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Can't say how I missed it (except that sometimes Slate boooores me), but apparently the lady-folk over there (including a former classmate of mine) have taken to blogging: political blogging from the female perspective, to be precise. Now, there's lots of chatter out there that this bad, because it ghettoizes women, and that it's totally banal, because all these ladies have to talk about are their domestic travails. But I for one will cheer for The XX Factor, because it's nice--and important--to have more female voices out there, talking about whatever the hell they please.
And if you happen to need more on that particular topic, check out my mom's blog post today on the HuffPo. Rock on, CJ!!!!
God bless America! I have absolutely no excuse for going this long between posts, except to say that things here at work have been 100% mad, what with having to commemorate Domestic Violence Awareness Month and trying to keep up with the various other management related tasks here on the j-o-b. But still, no excuses, and no more laying off the blogging--I'm done with that, I swear.
So here's the thing I've not been able to get off my mind since this weekend (which now seems eons ago): did anyone else happen to check out the 100 Most Influential People in Sports list in Business Week? I did, and I have to say I'm not sure why they even BOTHERED to use the term "people"--because 95 out of the 100 individuals listed are MEN. The top ranking woman, in fact, comes in at an astounding 67th place (the CMO of Coke), followed by Maria Sharapova at 73, Heidi Ueberroth somewhere in there, one other lady whose name I can't recall, and finishing up, at the very bottom of this list of 100, with Donna Orender, head of the WNBA.
Now, if this list is in any way accurate (and there are some pretty good reasons to think it's a pile of junk), then every sports related company in this nation is pretty much ripe for a major EEOC complaint (or ten) to be filed against them. But it's not them I'm most steamed at. That women are underrepresented in the business of sports (and business leadership in general) isn't news--but what has lit me utterly on fire is that a publication like Business Week would make ZERO effort to try to diversify this list in any way--by reaching out to unlikely candidates, or by making some kind--any kind!--of gesture that would indicate that they realize there is something seriously awry with a list that makes it seem as if women make little to no contribution to the world of sports, in business or on that proverbial field.
Total yuck, my friends. If I had a subscription, I'd cancel it for sure.
Would that Fox Sports columnist Michael Rosenberg were right: In light of yesterday's revelation that Isiah Thomas is guilty of sexually harassing former colleague Anucha Browne Sanders, Rosenberg is betting on--and calling on--NBA commish David Stern to take action against the not-yet-disgraced-enough-for-my-taste Knicks head coach. It's clear enough to everyone who's ever read anything about Madison Square Garden chief James Dolan that he will do nothing to punish Thomas for his bad behavior... which leaves us with Stern, who has the opportunity, and hopefully the will, to make it clear that the NBA will not tolerate such behavior.
If Stern can indeed step forward and make the call, and force Thomas to ride the bench for a few games (if not indefinitely), then we might be able to say there is some version of justice in the world of professional sport. But if he can't (and I for one am not sure that he can or will), then... well, let's just say I won't be supporting the NBA very much at all, in print or in person. Hopefully, though, Stern takes a page from football chief Roger Goodell's book, and sticks to a hard line on what's kosher and what's not when you work for his league.
Remarkable article from the Media Consortium's Brian Beutler (via AlterNet) on worker abuses in the Gulf Region in the wake of Katrina. Anyone who thinks the effects of the Hurricane are ancient history has another thing coming, and what this article makes clear is how yet another version of the Bush Administration's policy of neglect has helped workers (read: poor people) get screwed again--even as they try to help rebuild.
Is Dan Rather so piqued by his lack of a career these days that he's got nothing better to do than bash Katie Couric? Yesterday on MSNBC the veteran deposed news anchor gave Couric a tongue lashing for sullying the evening news by, in his estimation, "dumbing it down" and "tarting it up."
Mostly, this is just embarrassing for Dan, who, before engineering his own demise, really was a trusted name in journalism. Now, he's just another old man throwing around sexist remarks at a woman who could be his daughter and probably makes four times what he ever did in that spot. (Even CBS chief Les Moonves saw sexism in what Rather said.)
