College Kids Paying The Price For Birth Control

As a young woman in college, I have had first hand experience with the rising costs concerning birth control pills. In the past year, the specific brand of birth control pills I use have gone up almost an extra $10 a month, from $40 to $50. Without coverage, my prescription runs $600 a year. Although I’m fortunate to have an insurance company that covers a nice percentage of my costs, meaning I only pay $20 a month, not everyone is as lucky as I am.

According to the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) Pro-Choice, only 24 of the 50 states in the U.S. require insurance companies to cover birth control. Fewer college campuses are making contraceptives and preventative care available to students. Also, I find it rather interesting (and ridiculous) that some insurance providers cover Viagra but not the pill. Men can get someone to pay for their erections but women are denied control over their ovaries? I don’t think so.

Anne Marie Chaker makes a good point in the Wall Street Journal.

Colleges and universities say the change is having a significant impact on their health centers and the students they serve. Prices have begun skyrocketing for many popular brands of birth control. Health centers are having to reconfigure their offerings and write new prescriptions. And college students are making some tough choices, such as switching to cheaper generic brands or forgoing their privacy in order to claim their pills on their parents' insurance.

I urge everyone to read in its entirety, here.

The University of Kentucky’s newspaper, The Kentucky Kernel, recently featured a great editorial about the rising costs of birth control pills. Will we continue to pay, whatever the cost, to prevent becoming young parents? I think we will.

If the pills are really that important to the students, they will still likely find a way to pay for the pills. Dr. Greg Moore, UHS health director, compared the increase in the cost of pills to the increase in the cost of gas prices. “You just deal with it,” he said.

It seems that more people would want everyone to have access not only to the pill, but all forms of contraception. I’m sure parents don’t want to know their kids are having sex (much like we don’t want to know about our parents,) however, don’t we want them to be protected? I think it’s important for college students as well as campus publications to talk about this issue and educate more young people about what’s going on with their health insurance. Higher birth control prices will have a negative impact on sexually active college and high school students. Some may not be able or want to pay the new amounts and might refrain from protection altogether.

Well, we can always rely on abstinence only sex education, right? It seems to be a rather effective means keeping the number of unexpected pregnancies and STD’s down. Oh wait, no it’s not. It’s completely naïve and idiotic. Let’s see, how about we take away condoms, birth control and any knowledge about safe sex. Talk about being safe. I’m sure the hormone-filled youth will refrain from sex.

As for the issue of Viagra being covered while prescriptions like Yaz and Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo are not, NARAL has organized a petition you can sign. Along with your signature, you can leave a personal message to your state senator. I encourage everybody to sign.

--Ashlie McEachern

Aurora, IL Planned Parenthood Clinic Opening Stalled

Apparently even when offering legal, constitutionally protected services, cities like Aurora will become gun-shy when anti-choice protestors become involved. Planned Parenthood of Chicago is going to federal court to try to force the city of Aurora to allow their new clinic to open as planned on September 18.

Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area is in federal court today seeking an injunction to allow its new health center in Aurora to open as scheduled on September 18, saying the City of Aurora has no legal basis for blocking the opening and that its revocation of a temporary operating permit is motivated solely by political opposition to the constitutionally protected right to abortion services.

The issue was over Planned Parenthood’s attempts to protect its new clinic from being targeted by anti-choice activists before it even opened.

As the Washington Post article points out, numerous attempts to open new clinics in other cities have been stymied by a variety of tactics, most famously refusing to sell concrete and other materials to construction companies working on a new clinic in Austin, Texas in 2003. (The tactics backfired however, brining a lot of attention to the anti-choice methods and the clinic did eventually open).

What the anti-choice side fails to acknowledge is that the women of Aurora are asking for these services. The Beacon News (the local paper) reported that 18 women already had appointments scheduled for Tuesday.

And lest anyone forget, Planned Parenthood also offers many services besides abortion.

Planned Parenthood says the Aurora clinic is sorely needed in a region with low access to reproductive health services and high rates of sexually transmitted infections and teen pregnancy. The Alan Guttmacher Institute ranks Illinois 46th nationwide in access to contraceptive services. With a fast-increasing population of more than 157,000, including about one-third Latino immigrants, Aurora is the second-largest city in Illinois.

The city has backed down a little by not forcing the Planned Parenthood staff to vacate the building even though their temporary permit is expiring, but the opening has already been delayed while the case is pending before a federal judge.

---Rachel Joy Larris

Photo by Joel Anderson, courtesy of The Body Shop

Anita Roddick's Legacy

Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, died on September 10 of a brain hemorrhage. Looking over the empire she built is pretty incredible. Even if her business has its flaws (and which ones don't?), it's hard to deny that for many non-activists, The Body Shop was their first introduction to environmental and third-world development issues. I like this quote from Time.

"She made shopping a political act," says her friend Josephine Fairley, co-founder of organic chocolate company Green & Black's. "She was the first person to do that. She made cosmetics fun, sexy and affordable, and there was always a message. But instead of 'Buy this mascara, it will change your life,' her message was, 'Buy this mascara, it could change someone else's life.'"

Ultimately, the business retail world has come around to green marketing because of businesses like Roddick’s. If we’re talking about global warming today, it’s hard not to say that it’s at least partially because she helped put environmental issues in the mainstream eye.

In addition, Jessica on Feministing reminds us that The Body Shop also had some very unique beauty campaigns that are worth remembering. Long before the Dove firming lotion ads, The Body Shop took note that beauty comes in all different forms.

It’s a shame she died so young. After stepping down from management of The Body Shop in 2002, she became involved in many charities and nonprofits, including Children On The Edge, Project Censored and Amnesty International. (Her Web site, AnitaRoddrick.com is a full of connections to organizations.

As Time puts it:

Since the sale of The Body Shop, Roddick, whose sense of social injustice kicked into gear after she read a book on the Holocaust when she was 10, had been focusing on the charities and campaigns she held dear. Claiming that she didn't want to "die rich," she gave away around $6 million a year and planned to spend the rest of her time doling out grants and donations and lending her name to causes like stopping sweatshop labor and protesting the imprisonment of two of the "Angola 3" Black Panther members being held in a Louisiana state prison for a murder many say they didn't commit.

Writing on her website recently, Roddick said: "The most exciting part of my life is now — I believe the older you get, the more radical you become."

--- Rachel Joy Larris

Abortion Stakes Are Personal For Reporter

By Allison Stevens

(Click here to listen to a Public Service Announcement distributed by American Forum, discussing concern over the threat to women's health.)



I'm a lucky woman. Today I hold in my arms my newborn son, born in good health - both his and mine. As the Washington bureau chief for a news site that covers issues important to women, I often cover the ideological warfare over reproductive rights.

A frightening moment at the beginning of my pregnancy gave me an almost visceral perspective on the most recent Supreme Court battle over abortion, one that has already inspired lawmakers in a number of states to enact or contemplate action to further limit a woman's right to make decisions about her reproductive life based on the best medical option for her particular circumstances.

My pregnancy officially began the way many end: with a late-night trip to the hospital. Last October, before I was able to confirm with my doctor the positive results of an at-home pregnancy test, I headed to the emergency room after I experienced some bleeding, a sign of possible miscarriage.

When, during my emergency ultrasound, I first laid eyes on that tiny white egg, I had the kind of reaction that opponents of abortion say often accompanies ultrasounds: a deeper connection to the growing life within me.

