keeping excellent track of women at the movies--as producers, directors, and audiences. And this week over at Women and Hollywood blog, Melissa writes:

Sex and the City took in $5.5 at the box office on Monday making it the best non-holiday Monday of the year after Iron Man. News flash to Hollywood, women do go to the movies during the week.

Will SATC change the way Hollywood looks at the female audience demographic? We shall see.

Join me at NCRW Conference this week!

Quick reminder, for those in the vicinity, or those coming in: I'm offering a 3-hour blogging workshop on Saturday at the National Council for Research on Women's annual conference, Hitting the Ground Running: Research, Activism, and Leadership for a New Era, on Saturday. The conference froms from June 5-7 at the Kimmel Center at NYU (60 Washington Square South). And for anyone convinced that the blogosphere can be ignored, I urge you to read last week's article in AdAge on just how mainstream it is--among women.

Developed in tandem with Courtney Martin, who will be out of town for this one, the session will be led with the assistance of Elizabeth Curtis.

You can still register for the NCRW conference, here. And thanks for passing it on to anyone you think might be interested! Description of the session below.

Strategic Blogging for Organizations, Women’s Centers, and Feminist Experts

Author and blogger Deborah Siegel will lead participants through the basics of blogging—both logistical and philosophical. Participants will leave with a sense of the ways in which blogging is changing the media landscape—especially for women!—and tools for how to start one for their organization or improve one that’s already off the ground. Topics will include: young feminism and activism online, reaching the momosphere, and publicizing events and publications through blogs.

Primary Season Aftermath

Well, it's over. And with heavy heart yet a solid sense of the stakes come November, this Hillary supporter is turning her energy now to the general election and getting herself completely behind the dude. So many important lessons and takeaways from primary season, which I'll continue to write and speak about as we go.

Of course, one of the most important outcomes of having two such amazing candidates on the Dem ticket this primary season: the number of young people who rallied. On that note, definitely check out Courtney's latest, Fanning the Flames of Youth Civic Engagement, over at the WMC this week. Here's a summary:

As we finish the final contests of the primaries, young people are excited about politics. According to the PBS News Hour, 5.7 million people under the age of 30 voted in the primaries, a 109 percent increase from last presidential election. As Courtney Martin reports in the latest WMC Exclusive, young voters' enthusiasm should not be written off as a case of "Obama mania" (he got just 57 percent of the youth vote in Iowa, for example). Courtney writes, "In 2004, youth turnout in the general election rose by 4.3 million votes over the 2000 level, and hit the highest level in over a decade… The challenge ahead is to keep the excitement over the primaries alive until November, but what's more, make sure that civic engagement becomes an organic part of young people's frenetic lives from here on out."

Got Data?

This is why I love CCF, which I blog about here a lot because they're just such darn good providers in the knowledge business. This week they're issuing a press release on the importance of a time use survey, with contemporary spin and flair--and an important message with policy application: "Save ATUS." What's ATUS you ask? Here's a sneak peak at the release, courtesy of Virginia Rutter, who just sent it to me. Feel free to pass it on!:

Making Time for Work and Family: Got Data?

For Family Social Scientists, the American Time Use Survey Provides Valuable Information on Work, Family, and How We Endure the Conflict between the Two

June 4, 2008 Chicago Il ---- Mothers do more paid work—14 hours more—than they did 40 years ago. They do less housework—exactly 14 hours fewer—too. But they do 4 hours more of childcare than in the past. How do we know? Suzanne Bianchi, University of Maryland sociologist, and her colleagues used the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), a time diary study that has been collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics since 2003.

Dads are stepping up in new ways too. Men have steadily increased their participation in housework and child care over the past 30 years. And contrary to claims of some earlier studies, dads who work less than full-time don't use their extra time just to watch TV. Part-time worker dads do more housework (about an hour more) than full-time worker dads, and about 40 minutes more childcare. We know about these changes thanks to forthcoming work from Liana Sayer (Ohio State University) and Sanjiv Gupta (University of Massachusetts at Amherst) in which they analyzed the 2003-2005 ATUS.

But if women have given up 14 hours a week of housework and taken on 14 more hours of paid work, what else have they given up to put in 4 more hours of childcare? Here the news may be less rosy. It appears that social bonding with spouse, kin, and friends is being sacrificed to the higher standards for time with children. Bianchi and colleagues' analysis of the ATUS reveals that, compared to 20 years ago, married working moms now spend less time with their spouse—while single moms spend less time with friends and family.

SCIENCE HELPS US KEEP UP WITH SOCIAL CHANGE
These facts illustrate the on-going revolution in how Americans spend their time—what they do at work, how men and women organize family schedules, and how children and teens spend their days. To understand changes in family life and to guide policy makers—and families themselves—about the best ways to adjust to new patterns of work and parenting, researchers collect such information. This in turn becomes the basis for news stories, advice columns and television programs that citizens rely on—and are hungry for.

The American Time Use Survey is one of those key resources. (For more information on ATUS visit http://www.bls.gov/tus/home.htm and www.saveatus.org.) As researcher Bianchi explains, "ATUS provides essential information about how Americans spend their time—time spent caring for children, cleaning the house, working for pay, and caring for sick adults." We all rely on these jobs being done in order to keep our society running well: but it is vital for us to know how, when, and by whom they are done in our changing social world.

"The Council on Contemporary Families uses this kind of scientific research in order to understand the complex and changing dynamics of the family," reports Evergreen State College Professor Stephanie Coontz, CCF's Director of Research and Public Education. "Many CCF briefing papers and fact sheets rely on data from the time-use studies." (A host of examples are at http://www.contemporaryfamilies.org/briefpapers.php.)