Sad, really. Very sad. Not that I don't agree with the idea that television news has slid, perhaps inexorably, into the tabloid genre--but it just seems so tasteless for one anchor to say these kind of trashy things about another. Or perhaps Rather is our proof that, even though we couldn't see it, television has been trashy all along.
Further to my last post, check out Andrea Otanez's opinion piece from yesterday's Seattle Times (via the Women's Media Center). I'd say it's not just a turning tide, but a tidal wave of opposition to women's voices and issues we're witnessing--but whatever your metaphor of choice, this piece gives some good food for thought... and a touch of hope.
Today was Take Our Daughters and Sons to work day, so, as part of the j-o-b, I was up and at 'em for 6:30 am press event and didn't wrap up the day until about 12 hours later. It was exhilarating and exhausting, and I'm glad it's over--but mostly just wanted to share by way of explanation of why I haven't posted until now and why this one is gonna be short. More tomorrow... time for me to curl up and drift away.
So I know we're on issue two of TIME magazine's new redesign, but since I hadn't paused to take note of it when it hit the stands two weeks ago, I thought I'd stop now to point out something I've noticed about the new layout--which, generally speaking, I love. But here's a funny thing that's caught my eye: as part of this redesign, TIME's decided to run cute black and white images of their columnists and staff writers next to their articles. This is great, because, gosh, I always wondered what Lev Grossman looks like. The thing about having all these photos up there, though, is that it makes something pretty damn clear: TIME's got a woman problem.
In this week's issue, I spot one and only one picture of a woman writer (staff writer Lisa Takeuchi Cullen). And if you leaf through the magazine you will note that only an embarrassingly small number of bylined articles overall are written by women. This is no shocker--it's a trend that's happening all over the media. Folks at TIME know they have a problem: a few years ago I had lunch with an editor at the magazine who acknowledged as much without any prompting. But given how stark the disparity is between the numbers of male and female writers at the magazine, one can't help but wonder why the powers that be would choose to underline--no, broadcast--that disparity visually. Did they think no one would notice?
Umm, actually, that's probably exactly what they thought. Because, by my guess, the powers that be didn't notice it themselves. I'm betting that when John Huey, James Kelly and Richard Stengel looked at those shining photographs of their writers, they didn't think, "Hey, they all look pretty much like us--and that's a problem." (I'm not even going to start on the lack of racial diversity here.) They probably thought about a million other things having to do with circulation, ad sales, and maintaining the magazine's esteem in a competitive marketplace--but these issues of who is actually writing the content of the magazine, that group's lack of diversity, and what displaying that lack quite prominently might say to a diverse world audience... well, apparently that part didn't quite catch them as being a big deal. To me, it is.
That said, I'm not sorry they've done it. My hope is that enough people we see the faces behind the bylines and begin to wonder why they don't look more like their own. And then maybe they will start blogging about it, and writing letters, and making phone calls--until one day we'll all be able to say of the faces peering out of the magazine, "Hey, they look a lot like us, too."
Couldn't really call myself much of a feminist if I didn't report to you that the ERA (that's the Equal Rights Amendment, folks) has been reintroduced in both the House and Senate--this time under a new, feistier name: the Women's Equality Amendment. Democrats are hoping that the changing winds in congress will finally allow for passage of the bill, which, we learn via Women's eNews, "was first unveiled in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1923 at the 75th anniversary of the 1848 Women's Rights Convention." The bill passed Congress (as some of you may remember from your women's studies classes) in 1972--but died after it was unable to achieve ratification by three-quarters of the states a decade later.
It should be pretty interesting to see whether the Dems are right and this year proves to be the one where we get our house in order. I, myself, am not so sure it will happen. I think there may be, among too many young, female constituents, a feeling that this was their mother's bill to win; I worry, too, that it may be very easy for the opposition to cite the many gains that women have racked up over the years and argue that the bill is therefore passe. They may be absolutely deluded, but I fear their counter may be seductive enough to take the wind out of the sails of this one. I really, really hope I'm wrong, though.