With a good report, I quickly resumed my work schedule, covering a Supreme Court case challenging a ban passed by Congress on the abortion procedure known to doctors as "dilation and extraction."

The 2003 law banning the "D&X" abortion procedure does not include an exception for the health of the woman, which the justices who decided Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion, deemed a necessary caveat in the limitations they put on legalized abortion -- and one retained in subsequent decisions by the high court in later laws concerning abortion.

I listened as the justices gamely debated the merits of protecting women's health during pregnancy, a condition only one--Ruth Bader Ginsburg--had ever experienced.

That debate was, for me, a different kind of ultrasound, a look into the minds of those who have the ultimate say over my reproductive life. Like its medical counterpart, this inside look intensified my feelings about my pregnancy: I became more acutely aware of my health--and my vulnerability--as a pregnant woman.

In the first pregnancy book I read, the classic "What to Expect When You're Expecting," I encountered a long list what could go wrong with the fetus, and me. Scariest was the chapter on possible complications, which covered everything from such relatively benign problems as gestational diabetes to pregnancy-related cancer, comas and seizures, as well as a disease that can cause permanent damage to a pregnant woman's nervous system and other organs. Women over 35 are more likely to have problematic pregnancies, and the results of prenatal tests such as amniocentesis are generally not released until mid-pregnancy.

During the banned procedure, also known as an "intact dilation and evacuation" abortion, the fetus is partly brought out of the uterus before it is aborted. In her dissent to the 5-4 decision, Ginsburg noted that this procedure is safer for many women because it reduces the number of times a physician must insert medical instruments into the uterus, which can damage or puncture the uterine lining. It also decreases the likelihood that fetal remains will be left in the uterus, which can cause infection, hemorrhage, and infertility, and it is faster to complete than other procedures, potentially reducing bleeding, the risk of infection and complications due to anesthesia, she said.

Moreover, the procedure's ban "saves not a single fetus from destruction, for it targets only a method of performing abortion," Ginsburg said.

The decision has implications even beyond its immediate scope. Doctors may be more reluctant to perform other, legal procedures for fear they will be perceived as violating the law. And it paves the way for anti-choice legislators to pursue more restrictions to abortion that lack exceptions for women's health.

Louisiana just passed a new law banning an abortion procedure, and conservatives in the Kansas legislature have commissioned a study of how the court's decision could impact the practice of abortion in that state.

My ultrasound may have served to make my pregnancy real for me. But the decision of five men to disregard its possible impact on my health, while the only woman on the bench took assessed in real terms the physical risks involved with pregnancy made real for me the power men still hold over my body and my health.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Stevens is Washington bureau chief at Women's eNews, a nonprofit independent news agency that covers issues of particular concern to women and provides women's perspectives on public policy. Stevens gave birth to her son, on July 18.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

*A version of this article originally appeared on womensenews.org a non-profit independent news agency that covers issues of particular concern to women and provides women's perspectives on public policy.

The Ticking Clock On Pay Discrimination

By Barbara Arnwine

Look around your office. Do you know what your co-workers are really being paid? Probably not. A recent survey found that only 10 percent of companies have pay openness policies. And if you were paid less by your employer simply because you are female how long do you think it would take to find out? Probably not until you’ve been working there a long time, maybe years.

That is exactly what happened to Lilly Ledbetter. Her employer, Goodyear, kept compensation information confidential and it wasn’t until decades after the fact she found out that she was being paid less. By the time of her retirement, she was paid $3,727 monthly, while the lowest paid male doing the same job was paid $4,286. Taking her employer to court, a jury found that she received raises less frequently than her male colleagues because of her gender. The jury awarded her damages for this intentional discrimination, but on appeal to the Supreme Court earlier this year, a majority tossed out the award because Ms. Ledbetter failed to file her claim within 180 days of her employer’s discriminatory decisions – decisions she didn’t have reason to suspect until long after they were made.

Pay discrimination based on gender is a violation of federal law and victims of such discrimination should be able to recover lost wages and perhaps other damages as well. But the Supreme Court has now made it practically impossible for victims to recoup damages when they have been discriminated against.

In order to encourage victims of discrimination to file their claims promptly, the law requires that they file within 180 days of the discriminatory practice. So far, so good. But the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire, interpreted the law to mean that the 180-day clock starts when the employer makes the discriminatory decision, not each time the employee receives a smaller paycheck. So, if the employee didn’t learn about her employer’s decision to pay her less when the decision was made, her claim of discrimination will probably be too late, even though the employer continues to pay her less money.

The pattern in the Ledbetter case is not unusual. In a 2002 case, another employee didn’t find out about her employer’s compensation policies until a printout of salaries appeared on her desk seven years after her starting salary was set lower than co-workers. In a 1998 case, the employee found out about salary disparities when she read about them in the newspaper. Unlike discriminatory decisions to hire and fire, compensation decisions are typically confidential. Consequently, it makes more sense to start the clock each time the employer makes a discriminatory payment rather than when the decision to discriminate is made.

Ledbetter was a 5-4 decision in which the conservative majority rejected the consistent position held by most of the lower courts for years. Over 20 years ago, in a race discrimination case, the Court observed that “each week’s paycheck that delivers less to a Black than to a similarly situated white is a wrong actionable under Title VII.” This common sense idea means that if the employee files within 180 days of receiving the discriminatory pay, he or she can have their day in court.

Some argue that the clock should start when a reasonable person would have discovered the wrong, but this vague standard is very difficult to apply in a compensation setting. In particular, employees may learn about pay differences but might not have enough information to suspect discrimination until much later. It’s a cruel joke on the victim if their clock runs out before they even know it started.

Rather than opening the door to such time-consuming disputes, a better approach would be to change the law back to the definition that worked for decades and that has proven to be workable for both employers and employees. As it stands right now the Supreme Court has practically given employers a loophole to discriminate, as long as they aren’t found out in 180 days.

Congress has a lot of difficult issues to deal with when it returns in September – Iraq, immigration, the deficit, on and on. But some problems are easy to solve, if the political will to stand up to the White House and the business community is there. This is one of them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Arnwine is the executive director for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Putting Women Back in the Debate

By Martha Burk

August 26 is Women’s Equality Day. Most Americans don’t even know what it is, and aside from commemorations by a few female leaders on Capitol Hill, it is hardly noticed. But it marks one of the most important days of the last century for women -- the day the final state ratified the 19th Amendment in 1920 -- and women were granted the vote.

That year also marked what suffragists of the time thought would soon be another constitutional milestone, the Equal Rights Amendment. With their newfound franchise, women believed they could convince legislators to put women on equal footing in the Constitution with men (white men from the beginning, black men since passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868). The ERA was penned by Alice Paul, the suffragist jailed for picketing the White House and nearly starved in Occoquan prison outside Washington.

But it was not to be. Here we are, 87 years later—a lifetime in anyone’s book—and women still haven’t achieved equal constitutional status. First introduced in Congress in 1923, the ERA was not passed and sent to the states for ratification until 1972, with an artificial time limit of only seven years for approval by the states. In that brief time it was ratified by 35 states, but was stopped three states short by millions of corporate dollars backing Phyllis Schlafly's anti-woman storm troopers, who feared unisex toilets more than they valued freedom from discrimination.

