women – Page 4 – Don't Gel Too Soon

Fem 2.0 Where Are We Going? Notes from a Conference (A Special Tuesday Tour)

It's the morning after the remarkable event that was Fem 2.0, and I want to think a bit about what yesterday meant. Fem 2.0 is a new entity whose leaders organized a conference on the future of feminism and women's issues. Sounds like old stuff, but it's not. Because of their vision and connections, the organizers, especially Shireen Mitchell, Heather Holdridge, Liza Sabater and Gloria Pan were able to attract women who think about these issues but don't always attend the usual central-casting women's gatherings. Combined with them: several of the "rock stars" of 2nd and 3rd Wave feminism – from Gen Y to Boomers, as well as stars in the blogger universe.

For the first time I saw, at the same meeting, women my age and older, Gen X and younger, institutional and independent, white, black, brown and Asian – all terribly accomplished, articulate and thoughtful. The goal was to work toward the elimination of barriers among these varied groups to allow more focus on the issues that unite us. I know that sounds like Barack Obama and maybe his style increased the reception for this call to meeting, but it was really quite remarkable.

Gathered were institutional "rock stars" like Eleanor Smeal, President of Feminist Majority Foundation and publisher of Ms. Magazine, Kim Gandy, President of NOW, and Karen Mulhauser, former head of NARAL – all fierce veterans for women's rights, Rene Redwood of Redwood Enterprises and Ann Stone, introduced to the assembled as VP of the National Women's History Museum, which she is. She is also the courageous founder and long-time leader of Republicans for Choice – a group that, for many years, was enormously unpopular in Republican circles. It wasn't easy.

Alongside them as stars, but emerging more from the world of 2.0: Elisa Camahort Page of BlogHer, Kristen Rowe-Finkbeiner of Moms Rising, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and RH Reality Check, and Tedra Osell of Bitch PhD, among others. For the first time that I know of, the cohorts that these women represent were in the same rooms, talking to each other not only about feminism, but also about the factors (age, geek level, parent status etc) that divide them.

Many people have posted detailed descriptions of parts of the day. Here are a few: Jen Nedeau at Chang.org offers a nice summary. Laurie White live-blogged several sessions including the one at which I spoke. Momcrats (no surprise) were out in force and report here. Friend, house guest and major league blogger Jill Miller Zimon sums up the plenaries and some other events.

I'm sure there will be more; if there are enough I'll do a follow-up. The day was very important to most of us and if I haven't convinced you, read some of the accounts. Sometimes barriers among allies are tougher to overcome than those among adversaries. Fem 2.0 gave us a real start. They deserve our thanks. And have them, from over here where I sit.

Fem 2.0 Panel Video – At A Crossroads: Organizing the Next Generation of Feminists Online and Off

Thanks to the amazing Nerdette, who managed to participate brilliantly and shoot the panel at the same time, you can watch at least a portion of our Fem 2.0 panel. TanyaTarr, Jen Nedeau
and I were honored by a smart, challenging and provocative audience and
learned at least as much as we talked. As Tanya put it, "I just gained
300 more sisters. There's no other way to say it."

I also promised an updated set of links if many more posts appeared. Here are a few:

Loryn C. Wilson's take on Womanism and the conference
Nerdette's post on Not My Gal, including this video, which she shot and edited
Our third panelist (and expert moderator), Jen Nedau's review
Veronica I. Arreola at Viva La Feminista describes her very interesting plenary appearance with Eleanor Smeal, Kim Gandy, Elisa Camahort Page and others.
Laurie White at Laurie Writes continues her phenomenal series of live session posts
more measured response from
Jill Miller Zimon at Writes Like She Talks has a second post with links to more than a dozen reviews of the Linkfluence presentation
On TechPresident, Sairy Granger offers a different take on the Linkfluence map of feminist bloggers, presented at the conference.
There are also posts by Emily Kronenberger at New Wave Grrrl, FlashFree, DJ Nelson at All Diva Media and, I'm sure, many more to come.