"The complexity of coordinating families' work and school schedules with the need for health care, down time, cultivation of intimacy, and everyday chores presents new challenges to couples, parents, and children in the way they spend their days," explains Coontz. "Changes in time use help us understand how families cope with modern stresses--and also what happens when they cannot cope. Right now, the economy is slowing down, but many families find themselves speeding up. Unless we keep on top of these changes, we cannot analyze what kinds of practical support and information families need. Making sure that the data continue to be collected is an issue that cuts across partisan divisions, uniting family researchers from many different points of view."

For further information on the American Time Use Survey, visit http://www.bls.gov/tus/home.htm.

WELL DONE, CCF!

Women's Colleges Head East -- Middle East, That Is

Interesting piece in today's NYTimes by Tamar Lewin, titled ‘Sisters’ Colleges See a Middle Eastern Bounty. It seems women’s colleges are a dwindling breed in the United States. So this spring the admissions deans of the five leading women’s colleges — Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Mount Holyoke, Wellesley and Smith — went recruiting to a place where single-sex education is more than a niche product: the Middle East. Read the rest.

A Lesser Known Revolution of 1968

Kudos to Nancy Polikoff for her smart LA Times oped the other week! Nancy is the author of Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law, and a law professor at American University, and a scholar who calls for valuing contemporary families not as they "should" be but as they are. Here's the lede graf (journo speak for the opening paragraph) of her oped:

It's the 1968 revolution you never heard of. Forty years ago today, tucked in between the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling repudiated centuries of settled law by granting constitutional recognition and protection to a previously outcast group: children born outside of marriage and their parents....

From a "making it PoP" perspective, I like her lede sentence. Very grabby. For the skinny, read the rest here.

The Affairs of Men

So Philip Weiss recently "reported" in New York Magazine on the secret lives of married men. And the gals at Slate's XX Factor blog responded, calling the piece "not an outré confession but a fiftysomething baby boomer's long-winded attempt to rationalize his desire to screw a variety of women despite being married." I concur. Though Weiss' article presents itself as provocative and edgy, the piece is inflected with the naïve, wishful rhetoric of 1970s thinking about sex. Here's the XXers' take:

Weiss explains that men "hunger for sexual variety" and determines that this hunger is "a basic and natural and more or less irresistible impulse." He reports that men are using more porn than ever and quotes Mark Penn wondering what will happen when women "realize it." He notes that sexless marriages among power couples are endemic. He harps on his own desire for "some[thing] strange." Yet when his exasperated wife proposes an open marriage in response to all his bellyaching, he flinches at the thought that she might avail herself of the new rules, too.

Ah, Phillip. Double standard, much?

Happy Anniversary, Invisibles!

This is a pic of my authors' group, the Invisible Institute, celebrating our fourth year last night! Sadly, I had to miss. But I've been writing here about my love of this group and so I thought I'd share a visual. This group has supported its members from proposal to publication--many are on our third books now--and it's been like oxygen to me. Profound gratitude to Annie Murphy Paul and Alissa Quart for starting us and keeping us going all these years.

Progressive Women with Voices: Get Those Apps In!

The deadline for the 3rd class of Progressive Women's Voices at the Women's Media Center has been extended to June 12. So for those who have procrastinated, you still have time!

Progressive Women’s Voices is a new media training and spokesperson program from the Women’s Media Center to connect media professionals with smart, media-savvy women experts in a variety of fields. Yes, GWP readers, that means YOU!

Funded by a generous grant from the NoVo Foundation, the program provides each of the participants with intensive media training and ongoing support to promote their perspective and message into the national dialogue. I can't say enough good things about this program, having gone through the training portion earlier this year. The WMC continues to find booking opportunities for me and I continue to stay involved. I'll be teaching a session on writing book proposals for this 3rd class, the last weekend in June.

Applications are available in two forms, pdf or word. For more info, click here.

Laura Mazer's Book Smarts for June

Hi girlwithpenners, Laura Mazer here again, this time blogging from BEA in Los Angeles! BEA, or BookExpo America, is the annual international book-industry convention held here in the United States, and it's a major scene—everyone in the industry shows up to buy, sell, pitch, scope the competition, and score some pretty neat swag. (Thank you, Chronicle Books, I love my new sky-blue tote bag!)

The mood is buzzy on the floor, and I love to eavesdrop on the meetings in the lounge areas and booths. The Canadians are selling European book rights to the Italians, the Brits are working out co-publishing deals with the Americans, agents are pitching publishers, publishers are pitching booksellers, and everyone is eyeing each other's new releases, wondering what the next big breakout title will be. It's book-lover heaven.

The reason I wanted to blog from here is because BEA always reminds me just how many thousands of publishers, editors, and literary agencies there are. I used to think of the book world as small, insider-y. It seemed as though there were only a handful of publishers, and if you didn't know someone who knew someone at one of those houses, you probably wouldn't get a book published. But looking around me here on the convention-center floor, I'm seeing row after row of big houses, indy houses, academic presses, niche publishers, boutique publishers, nonprofit publishers, and all the hundreds of imprints that specialize in certain categories (particularly popular this year are the mind/body/health/spirituality publishers, which seem to be cropping up all over the country). There are so many publishers here that I actually got lost one afternoon when I went in search of a publicist friend's booth without my floor map.

The point of my telling you all this is: If you have a good book idea, there is a publisher out there that's right for you. There's a little bit of a dating-and-mating game to be played in the process of finding that publisher, but I guarantee you it's out there. Make yourself familiar with which imprints and houses are publishing the kind of book you want to write, and target those houses when you're pitching your idea.

And if you're in New York next year, drop by BEA for a day and see for yourself how big and beautiful this industry really is. (Just wear comfy shoes, and don't lose your map.)