Most U.S. citizens don’t remember that fight, and many believe the ERA was ratified. The reality is that the legal rights women currently enjoy are not rooted in the Constitution, but in a series of statutes like the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, executive orders like affirmative action, and various rules interpreting laws such as Title IX, guaranteeing equal educational opportunity. Because we don’t have an ERA, depending on their origin, all of these can be revoked in the dead of night by any simple majority of Congress, bureaucrats in a hostile administration, or the president himself.

George W. Bush and company know this very well. They have been systematically eroding the gains women have made since they took office. They have weakened Title IX through rule changes. A major one now allows schools to force girls, but not boys, to prove they are interested in participating in sports before they are given the chance to play, and so-called “separate but equal” single sex public schools are allowed for the first time since 1972.

With the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, the assaults on women’s employment rights and legal abortions have begun in earnest. Wasting no time, the Court has already upheld the first federal abortion ban since Roe v. Wade, and severely limited women’s right to sue in cases where they’ve experienced pay discrimination.

Recently renamed the Women's Equality Amendment by its chief sponsor, Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the ERA is the essence of brevity: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." That’s the whole thing. A simple concept that had the blessing of both political parties until the Republicans struck it from their platform in 1980 and the Democrats followed suit in 2004.

It’s high time the ERA was put back in the center of public debate, and this long election season is the perfect opportunity.

Office seekers not remembering that right to vote we’re celebrating on the 26th do so at their peril. Women are now the majority of the electorate, and can control any election. Close to 80 percent of the public, both female and male, favor an Equal Rights Amendment. Candidates of both parties for the Congress and the presidency ought to be listening.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Burk is the director for the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women’s Organizations.

Women Don't Make The Cover

Apparently news and business magazines aren't for the ladies. At least not the covers.

Beverly Wettenstein has a fascinating article on Huffington Post where she tracked the magazine covers of five weekly magazines: Business Week, Forbes, Fortune, Newsweek and
Time throughout 2006 to see how many covers featured women or were written by them. The numbers aren't good and everyone should check out her article.

If women's presence in the business magazine world and the so-called "serious" newsweeklies aren't seen except for the annual "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" (Fortune) and "Women & Leadership"(Newsweek) issues, then what does that imply about the other 51 weeks?

Wettenstein also suggests that others continue tracking covers for 2007, which is a great idea. Tracking women's presence in media is a good way to see where we aren't.

The National Women's Editorial Forum is also conducting such a study involving the editorial pages of daily newspaper and we also encourage others to help. Simply read your local paper (or papers) and scan its editorial pages. Log onto our website and (after registering to be an editorial page monitor) it will take you to the electronic form. We need monitors to provide information about their paper and the op-eds that are present on its pages. With the Women's Monitor, NWEF will be able to gather data from all over the country about how often women are featured and what they are saying.

---Rachel Joy Larris

How Gender And Race Affect Media Coverage
of Missing Persons Cases

One of today's banner stories on MSN.com is actually a pretty good article that compares which missing persons cases receive media coverage (white women, especially those who are young and attractive) with those that don't (men, women of color of any age or level of attractiveness, and everyone else).

The article compares the stories of Stepha Henry, a 22-year-old black woman who disappeared while on vacation in Florida in May, and the well-covered case of Jessie Marie Davis, a 26-year-old pregnant white woman who disappeared from her Canton, Ohio, home in mid-June.

Race, Social Class and Media Coverage

Why does Stepha Henry get less coverage than Jessie Davis?

"The answer is pure unconscious racism," says the Poynter Institute's [Roy Peter Clark, vice president and senior scholar]. "But it's not just race. It's also social class and gender."

And the difference in media attention does not go unnoticed.

"There is a huge disparity between black missing women and white missing women when it comes to coverage," [Georgia Goslee, the attorney for Stepha's mother, Sylvia] says. "If Stepha could receive half the coverage of the other white girls who are missing, they might find her."

People of every race and age disappear. But missing minorities, men and the elderly simply don't generate as much media interest.

The article even points out that the cases of missing men go virtually without coverage, as well, whether white or non-white. And the likely reasons for non-coverage of missing men isn't flattering to either sexes.

For 2006, 173,903 missing persons records were entered for adults (21 and older) into the FBI's National Crime Information Center database; 99,736 were men, and 74,167 were women. However, FBI spokeswoman Connie Marsteller refused to draw conclusions from the data, saying because police departments and county sheriff's offices are not required to report missing adults, the information is not complete.

Why do the media - and their audiences - care less about missing men than women? Clark thinks it's because there's a public perception that men can take care of themselves (even though a lot of the missing men might have been victims of foul play).

If a missing person is white, female, young, attractive and has an upper-middle-class background, media coverage of her case will be far more thorough than coverage of missing men, minorities or the elderly, Clark says.

"This taps in to a sort of ancient fairy-tale mentality: the kidnapped princess, the damsel in distress."

So if you aren't the "fairy-tale princess" type, I guess that means you aren't worth coverage? This demeans and degrades the humanity of both the men and women who disappear. It also emphasizes whose lives society tells us to value above others'.

-- Rachel Joy Larris

Birmingham Blues And Birmingham Strength

Marcy Bloom at RH RealityCheck offers another account about Operation Save America's "Siege of Birmingham" and their attempts to shut down the same abortion clinic that was bombed in 1998 by the terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph.

In Marcy's account, Jeff Lyons, husband of Emily Lyons, one of the victims of Rudolph's bombing, recounts that terrible day:

Jeff Lyons, Emily's devoted husband, showed me the locations where both Emily and Sandy had been standing when Eric Rudolph's hateful bomb detonated in front of the clinic on that January day almost 10 years ago. Sandy was blown apart; in fact, he was decapitated. Blood and body parts were everywhere. It was tough to imagine. Jeff said that for many years, when it rained and the soil of the garden in front of the clinic shifted, pieces of Emily's pink scrubs and Sandy's blue uniform came up though the grass. Reminders of violence and hate linger for a long time in many places and in many lives.

This is part 2 of Marcy's account. You can also read part 1.

--Rachel Joy Larris

More on Mostly Male Netroots

There’s still a lot of talk in the wake of YearlyKos about the issue of white male bloggers being the loudest voices of the netroots movement.

In addition to my colleague Adele Stan’s take and that of Shireen Mitchell of Digital Sisters, Inc., now syndicated Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman has written about it.

Netroots is mainly for men

Last week, these progressive political bloggers not only attracted 1,200 to Chicago for the Yearly Kos convention, but made it a designated stop for seven out of the eight Democratic candidates.

Nevertheless, there is another, less flattering way in which broadband has followed broadcast and the liberal political bloggers mimic the conservative talk-show hosts. The chief messengers are overwhelmingly men - white men, even angry white men.

I began tracking the maleness of this media last spring while I was a visiting fellow at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. An intrepid graduate student created a spreadsheet of the top 90 political blogs. A full 42 percent were edited and written by men-only, while seven percent were by women-only. Another 45 percent were edited or authored by both men and women, though the 'coed' mix was overwhelmingly male.

Yes, this is the kettle of the MSM - mainstream media - calling the pot of the netroots male. In fairness, half of all 96 million blogs are written by women. But in the smaller political sphere, what is touted as a fresh force for change looks an awful lot like a new boy network.

---Rachel Joy Larris

Preparing a New Generation for Self-Government

By Annette Boyd Pitts

Most Americans do not understand our most basic constitutional principles and are disengaging from civic and political life. Voter turnout, especially among young voters, continues to reflect an indifference to the importance of participation in American democracy.