As you can see, it was an experience everyone wanted to share.

THIS IS TOO COOL – WOMEN, SARAH PALIN, THE WHITE HOUSE, THE PAST AND THE FUTURE

With thanks to Lucinda Marshall of Feminist Peace Network’s sister Laura.

Sarah Palin, Rape Kits and Birth Control

When you first heard that Wasilla, AK and its then-mayor Sarah Palin were charging rape victims for the cost of their rape kits (evidence collecting) you didn’t quite believe it, right? This video is the first of a series being produced by "The Wasilla Project" and was called to my attention by Nerdette, a sharp cookie whose blog "Not My Gal" is usually on top of these things. After I watched it I went back to this CNN version of the story:

It’s kind of slippery but, partly because I’ve been working on the issue of very scary threats to the right to planning ones pregnancies, and to actual birth control and family planning, I’ve very aware of the Palin perspective on these important life decisions. Watch both videos and see what you think. And if you want to learn more, stop by Birth Control Watch and see for yourself what informs a lot of the thinking behind Sarah Palin and that guy she’s running with.

MOTHERS WITH CANCER: SOME OF THE BRAVEST WOMEN ON THE PLANET

This is the logo from a blog called Mothers with Cancer. (We are twenty (or so) moms
fighting cancer. Some of us have been in remission for years; others
are newly diagnosed, or battling a new recurrence. All of us have
something to say.) I’ve spent much of the past week reading personal and group cancer blogs for a project and I’ve been near tears for most of that time. The sadness, the courage, the resilience in the face of multiple recurrences, the joy in small moments – there’s only so much of it you can read before you start to crumble. Then you tell yourself that they’re living what you’re reading, and, out of respect, you force yourself to go on.

In 1998 there was a big cancer March on Washington. I was around DC for much of it; because of my husband’s long-time work on prostate cancer advocacy I’ve been around cancer advocates and survivors for years. But none of that, and none of them – brought truth to the words "you’ve got cancer" the way these bloggers do, as their realities become ours. I’ve come to believe that we owe them our attention – that, as Willie Loman‘s wife Linda said: "Attention must be paid." And so it must

You’ll find many of a legion of cancer bloggers on Mothers with Cancer and many more on their individual blog rolls. I urge you to visit their sites and leave a message. They may not know us, but through their honesty — and their pain — we know them. And we can’t leave them sitting out here alone. Listen:

The truth is, I am scared. I am trying to reassure myself with the fact
that I have been feeling pretty good, that I have been biking and
running But I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was feeling the
healthiest and most fit that I had in years. And I was diagnosed with
liver mets three weeks after I returned to work, at a time when I was
feeling strong, energetic and (so I thought) on the road to reclaiming
my life from cancer. Not Just About Cancer

Continue reading MOTHERS WITH CANCER: SOME OF THE BRAVEST WOMEN ON THE PLANET

HILLARY SUPPORTERS AND THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN: DON’T DO THIS!

This is breaking my heart. Why is it that we Democrats are incapable of NOT shooting ourselves in the foot (feet even)? In my view (and I’m hardly alone in this) this may be the most critical election of my lifetime. I’ve written (are you sick of it yet?) about the parallels to 1968 when the refusal of many anti-war voters to show up at the polls and vote for Hubert Humphrey brought us Richard Nixon and a cascade of disaster. That could and most likely will happen again if we don’t all pull ourselves together.

I heard a commentator quote — I thought Jefferson but can’t find the source — “True democracy means acceptance of defeat by one vote.” Sounds right, doesn’t it? But there is what we wish were true and there is political reality, and the reality this year is that every moment of hesitation by Senator Clinton’s supporters puts another barrier between Senator Obama and the White House. My most-respected friend PunditMom has a very smart analysis of where all this antipathy is coming from. And there’s a survey of much of the conversation in Lisa Stone’s summary at BlogHer.