Kudos to Alicia Shepard for addressing the fact that women in the media get short-shrift all around: from representation on panels, to bylines, to story sourcing, to the subjects of stories themselves, the number of female faces you'll see has absolutely no correlation to our numbers in the actual world--or even in the behind the scenes in the media. It's a problem that simply won't budge until we have more women in the executive ranks and behind the money in the media. When the day comes that there are as many women signing paychecks (and I mean, ALL the paychecks) as there are men, then we'll have a better shot at seeing something that looks like reality on the page, stage and set. Makes a lady leader want to head to business school, doesn't it?
Kudos to Newsweek for not only tackling one of the many hidden results of this War of Terror--our tens of thousands of wounded Vets--but for also putting a wounded female soldier on their cover. If you read the whole article, you get a better sense of what this war is going to mean for us here at home for a generation or more; plus, it leaves you with the bitter taste of outrage at how poorly we're treating folks who put their lives on the line to defend the freedoms we're all so used to taking advantage of. Despicable. Really.
That's an old truism from writer Ursula K. Le Guin, and it still holds its water today, irritatingly enough. On the CBC News site, Heather Mallick writes of her frustration with Harper's Magazine, which still seems to be publishing entire issues with nary a byline from a woman in sight. It's infuriating, and it simply is not enough for these male publishers to keep claiming that they are just publishing the "best" writing--irrespective of gender (or race or class). We ought to be holding them to a higher standard, given that we (women) make up MORE THAN 50% of the total US population. By what measure does that make us a minority, a pocket of the population these guys can continue to ignore? The Women's Media Center has been working on this issue for over a year, alongside operations like SheSource and WIMN. It'll be great to finally see them get some traction, but in the meantime I think it is up to us, as individuals, to do what Mallick did and start writing letters demanding we see more women in print (and on air). Like my mother said this weekend: The media belongs to us.
Via the Yale ELIne newsletter we learn that C. Megan Urry has been named Chair of the Physics Department at that little school in Connecticut. This makes her "the first woman to chair the physics department at Yale and the only female physics chair in the Ivy League." Urry's specialty? Researching super-massive black holes. Take that, Larry Summers.
After 123 years of play, the powers that be at Wimbledon have finally agreed that women deserve pay that is equal to that of their male counterparts: Starting with the 2007 event, female and male competitors receive equal payment at every stage of the tourney. This brings Wimbledon on par with both the US Open and the Australian, which have been matching dollars for a few years now. Of the Grand Slam titles, now only the French Open remains somewhat in dark ages: they match money at the championship level, but tilt the playing field in favor of the men throughout the rest of the tournament. I wonder if this new development means Amelie Mauresmo can sue retroactively for the $600,000 difference between her winnings at Wimbledon last year and co-champion Roger Federer's??
Washington Post scribe Lois Romano writes of the realities behind being a Congresswoman and a mother of young children. Apparently of the record 87 women now in Congress, only a handful are actually faced with the balancing act of raising kidlings while also raising their profiles on the floor. And yes, there are plenty of Congressmen who are able to manage a family and a vibrant political career-- but they have wives to deal with the kids, remember?
Wal-Mart--the superstore with the lowest prices on earth, where everybody (yes, everybody) has shopped at least once and wondered how in the world these items could be SO CHEAP--has just gotten a kick in the pants from the legal system. On Feb 6th, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the District Court's certification of the largest class in American history, which has now grown to include 2 million women workers at Wal-Mart.
What's all the fuss about? Well, the suit claims that Wal-Mart discriminates against women in pay and promotions. If the plaintiffs win, Wal-Mart might actually be forced to pay and promote its female workers at a rate similar to that at which it pays and promotes its male workers. (Genius.) But be prepared for Wal-Mart to fight back--months, if not years, of appeals are ahead.
You can read the official press advisory for a sound-bite version or you can take a little more time and read the full decision. Either way, it begins to get a lot clearer just how Wal-Mart is able to sell so much for so little. Like somebody's mama once said: ain't no such thing as a free ride, my friend.
Can't say how I missed it (except that sometimes Slate boooores me), but apparently the lady-folk over there (including a former classmate of mine) have taken to blogging: political blogging from the female perspective, to be precise. Now, there's lots of chatter out there that this bad, because it ghettoizes women, and that it's totally banal, because all these ladies have to talk about are their domestic travails. But I for one will cheer for The XX Factor, because it's nice--and important--to have more female voices out there, talking about whatever the hell they please.