In December 2005, the Florida Bar conducted a poll of Floridians to determine public knowledge of basic democratic principles. The results reinforced a national poll conducted by the American Bar Association. Fewer than 60 percent of adults could identify the three branches of government, even in a multiple choice test; and less than half understood the concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances.

Even more recently, a national survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found one-third of adult Americans were not able to identify even one of the three branches of government.

Possibly even more troublesome is the latest report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in its Civics Report Card. NAEP is the only congressionally mandated sampling of student achievement in the nation. The 2006 test results which were released this May revealed serious deficiencies among our nation’s students. The 2006 NAEP measured the civic knowledge and skills of 4th, 8th and 12th grade students nationally. The assessment is organized in three main components including civic knowledge, intellectual skills, and civic dispositions. The assessment found:

• Only 28 percent of 8th graders could explain the historic purpose of the Declaration of Independence.


• Only 14 percent of 4th graders knew that defendants have the right to a lawyer.


• Only 22 percent of 8th graders scored at or above the “proficient” level.


• Only 27 percent of 12th graders scored at or above the “proficient” level.

While there is much to be done to improve student knowledge and skills in civics and government, Florida is making some progress.

As part of a nationwide campaign to advance civics and government in our public schools the Florida Law Related Education Association, Inc. (FLREA) is working with the Center for Civic Education and the Campaign to Promote Civic Education to spearhead efforts in Florida. Together with the League of Women Voters, the Florida Bar, and Common Cause, FLREA surveyed school districts in Florida and found that less than 10 percent requited the teaching of civics and government as a stand alone course in middle school. Middle school became the primary focus of efforts in the Florida legislative campaign last year. In 2006, the Florida legislature passed a requirement for students to take a semester of civics prior to exiting 8th grade.

Standards and testing are two major priorities during 2007 will be for 2008. New standards are being developed for all social studies courses in Florida. The Florida Department of Education has assembled a group of framers and writers to develop standards and benchmarks for all grade levels. Civics and government is one of the subject areas addressed in the standards. A wide range of groups and individuals such as former Senator Bob Graham and former Congressman Lou Frey are spearheading efforts to include civics and government as an FCAT assessment area.

Florida also has a number of programs to assist school districts in meeting the new mandate and strengthen district level civics and government initiatives. FLREA administers the “We the People…the Citizen and the Constitution” curriculum and mock congressional hearing program in each of the state’s 25 school districts. The organization also administers Project Citizen, a companion program for middle school students to actively engage in solving community problems through public policy. Other initiatives in the state include academic competitions, democracy camps, professional development institutes for teachers and partnerships between the judicial and education communities to help to strengthen school-based civic education efforts.

These new public policy initiatives are paving the way for Florida to be in the forefront of the nationwide campaign to advance civics and government in our state’s public schools and to raise this valuable instructional area to its rightful status.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Boyd Pitts is the founding executive director of the Florida Law Related Education Association, Inc. She is the recipient of the National Improvements in Justice Award and has worked in over 20 different countries to advance education for democracy.

Blogging the Yearly Kos Convention - Afterwards

Diversity at the Yearly Kos (Netroots) Convention

Guest blogger Shireen Mitchell looks long and hard at the demographics of the blogosphere.

WASHINGTON, D.C.--With the close of the 2007 Yearly Kos convention, a gathering of bloggers and Internet activists that took place last weekend in Chicago, a vigorous debate was sparked over the convention’s demographics, which, as reported in yesterday’s Washington Post, reveal a largely white, male population. Among the 1500 registered progressive participants in the conference, an estimated one percent was Latin American, about three percent was African American and Native Americans comprised about 0.2 percent.

In a more perfect world, the blogosphere would represent the diversity of the overall population in order to bring a variety of issues and voices to the attention of our country’s lawmakers. Unfortunately, due to various issues that include, but are not limited to, socio-economic class, education, culture, gender, sexual orientation and other issues that hang up communications in most societies, getting equal platforms to engage these other communities takes more work than many are willing to endure. As a result, you get a blogosphere that reflects the demographics -- predominantly white and male –- that characterize the political conversation in other media.

Although, when compared with traditional media, the Internet has allowed a more diverse range of voices to be heard, I am not at all surprised of the current demographics of the progressive blogger community. As early adopters of new technologies, it’s white men first and then everyone else. White women usually follow next, then African American men -- at which point more diverse groups emerge. Women of color are usually at the low end of the early adopters.

In the early years -- when home computers first made their mark -- the demographics of users matched exactly what is happening today in the blogosphere. If, as a woman, you logged on to BBS (bulletin) boards, you were automatically pounced on by all the men, since a woman posting on those boards was such a rare sight. When the Internet was first created, the wave of early adaptors was exactly the same. Today in the blogosphere, this dynamic continues through attacks on women who have something to say and dare to question the ideology of men taking part in the current political debate.

So I pose a question to those who think the dynamics that play out in our society today could turn to their opposite: If, in the beginning, bloggers were all women of color, would you question the demographics? Or, would you question whether blogging should be considered an important form of participation in democracy, and one in which you should be involved?

As a woman of color walking around the Yearly Kos convention, I was not surprised at the demographics; this is what I, as an African American woman and part of the past and current digital revolutions, experience in our society every day. Are we really addressing the diversity question? Is it fair to address diversity at one conference if we are not willing to hold up a mirror to our society at large?

--Shireen Mitchell

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shireen Mitchell is the executive director of Digital Sisters, Inc.

Getting Blogged at the BlogHer Conference (Round-up)

Links to Posts from 2007 BlogHer Conference

Friday, July 27, 2007

What do you stand for?


Saturday, July 28, 2007

Candidates to women bloggers:
Wish we could be there; have a nice conference

Blogging the Yearly Kos Convention (Round-up)

Links to Real Women Posts From the 2007 Yearly Kos Convention


Friday, August 3, 2007
Feminist Bloggers Poised to Combine Resources and Strength

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Blogging While Female

Prez Candidates Too Busy for Women Blogger Convention Make it to Male-Populated Conference

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Diversity at the Yearly Kos (Netroots) Convention

Blogging the Yearly Kos Convention - Saturday

Prez Candidates Too Busy for Women Blogger Convention Make it to Where the Boy Bloggers Are

CHICAGO--Last weekend, as I wrote here, only two of all the presidential campaigns deigned to send representatives to the BlogHer conference, a non-partisan gathering of women bloggers whose organizers had invited all the presidential candidates to either appear before attendees, or send surrogates. The two campaigns whose leaders understood the significance of the gathering were those of Democrats John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, both of which sent surrogates. (Edwards sent his highest-powered representative: his wife, Elizabeth.)

What a difference less than a week makes. Or perhaps it's the gender of the participants. For here at the Yearly Kos conference -- a gathering of progressive bloggers whose white, male contingent appears to comprise the majority of attendees, all of the Democratic candidates appeared, together on a stage in a forum moderated by Matt Bai of the New York Times Magazine and Joan McCarter of Daily Kos.

For the record, when the candidates were asked, via e-mail, by blogger John Pontificator if, upon winning the election, they would appoint an official White House blogger, all except Mike Gravel* said they would. (Ravel said he would do his own blogging.) Clinton thought a few seconds before raising her hand, and said, "Why not?" Then Edwards announced: "I will have an official White House blogger, and her name is Elizabeth Edwards."

--Adele M. Stan

*Thanks to Cheyanne for fixing my spelling.

For more on how women bloggers get missed -- and dissed -- by candidates and media, check out Jennifer Pozner's piece at Women's Media Center.

