Happy International Women’s Day! A Blog Carnival Calling All Women to Send a Message of Strength

[This post originally appeared on the MomsRising.org blog carnival]

by Anika Rahman

Happy International Women’s Day, and welcome to the first #callingallwomen blog carnival. This March – Women’s History Month – 25 women’s funds from across the U.S. are uniting to promote solutions to the critical issues that women face.

Against the backdrop of an intensified war on women, the “Calling All Women: Send a Message of Strength” campaign is raising awareness of the inequality that exists and highlighting the change that women’s organizations are advancing in communities around the country. The campaign is encouraging women to “Sound Off” about the issues that matter most in their lives.



As this video demonstrates, equality for women has not yet been fully realized in 2012. With women still earning only 77 percent of men’s pay – and disparities in access to health care and education pervasive, we cannot afford to take any steps backward. Yet, some politicians are openly supporting a reversal of women’s rights – from attempts to deny us access to contraception to deeming us unfit for military combat.

The Calling All Women campaign is spreading the message far and wide that women must harness our collective power for change. Together we can support creative solutions to injustice. We can transform the lives of women, families and communities nationwide.

Help us spread the word! Watch and share the video on our campaign’s website, and tell us which issue is most pressing in your life on our “Sound Off” blog. You can also help amplify our voices by following us and sharing posts on Twitter (#callingallwomen). And support Ms. Foundation for Women’s campaign by texting WOMEN to 50555 to donate $10 to fund women’s programs.

Our blog carnival features women’s personal experiences with inequality – and their optimism for a brighter future. Read more below about the positive change happening in your community, and mine.

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The Value of a Woman, Joy Rose
Rhode Island: We’ve Got Your Back for Paid Family Leave, Gayle Goldin
Women Voters and Voter ID, Faye Anderson
State-Sanctioned Shaming and the Battle for Reproductive Rights, Madeleine Gyory
Challenging Women’s Imprisonment in the United States, the World’s Top Jailer, Rachel Roth
Latte Factor: End Breastfeeding Discrimination, Genevieve Colvin
Barefoot and Pregnant: What This “War on Women” is Really About, Phoebe Taubman
We’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe: Women’s History Creates the Future, Gloria Feldt
Gloria Steinem Speaks Out on the War on Women, Rush Limbaugh, Angela Hill
Super Tuesday: It’s the Women’s Vote, Stupid!, Mona Gable
Has Political Discourse Hit Rock Bottom?, Andrew Rosenthal
When States Abuse Women, Nicholas Kristof

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Read more: http://callingallwomen2012.com/2012/02/26/blog-carnival/

Ms. Foundation Leads Coalition Launching Women’s History Month Campaign

Happy Women's History Month! Prompted by intensified attacks on women’s rights this election year, the Ms. Foundation for Women is leading a coalition of 25 women’s funds from across the country to increase attention to the issues affecting women and girls nationwide.

Throughout Women’s History Month, the “Calling All Women: Send a Message of Strength” campaign is raising awareness of the inequality that exists, highlighting the change that local and national women’s funds are advancing in communities around the country, and encouraging us all to stand together and support women nationwide.

Join us. Text WOMEN to 50555 to donate $10, which will be distributed to participating women’s funds. Watch and share the video on our campaign’s website, tell us which issue is most pressing in your life on our “Sound Off” blog, and join the conversation on Twitter #callingallwomen.

As our campaign video demonstrates, equality for women has not yet been fully realized in 2012. With women still earning only 77 percent of men’s pay and disparities in access to health care and education pervasive, we cannot afford to take any steps backward.

Your support of the Calling All Women campaign this Women’s History Month will help us make inequality a thing of the past. Together, we can send a message of strength!

Ms. Foundation Launches Fellowship Program

The Ms. Foundation is launching a new fellowship program!

We’re seeking leaders who are advancing solutions to the critical issues that women face. One dynamic leader will be chosen to develop their approach, while leveraging the Ms. Foundation’s resources and support.

The Ms. Foundation is particularly interested in projects that demonstrate and inspire the potential for large-scale, structural change in the areas of child care (access to affordable care and improved working conditions for care providers), reproductive health or child sexual abuse.

The fellow will receive financial compensation and health benefits, in addition to mentorship and support from Ms. Foundation staff. The fellowship is a full-time, one-year commitment, beginning Sept. 4 at the Ms. Foundation offices in New York. The fellow will be eligible to apply for a $50,000 continuation grant upon completion of the fellowship.