As I write this I think about the suffragists who won us the right to have this fight in the first place just 88 years ago. What would they think now? They were willing to stand up to those who asked them to halt their campaign until WWI was over. Should women have the same singular focus now — placing their anger ahead of the outcome of this election? Is the injustice so great that it justifies putting another conservative Republican in the White House?

I think not. Our sisters will do us a disservice that will last a very long time if they continue to stand in the way of an Obama victory or even just sit on their hands, because that will betray women who are at the bottom of the power pile, raising children alone, struggling for childcare, lacking health insurance, vacation or sick leave and any kind of job security. Feminists rightly say that “every issue is a women’s issue” and that means that every decision in a McCain administration will have a heavy impact on these women, and on the rest of us.

Beyond that, in my view, the perils of an anti-choice administration that will nominate judges like those who overrode violence against women laws in Virginia and frequently support employers over women seeking redress to sexual harassment or other discrimination, an Administration that will carry on the Bush foreign policy and continue to decimate our constitutional rights — oh – you know the list — those perils outweigh any grievance.

So if sisterhood is powerful, let those whose hearts are broken by the Clinton loss recall their sisters who need so much – and consider how little their interests would be served if Barack Obama does not prevail. On this, Women’s Equality Day, let them ease their pain with the knowledge that they will help on “every issue” and therefore every “women’s issue” if they can move past the pain of their defeat and see to it that our country itself is not defeated too.

BlogHer, Bella, Books and Us Women

Two weeks ago I spent the weekend with 1,000 remarkable women. You know where; the Web has been full of posts and tweets and messages about BlogHer, the women bloggers conference. Since its founding, BlogHer has held four conferences, and I’ve been to three of them. For those three years I’ve wondered at the strength and power of both the gathering and each woman, most far younger than I, who is part of it. Audacious and rambunctious, honest and gifted, they are far beyond where I was at their age. I’ve always known that all of us, sisters from the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s, scratched and kicked and pulled and fought to move our lives, and those of the women around us, forward. In many ways, we made a difference. I’m proud of that.

Today though I was reminded of a real heroine, one whose star lit the way for much of what we did, in a wonderful piece in The Women’s Review of Books: Ruth Rosen‘s review of Bella Abzug: How One Tough Broad from the Bronx Fought
Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy, Pissed Off Jimmy Carter, Battled for the
Rights of Women and Workers, … Planet, and Shook Up Politics Along
the Way–an oral history of the life of Bella Abzug. Among other things, Ruth says:

She fought for the
rights of union workers and African Americans, protested the use of the atomic
bomb and the Vietnam War, waged endless battles to advance women’s rights, and
spent the last years of her life promoting environmentalism and human rights.
When she plunged into the women’s movement during the late 1960s, Abzug infused
feminism with her fierce, strategic, take-no-prisoners spirit. As Geraldine
Ferraro reminds us,
She didn’t knock lightly on the door. She didn’t even push it open or batter it
down. She took it off the hinges forever! So that those of us who came after
could walk through!

And with a bow to Bella and so many others, walk through we have. It’s tough to pass the stories ‘I walked six miles to school in the snow’
fogey. Younger women, though, would find courage to fight their own
battles in Bella’s story and in many of our own."

For me, Bella was a brave, untamed beacon of defiance and energy. Her story, and ours, laid the ground for these determined, gifted "blogger generation" women. I would so love to be able to tell them about her – and about all of us, just so they could know the solidarity, the battles, the anger and the hope. And why seeing them all together, hugging, laughing and raising hell, makes me so damned happy. And that Bella would have loved them.

OVER ALREADY: BLOGHER ’08

This photo was taken at the closing plenary of BlogHer08 and I’ve barely covered the event at all. There are so many moments I’d love to tell you about: readings by bloggers whose words hold incredible power; one by one they reveal intimate moments of sadness and joy, anger and hilarity. The words, drawn from their posts, are the clearest evidence of the power of this institution, not yet five years old and already a gigantic force for good in the lives of the women who have come here. So many more.