Blogging the Yearly Kos Convention - Saturday

Blogging While Female


CHICAGO--This morning, Garance Franke-Ruta, who blogs at TAPPED and on her eponymous blog, The Garance, conducted a panel called "Blogging While Female," which featured Jessica Valente of Feministing, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Gina Cooper of The Daily Kos. Each of the women addressed the experience they've had with online "trolls" and stalkers, usually men who use the comments sections of blogs to attack women writers, usually in sexualized ways.

Following an appearance she made on the Web-based TV program, Blogging Heads, Franke-Ruta received, she said, some 57 comments on her blog concerning whether or not she should have worn a barrette in her hair.

On a far more ominous note, Valente talked about how her Flckr page (a free service that will host your personal photo gallery on the Web) was used by trolls who downloaded photos of her and used them to alter pornographic images, replacing the face of the porn model with Valente's own. She made the point that the difference between online abuse such as this harassment in physical space is that these images will live on, as will keyword phrases that link her name with sexually demeaning terms as they appeared in comments on her blog posts.

Marcotte, who had a brief and controversial stint as the blogger of the John Edwards presidential campaign, spoke of how one man, who took exception to her inclusion on Pandagon, an "A-list," multi-voice blog, published her home address on the Web, and called her boss to try to get her fired.

What one calls oneself online often has some bearing on the sort of comments or e-mails one receives. Cooper explained that she has two e-mail addresses through which she takes correspondence on the Kos Web site. One contains her first name -- a decidedly feminine moniker -- and the other does not. She receives far more vicious and sexually threatening messages through the one that features her first name (Gina).

During the Q&A session, Shireen Mitchell of Digital Sisters, Inc., told us that most states have cyberstalking statutes, but they're either not enforced, or are too specific to address the full range of harassment and taunting that women bloggers often endure. Also, she said, a line about cyberstalking has been added to a new version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

--Adele M. Stan

Blogging the Yearly Kos Convention

Feminist Bloggers Poised to Combine Resources and Strength

CHICAGO--Here at the Yearly Kos conference, progressives of many stripes who normally convene in the blogosphere have gathered together in the physical space of the sprawling McCormick Place convention center to learn of the latest trends and create strategies for working together.

Yesterday, a gathering of feminist bloggers, in a discussion moderated by Tracy Van Slyke of Media Consortium and Jessica Clark of American University, took on the matter of how organizations that advocate for women in media are often unaware of each others' projects and wind up duplicating each others' efforts. Coming on the heels of last week's BlogHer conference, what I'm seeing is an ever-widening circle of women bloggers, reporters and media-reform advocates who gave begun to connect and inter-connect their efforts. When this happens, the ability to coordinate with each other as we strive together to crack the commentary continuum could truly leverage the impact of women in media, both mainstream and not.

Newsweek, YouTube and An Abortion Mini-Doc

Anna Quindlen’s column for Newsweek, How Much Jail Time?, spotlights a pretty cool little mini-documentary about abortion protestors in Libertyville, Illinois.

Buried among prairie dogs and amateur animation shorts on YouTube is a curious little mini-documentary shot in front of an abortion clinic in Libertyville, Ill. The man behind the camera is asking demonstrators who want abortion criminalized what the penalty should be for a woman who has one nonetheless. You have rarely seen people look more gobsmacked. It's as though the guy has asked them to solve quadratic equations. Here are a range of responses: "I've never really thought about it." "I don't have an answer for that." "I don't know." "Just pray for them."

You have to hand it to the questioner; he struggles manfully. "Usually when things are illegal there's a penalty attached," he explains patiently. But he can't get a single person to be decisive about the crux of a matter they have been approaching with absolute certainty.

Now Quindlen’s column is focused on abortion (and I urge people to read it), but I found it baffling that the online version of her column didn’t even include a link to the featured clip! In this day and age there’s no excuse for that bit of oversight. (Update: They have added the link).

Fortunately Real Women, Real Voices has tracked down the clip. I agree with Quindlen, it’s a pretty fascinating mini-documentary running six and half minutes.

You can find the clip on YouTube here.

But I wanted to know more about who made and it and why, so I e-mailed the creator, Lee Goodman. It turns out the clip has a pretty long history, it was posted online on July 11, 2005, and is part of a pre-YouTube group that provides videoblogging and commentary. Lee says his website has been in operation since 2005 and he’s now posting his videos on YouTube as well as his website. A nice feature of his At Center Network website is that he offers low-bandwidth downloads.

As I discussed earlier in regardless to the digital divide, people who only have access to dial-up and low-bandwidth—and there are plenty—are essentially locked out of the YouTube revolution.

Lee said the original clip, as featured on his website, had been discussed by blogs before. But, without his permission and without him knowing, someone posted it to YouTube, where Quindlen found it. He said on Sunday a friend of his recognized from Quindlen’s column the description of his clip, which alerted him to the fact it even was on YouTube! After that, Lee said he did get in touch with Quindlen who related that they didn’t link to the video because they couldn’t verify the author. (However Lee has now put up the video on YouTube yesterday under his own name and asked the other poster to take down theirs.)

The clip itself depicts abortion protestors in Libertyville, Illinois on July 9, 2005. Lee said he wanted to clear up one misconception, the group was not actually protesting an abortion clinic—they were just demonstrating on the side of a road, but not by a clinic.

I asked him how he came film the protestors and how he got the idea of asking them what they thought should happen to a woman if she had an illegal abortion? Lee said he lives in nearby Northbrook and has been recording many different types of events, which includes interviewing participants. He said he stumbled upon the question because it was the only one that seem to provoke real thought from his participants.

“I didn’t set out to ask that question,” he said. “I set out to see what was going on. But I found that that was one question I wasn’t getting back pat answers…it was the one people were struggling to answer.”

He said most of the other questions he posed to the protestors tended to get the same kind of flat rhetoric. This question, he said, “engendered on all sides a soulful, deep and thoughtful discussion.”

“Whenever I cover an event I always ask ‘why are you here and what are you hoping to accomplish?’ My practice in interviewing people is to draw answers out of them and not only hear what they think I want to hear about.”

The other nugget I found from talking to Lee is that from the original posting some of the protesters responded in the comments including the protest organizer Joe Scheidler, whom the final woman featured suggest Lee talk to. (In fact Lee said he’d already talked to Scheidler by that point, but didn’t ask him that particular question because, at that time, he hadn’t realized it was the question that got the most interesting response.)

The clip is an excellent example of either citizen-inspired activism or journalism; however one chooses to look at the product.

---Rachel Joy Larris

Ending the Housing Crisis for People With Disabilities

By Lisa LaBrecque

In 1971, the U.S. Congress created the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. The noble goal of the program was to provide financial support for people who can’t work because of a significant, long-term disability.

Unfortunately, our country has failed to meet that goal. According to a report recently released by the Technical Assistance Collaborative called Priced Out in 2006, national average rents for both one-bedroom and efficiency apartments were more than the entire monthly income of an individual relying solely on SSI. About 3.5 million people in the U.S. rely on SSI as their sole source of income. Here in New Mexico, the average SSI payment is $603 a month. That means an individual in New Mexico who relies solely on SSI has to spend 77 percent of his income on an efficiency apartment or 88 percent of his income on a one bedroom apartment. That leaves only about $100 a month to pay for food, medical care, clothing, transportation and utilities. SSI is not easy to obtain. The federal government uses a rigorous application process to screen applicants, including medical verification of a disability. People who receive SSI truly are some of our most vulnerable citizens. We have a moral obligation as a society to ensure that people with disabilities can afford decent housing and other basic necessities. Yet, we have made a half-hearted attempt to meet this obligation.

An individual whose sole source of income is SSI lives on $7,584 a year—which is 25 percent below the federal poverty line. At the same time, funding for affordable housing programs has been slashed. In particular, two of the most important federal programs for people with disabilities—the Housing Choice Voucher Program and the Section 811 Supportive Housing Program for Persons with Disabilities—have received inadequate funding over the last several years.

Under these conditions, we are practically forcing many people with disabilities into homelessness. Yet, we can do something about this grave problem. First, Congress can raise the SSI benefit level so that someone living solely on SSI is living above the poverty line. Secondly, Congress can fund an adequate supply of affordable housing for people with disabilities.

In their report, the Technical Assistance Collaborative urges the federal government to reinvest in the Housing Choice Voucher Program and the Section 811 program and create 150,000 new units over the next 10 years for people with disabilities. There is now a federal proposal that would target affordable housing dollars to households with disabilities who are living far below the poverty level.

We can also take action at the state level by providing adequate, consistent funding for the New Mexico Housing Trust Fund. Despite the Governor’s promise to secure $15 million for the New Mexico Housing Trust Fund in the 2007 legislation session, the Fund only received $2 million. This falls far short of what we need to create an adequate stock of affordable housing in New Mexico. In addition, we need to make sure funds from the Trust Fund are used not just to develop homes for purchase, but also to develop high quality rental housing. A person who only receives $603 a month will probably never be able to buy a house. But he or she still deserves a safe, accessible, affordable and decent apartment.

Congress had the right idea when they created the SSI program in 1971. Now is the time to follow-up on that promise and ensure that people with disabilities have the same standard of living that everyone wants for themselves and their families.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LaBrecque is the policy and advocacy director for the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness.

Getting Blogged at the BlogHer Conference

Candidates to women bloggers:
Wish we could be there; have a nice conference

CHICAGO--You would think that all of the presidential candidates, Republican and Democrat, would be interested in talking to a gathering of women bloggers from across the U.S. After all, it's said the women's votes will ultimately decide who the next president will be. Lisa Stone, BlogHer's CEO, said that all the candidates were invited to either appear or send surrogates. But as far as anyone could tell, only Hillary Clinton and John Edwards sent surrogates. Clinton sent Dana Singiser, her women's outreach coordinator, while Edwards sent campaign blogger Tracy Morris along with a real powerhouse of a surrogate, his wife, Elizabeth, who happens to be a longtime blogger.

Among the more interesting sessions I attended at BlogHer was the one titled: Patriots Act: How to Turn Your Blog into a GOtV (Get Out the Vote) Machine. There Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), was joined Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen, Sarah Simmons of the John McCain campaign, and Zephyr Teachout, who had served in the 2004 election as Howard Dean's director of online organizing discussed ways of motivating your particular online community to turn out at the polls.

One way: add a "badge" or button to your blog that links directly to voter registration forms or info.

More politics coverage later.

--Adele M. Stan

Getting Blogged at the BlogHer Conference

What do you stand for?

CHICAGO--Here at the BlogHer conference, one of the operative words is "brand." While policy-based and mainstream political media have been notoriously slow to welcome women into their commentary continuum*, the masterminds of corporate brands see the dollar potential of the greater female blogosphere -- the part that includes the self-described "mommy bloggers," make-up bloggers, sex bloggers, as well as feminist bloggers, political bloggers and business bloggers. If it's specific to women, there's money in it, since women make more day-to-day purchasing decisions than men. Among the sponsors of the BlogHer conference are General Motors, AOL, Butterball turkeys, Dove cosmetics, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Windows Live (a sort of social networking software package).

But the brands aren't just corporate. In fact, brands are people, too. Women, to be specific -- women bloggers, that is. And they packed to overflow what appeared to be the most popular opening break-out session: The Business of You: Self-branding and Self-promotion. Moderated by Penelope Trunk of The Brazen Careerist, who was joined by panelists Nina Burokas, a digital branding expert, and Stephanie Cockerl, entrepreneur of a successful Web-design site, the session was jammed with women who blog on everything from knitting to radical feminism (sometimes in the same blog).

Penelope Trunk let on that, when she first started blogging, she tried to maintain separate identities -- one for the name she was given at birth, and one for the self-created character, Penelope Trunk. "Penelope Trunk was more the person I wanted to be," she explained. As time went on, she found she couldn't really keep the two identities separate, so, "I ditched my [given] name and became Penelope Trunk."

As for posting about knitting and politics in the blog, Nina Burokas contended that it's not really a good idea. Well, actually, she said, don't do it. "You can't blog about politics and knitting" and have a successful blog, she said. (We at the National Women's Editorial Forum politely ask, as you make your choice: "May we suggest politics?") Try telling that to the women in the category who describe themselves as "junk-drawer" bloggers.

Stephanie Cockerl perhaps put it most succinctly. She asked: "What do you stand for?"

--Adele M. Stan

The Digital Divide: Getting Access To The Debate

Now that some of the dust has cleared from the CNN/YouTube debate there have been some thoughtful reactions to CNN’s staging of the debate. Jennifer L. Pozner’s WIMN’s Voices has an extremely interesting reflection video by independent media producer Stephanie Mackley, better recognized as the woman who asked about energy consumption in her bathroom.



Some of her responses are both informative and insightful – she susses out more information regarding the ratio of women-submitted videos and realizes that the initial reaction to being on TV made her (temporarily) lose sight of the fact that Anderson Cooper completely misdirected her question from a policy discussion to one of personal responsibility.

But one important thing Mackely notes is that she’s hardly a veteran of video-blogging. As she states:

The thing I’d hope you’d take away from this is that you can have a huge impact on the media discussion with relatively little effort. I posted my very first video a month ago and have since seen it on CNN as a question posed to the Democratic presidential candidates. So it’s not as difficult as you would think to add your own voice to the public debate that we’re having about the presidential candidates right now or any political topic. And you might end up influencing the debate in ways you would never imagine.

It’s good to remember that commentary isn’t divided into “experts” and “novices” – even in blogging. The technical aspects of providing commentary however probably can seem daunting, whether its putting up a blog or posting something to YouTube.

I meant to point people to this article in the Washington Post a few days ago. Binary America: Split in Two by A Digital Divide which discusses the fact that a few miles from where the debate was staged existed a place where residents could only access the internet, let alone high-speed access, with great difficulty.

There exists "two Americas," as John Edwards, South Carolina's own son, likes to say: an America for the rich and an America for the poor. But what Edwards and the rest of the presidential field have yet to adequately address are the two Americas online: one that's connected to high-speed Internet -- socializing, paying bills, uploading debate questions to presidential candidates on YouTube -- and one that's not. This is the digital divide, now more than a decade old, a rarely discussed schism in which the unconnected are second-class citizens. In some parts of this so-called Internet ghetto, the screech of a telephone modem dialing up to get online is not uncommon. And with dial-up, YouTube is impossible to use.

The digital divide is practically ignored as a political issue.