We’re all on our way home now; to Austin and Sacramento and Virginia and Manhattan and Minneapois, energized for another year, ready to write and comment and commit ourselves to that which we create. From these two days we’ve learned about traffic and writing, activism and art, gender and age tribalism, friendship, sisterhood and the joys of San Francisco. What we gain here informs the rest of our year: makes us wiser and funnier and more determined. And really, whatever I would have written had it not been for Sabbath obligations and general exhaustion boils down to that. So thanks Elisa and Jory and Lisa (and Jill and Mary Margaret and Kristen and Asha and Erin and Sarah and Devra and Jill and Kari and Beth and Tekla and Catherine and the other Catherine and Morra and Nicole and Liz and Kelly and Jen and Julie ) and all the other beautiful bloggers who, when we’re all together, raise the roof of whatever building we happen to be in, and also – every one of our spirits and our hearts.

SHUT UP AND SING: CATCHING UP WITH THE DIXIE CHICKS AND WORRYING ABOUT THE ELECTION

Have you seen this movie? I sat in bed watching it early Sunday morning on cable and was just blown away. It’s one of the saddest, scariest, most moving American documentaries I’ve seen in a long time. That’s no surprise, since it was directed by Barbara Kopple, who made Harlan County USA – the landmark documentary about coal mine union battles in Kentucky.

What happened to the Dixie Chicks is infuriating: performing in London just before the start of the Iraq war, lead singer Natalie Maines (married, by the way, to HEROES star Adrian Pasdar,) told the crowd "Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas." The scene is included in this preview.

As I watched the film, seeing the rage and cruelty that emerged in the response to this one sentence, my first thought was, "Oh my God, what does this mean for Barack Obama?" The people who went after the Dixie chicks were nowhere near a sense of respect for the First Amendment – and sounded like they would be particularly vulnerable to "elitist" or racist accusations against a candidate. If you remember the exit polls in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania you’ll recall that many respondents just about acknowledged that they would not vote for Senator Obama simply because of his race. Am I unfair to wonder if many of those people are the same ones booing and even threatening Maines’ life? Still "out there" in larger numbers than we wish? Look at these figures:

In Pennsylvania
exit polls on primary day, 14% of voters
said that race one one of several important factors. Fifty-five percent of those were Clinton
voters and 45% Obama voters. When asked
race was “important” 19% said yes – 59% of them Clinton voters; when asked if
race was a factor in their decision, 12% said yes. In this group, 76% were white Clinton voters.

In West
Virginia, when asked race was “important” to their decision, 22% said yes –82%
of them Clinton voters; when asked if race was a factor in their decision, 21%
said yes. In this group, 84% were white
Clinton voters.

Finally, Ohio. There, when asked race was “important” to
their decision, 20% said yes– 59% of them Clinton voters; when asked if race
was a factor in their decision, 14% said yes. In this group, 59% were Clinton voters. (the racial breakdown was not available here.)

Please understand – I don’t know if I’m right. I’m not alleging racial bias in all those who rose up to burn Dixie Chicks CDs and threaten country stations with boycotts if they "ever played one of their songs again" – but I do suspect they could be more vulnerable to campaigns run in an uglier vein – just as they responded to this one. It’s worrying me.

Continue reading SHUT UP AND SING: CATCHING UP WITH THE DIXIE CHICKS AND WORRYING ABOUT THE ELECTION

FIFTY-SOMETHING MOMS AND I’M ONE OF THEM!

This is really exciting. Silicon Valley Moms has launched a Fifty-Something Moms blog and I’m honored to be one of them. Although it’s been around for a while, the site’s OFFICIAL launch is today. I’ve only posted twice so far, once on being a "fake grandparent" and once on childbirth for us in the First World versus for women in developing nations but hope to post at least once every two weeks. There are plenty of lovely posts already so have a look. I’ll be mentioning posts from this sister blog as we move forward. It really is an exciting project – as are the other blogs that share the franchise – Silicon Valley Moms Blog, Chicago Moms Blog, DC Metro Moms Blog, New York City Moms Blog and New Jersey Moms Blog, with a Deep South Moms Blog launching soon. So get over there. Now!