And though a study released last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that broadband use among African American adults increased from 14 percent in 2005 to 40 percent this year, blacks continue to lag behind whites and English-speaking Latinos. In fact, a great number of American households , especially in rural areas and poorer parts of cities such as Charleston, are without broadband.
...
"At one level, the YouTube debate shows that the Web has really become a centerpiece of American political culture," adds Lee Rainie, director of Pew Internet. "At another level, it also shows that the debate is not for everybody. It's certainly not available to all Americans."

And since the internet is sometimes assumed to be the domain of the young, what will happen if young people grow up with much access? Will they then fall behind their more technologically advanced peers, the kind who have home computers and high-speed connection. That’s why the story about 14-year-old Tiara Reid struck me.

That is especially true at Cooper River Courts, where Tiara Reid, 14, in her jeans shorts and pink striped top, runs up and down the complex asking friends if anyone wants to go the library. Finally her mom, Jossie, who works at a deli, drives her and a neighbor's daughter. With school out and without Internet access at home, the library is the only place where she can go on the Web -- for a maximum of two hours a day. Says Tiara: "It's 10 minutes to get to the library if someone drives you. It's 15 minutes if you take the 30 bus. It's about 30 minutes if you walk."

Sure, she knows how to use e-mail and MySpace, but she’s clearly at a disadvantage because she is not acquiring the same comfort levels with the internet that other children are. And because the internet is such a resource, those who only get it in minimal levels really are deprived of information that is useful, everything from greater access to media to more information about their public schools.

--- Rachel Joy Larris

Not All Issues Are Colored In Pink

Ruth Marcus’ column in today’s Washington Post epitomizes the need for efforts such as those undertaken by the National Women’s Editorial Forum. Women as a whole really lose out when there aren’t female voices in the editorial pages…or on the campaign trail.

Marcus’ column is on Hilary Clinton, Pretty Formidable in Pink, but I think her take on even writing about candidate Clinton speaks to why sometimes a dearth of women’s editorial voices means that if there’s only one woman on an editorial board it can mean, by default, you get to write the “women issues” while men get to write about everything else.

But as a columnist who happens to be a woman -- you may have noticed, there aren't too many of us -- I understand what [Elizabeth] Edwards means. In fact, I initially resisted writing about her comments, reluctant to be pigeonholed as a "woman columnist" and not taken seriously by the Big Boys.

There was some anger directed at the Post over a fashion column last week by Robin Givhan which focused solely on Hilary Clinton’s cleavage. Ms. magazine even sent out an e-mail asking people to write to the Post:

Women politicians' clothes, hairdos, weight, and other physical characteristics have been the obsessive focus of journalists ever since women first began holding public office in this country. We've had it!

Let the Washington Post know that sexist coverage of Hillary Clinton or any women politician is unacceptable.

Without a concerted effort to call attention to their coverage major media organizations won’t even be aware how they treat women politicians and women voters’ concerns differently from men’s. When editorial boards should beging to show a more equitable balance between men and women (instead of a sometimes token one or two). Its not enough diversity to have one token female voice on an editorial board (or a news room or a campaign bus or a cable TV show) to provide a “woman’s perspective” on femaleness and politics. Such lack of diversity can end up limiting the sole female voice to a virtual ghetto, deigned only fit to comment on supposed female-centric topics. Women make up 50 percent of the planet and there’s no reason we can take up 50 percent of an editorial board either.

--- Rachel Joy Larris

YouTube Debate: Men Ask the Questions

Last night, the Democratic presidential candidates faced off in a forum that featured questions submitted by regular folks, in video format, via YouTube.

A few days ago we urged women to submit questions to YouTube for the debate because the numbers of women-submitted questions was pitifully low. (If you missed the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate last night it can be found here on YouTube.)

I don't know whether YouTube received a last-minute rush of submissions by women, nor do I have a count of the final tally of the submitted videos broken down by the ratio of men versus women.

But I do have the number of questions CNN picked that featured women: eleven. Out of the 42 viewer-submitted videos aired by CNN, 30 featured men speaking and only 12 featured women. (There were 39 questions but one question, #33 showed four clips, two women and two men.)

The questions women were shown asking: question #7 on race and class being a factor in the Katrina disaster, #9 on gay marriage, #13 a mother asking how many soldiers have to die in Iraq, #19 a young woman asking the candidates to name their favorite teacher, #22 a Planned Parenthood worker from Pennsylvania asking whether the candidates talk to their kids about sex, #25 about energy consumption by the U.S., #27 about whether they would work for minimum wage, #29 a quick one on paying Social Security to those earning over $97,500, #33 featuring two women and two men asking health care-related questions and, lastly, #34 a woman asking, she said, on behalf of "friends," about whether their health care plans would include undocumented workers.

Among the 28 video questions posed by men were three that focused specifically on women. In question #8 a man asks Obama and Clinton to comment about being asked if they are black enough or female enough. In question #15 a man asked if the candidates felt a woman should have to register for the draft when she turns 18.

Question #16 shows a man serving in the military asking Senator Hillary Clinton whether she would be taken seriously by the leaders of Arab and Muslim nations. I transcribed the man's video in full. Here is the text of his question:

Hello, my name is John McAlperin. I'm a proud member of the United States military and I'm serving overseas. This question is to Senator Hillary Clinton: The Arab states and Muslim nations believe [in] women as being second-class citizens. If you're president of the United States, how do you feel that you would even be taken seriously by these states in any kind of talks negotiations or any other diplomatic relations?

I feel that's a legitimate question.

I wonder why CNN picked this question. It's not as if nations other than ours -- even Muslim nations -- have never had a female head of state. Pakistan had a woman prime minister as did the Muslim nation of Bangladesh. India, home to one of the world's largest Muslim populations, just elected its first woman president. (In the mid-20th century, Indian politics was dominated by the figure of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.)

UPDATE: Jennifer L. Pozner on WIMN’s Voices offers her take on the debate formatting, particularly the example of Stephanie Mackley, the woman who posed a question about energy policy to the candidates from her bathroom.

---Rachel Joy Larris

Minimum Wage Raise Is No Worry For Business
By Lya Sorano

In Georgia, one of the reddest of the "Red States," one might expect an almost universal denouncement of the raise in the minimum wage. In fact, the opposite is true.

Business owners and managers I've spoken with aren't concerned. They're glad the minimum wage is going up because workers deserve it, and they believe it will help our local economy.

The $5.15 minimum wage has been in effect for a decade -- the longest period without a raise since the minimum was established in 1938. Georgians covered by the federal minimum wage saw their hourly pay rise to $5.85, on July 24, 2007. It will increase to $6.55 on July 24, 2008 and $7.25 on July 24, 2009.

Those increases are lower than they seem. The minimum wage has lagged so far behind inflation that even at $7.25 the minimum wage will still be lower than it was in 1956 when it was $7.65 in today's dollars.

Tony McBride, general manager of Cracker Barrel on Highway 53 in Braselton, said his employees who are not servers are paid "well above the minimum wage." He added, "We start them at $8.00 an hour."

Theresa Meadows, general manager of Jeffrey's Sports Grille in Braselton, says their employees are paid minimum wage during training, "but that is only 20 hours" before they get a raise.

BB Webb, owner of Carl House in Auburn, believes a minimum wage increase is one of the changing economic conditions business owners need to build into their business plans. Absorbing a minimum wage increase, she said, is "just a part of being a good citizen." And a good businessperson. Webb says the raise will have a positive effect on the local economy, which would be especially beneficial for businesses serving lower-income markets "because their customers would have more money to spend."

States that have already raised their minimum wages above the $5.15 federal level have had better employment and small business trends than the other states, according to reports by the Fiscal Policy Institute and other research organizations.

According to Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, "Higher wages benefit business by increasing consumer purchasing power, reducing costly employee turnover, raising productivity, and improving product quality, customer satisfaction and company reputation.”

"A fair minimum wage is a sound investment in the future of our communities and our nation," concludes the statement, which I endorsed at Business For a Fair Minimum Wage along with hundreds of businesspeople nationwide, including the owners of many Georgia businesses including Morning Glory Farm in Clermont, North Georgia Woodworks in Toccoa, and Sugar Magnolia B&B, Flyer Candy Bars, Simply Web and Grand Central Pizza in Atlanta.

Georgia's poverty rate is higher than most other states. A minimum wage that keeps workers in poverty hurts our communities and our state.

Our elected officials should raise the state minimum wage above its meager $5.15 level so that all workers, whether covered by state or federal law, get a long overdue raise.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lya Sorano is the founder of Atlanta Women in Business and chief executive of the Oliver/Sorano Group, a marketing and public relations firm.

This article has also run in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Turning Down The Heat On Abortion Clinic Protests

By Gloria Feldt

(Click here to listen to a Public Service Announcement distributed by American Forum on how the locality of abortion clinics puts them at a higher risk to violence and harassment.)

It’s the sweltering heat of summer. We can count on seeing ads for escapes to the beach, reminders to wear sunscreen, and the extreme anti-reproductive rights, homophobic Operation Save America's annual attempt to turn up the political heat by mounting a media-circus demonstration at a high-profile women's health center that provides abortions. This summer from July 14 to 22, the target-of-choice is the New Woman, Every Woman Healthcare Clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.

If the location and clinic name ring a bell, there’s good reason. In 1998, Eric Robert Rudolf detonated a firebomb of dynamite and nails at the clinic’s front door, killing police officer Robert “Sandy” Sanderson on his beat and seriously wounding clinic nurse Emily Lyons. In addition to sustaining first, second, and third degree burns covering the front of her body, Lyons lost her left eye and her right was seriously damaged. A hole the size of a fist was blown in her abdomen and her left leg was shattered—just for starters.

There's something else we can count on too during these heated summer encounters. The doctors and women's health groups subject to these demonstrations, along with their allies in pro-choice organizations such as NOW and the Feminist Majority that flock to defend women from OSA's intimidating harassment, will be joined together with their adversaries in the Kabuki theater of irreconcilable opposites locked into predictable but intractable battles. The only way to stop the Kabuki dance that resolves nothing is for the community around all of these players to decide enough, stop, we're changing the story. Three groups bear a special responsibility to cool things down.

Community leaders of good conscience, regardless of where they stand on the abortion issue, must see themselves as part of the story, whether they want to be or not. It is they who must set the standard for what constitutes freedom of speech versus what constitutes harassment, intimidation, possible incitement to violence, and definite interference with providing and receiving health care services. Do not accept these demonstrations as just normal free speech because they are most certainly not, neither in intent nor practice. Give groups like OSA their platforms for expression to be sure, but not at a location where women can be hurt—and especially not a place where their own allies have killed and maimed in the past.

Every city council should pass two resolutions: one to set a tone of civility and the other to establish alternate ways for dissenters (and they are dissenters—fully two-thirds of Americans want abortion to remain legal and safe) to express themselves away from the health care facility. And there must be zero tolerance for violence against the women, the doctors and other staff, or the facilities. That’s terrorism, plain and simple. Name it and confront it.

Clergy, regardless of where they stand on abortion, must join hands preemptively, before the demonstrations start, and declare their own open microphone day to decry violence and intimidation of women. Pro-choice clergy have an especially important role to publicly support the women who are making decisions they believe as fervently are moral and responsible ones as their detractors scream are otherwise. Pro-choice people of faith need to create a supportive welcome to the women and courageous staff and volunteers by their public words and deeds.

Clinics are vulnerable to violence and harassment precisely because they are isolated from the rest of medical practice. And how ironic it is that these very same clinics are so often women’s main source of medical care, in particular family planning services that prevent unintended pregnancy and abortion. So the medical community has a role to play too. Abortion should be defined and practiced as part of women's health care, and that would in itself diffuse much of the confrontation.

It’s the heat of summer. Time to go to the beach slathered in sunscreen. Time to take a new look at an old story and cool down the script so that our passion can be spent not on fighting intractable battles but on assuring that women have the health care, information, and social supports to make their own childbearing decisions without fear.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Gloria Feldt is the author of The War on Choice: the Right-wing Attack on Women’s Rights and How to Fight Back and former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She frequently lectures on the history and future vision for reproductive rights, health, and justice.

Supreme Court Decision Jeopardizes Pay Equality

By Lisa Grafstein

You get your first paycheck at a new job and, not one to be shy, you ask the coworker in the next cubicle how much he makes. It turns out you are making fifty cents less per hour doing the same work. Do you literally make a federal case out of it? Under the Supreme Court’s decision this term in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire, maybe you should. If you don’t, you may be forever barred from claiming pay discrimination, no matter how much you may have lost in wages over time.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Using Title VII, employees may challenge workplace discrimination, including pay discrimination. Since the Supreme Court’s 1986 unanimous decision in Bazemore v. Friday, it was understood that pay discrimination occurs each time an employee receives a paycheck that reflects a discriminatory pay structure. In Bazemore, employees brought race discrimination claims based on pay disparities that had begun before the enactment of Title VII, and continued after the enactment. The Court rejected the argument that the plaintiffs could not sue because the discrimination began before Title VII because “[e]ach week's paycheck that delivers less to a black than to a similarly situated white is a wrong actionable under Title VII.” The “paycheck rule” recognized that pay discrimination is not a single, distinct act like a firing or refusal to hire; rather, it is often hidden and cumulative.

In the 5-4 Ledbetter decision, the Court rejected the ‘paycheck rule’ and determined that a case for pay discrimination under Title VII must be brought within 180 days of the discriminatory pay decision. In Ms. Ledbetter’s case, that meant that the pay discrimination she was unaware of during the first 18 years of her employment, and that resulted in her eventually making about 75 percent of what her male coworkers made, would not be remedied, even though it affected her pay every week.

After Ledbetter, Title VII no longer provides a real remedy for pay discrimination. Even when an employee discovers discrimination in time, small pay differentials would rarely be enough to cause her to take action. As Justice Ginsberg stated in her dissent, “[s]mall initial discrepancies may not be seen as meet for a federal case, particularly when the employee, trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment, is averse to making waves.” Yet, even minor disparities will increase exponentially over time. By the time the difference is significant, the time for pursuing a remedy will have passed.

We all know the statistic that women make 70 cents for every $1 a man makes. What makes this statistic hard for many of us to understand is that we simply do not believe that an employer would start two employees out on the same job at such disparate wages. The reality is that the gender gap in pay—for individuals or women as a group—was not created overnight; it is the result of incremental, compounded differences over time.

The Court has imposed an unrealistic interpretation of Title VII. If the Supreme Court is unwilling to interpret Title VII in the context of the real workplace, Congress must take steps to correct the Court’s unworkable interpretation. Some members of Congress have vowed to repair the loophole the Supreme Court has created in Title VII, and undo the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the statute.

As Justice Ginsberg noted in her dissent: “Once again, the ball is in Congress’ court.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grafstein is a private practice attorney in Raleigh.