Learn more about the fellowship and begin your application! Applications must be submitted by April 30.

Call For Papers on "Social Justice Feminism"

Anika Rahman, President and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, will be the keynote speaker at the University of Cincinnati College of Law's upcoming 2012 conference, “Social Justice Feminism.” 

The conference is not until October, but abstracts and panel proposals are due on April 1st. So start your brainstorming, and make sure your voice is heard on this incredibly important topic. 

_________________

Call for Papers

“Social Justice Feminism”

University of Cincinnati College of Law

October 26-27, 2012

Keynote Speakers

Patricia Hill Collins, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland; Charles Phelps Taft Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Cincinnati

Anika Rahman, President and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women

The University of Cincinnati College of Law’s Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice seeks submissions for its upcoming 2012 conference “Social Justice Feminism.” For more information about the conference, please click here.

What is Social Justice Feminism? It is the type of work feminist activists on the ground say that they want to do. This desire for “social justice feminism” (SJF) emerged from a three-years’ long conversation among women leaders from national groups, grassroots organizations, academia, and beyond (the New Women’s Movement Initiative) who gathered to address dissonance in the women’s movement, particularly dissatisfaction with the movement’s emphasis on women privileged on account of their race, class, or sexuality. In 2010, Kristin Kalsem and Verna L. Williams of the University of Cincinnati College of Law published an article, “Social Justice Feminism,” that takes initial steps at broadly defining SJF as that which is productive, constructive, and healing. Moving from practice to theory, it suggests a new way of articulating and understanding the feminist work that is being done in this current stage of feminist jurisprudence, after the path-breaking interventions of anti-essentialism and intersectionality. The article also sets forth methodological tools for “doing social justice feminism.” 

“Social Justice Feminism” was written to advance the conversation that has already begun, both in the world of practice as evidenced by the work of the New Women’s Movement Initiative, as well as the world of feminist legal theory. To download a copy of the article click here. The upcoming conference is intended to continue and expand the conversation. We are seeking papers from academics who are interested in practice and activists who are interested in theory. Possible panels include: 

• A social justice feminist approach to women and prison 
• Critical Race Feminism and SJF
• The intersections of SJF and environmental justice
• History and reproductive justice
• New approaches to domestic violence activism
• SJF and criminal justice 

Deadline: April 1, 2012. We invite submissions of abstracts for individual papers, as well as complete panels. Send paper abstracts of no more that 500 words and a short biographical statement to lawsonmn@ucmail.uc.edu. In the subject or “re” line of your submission, please type: SJF conference submission. Include your full contact information, including an email, phone number, and mailing address where you can be reached. We will notify presenters of selected papers by June 1, 2012.

We look forward to your submissions. If you have any questions, please contact Professor Kristin Kalsem at kristin.kalsem@uc.edu

Guest Blog: Affordable Child Care Yields Social and Economic Benefits

Ms. Foundation for Women grantee All Our Kin authored this guest blog post about the substantial economic and community benefits of access to reliable, high-quality child care. Please join All Our Kin Jan. 19 at 9 a.m. at the Yale Club of New York City for a presentation and discussion of the University of Connecticut’s study on the economic impact of child care. Click here for more information and an event flyer.

By Shannon Hill, All Our Kin

Recently, in an interview with Melinda Henneberger, Nancy Pelosi remarked that next on her agenda is “the mother of all women’s issues: child care.” She lamented that she had never been able to find a babysitter, and that everywhere she goes women are talking about how hard it is find the kind of reliable care that would enable them to be more productive workers. When it comes to “unleashing women” in a way that would boost the economy, Pelosi said, “[child care] is the missing link.”

According to a new study conducted by the University of Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, Pelosi is absolutely correct - investing in early childhood care and education is the missing link. It not only supports women who need access to child care in order to work, but creates jobs for women, who constitute the majority of child care providers in the United States.

The University of Connecticut study looked at an innovative child care licensing initiative implemented by Connecticut-based nonprofit All Our Kin. All Our Kin’s Tool Kit Licensing Program helps family child care providers become licensed and empowers them with the resources and skills they need to run a successful small business and provide high-quality child care.

By increasing the availability of flexible, affordable, high-quality child care, the program enables more low-income parents to work; the study estimates that for every child care provider licensed through the program, four to five parents entered the workforce.

It also increases the earning potential and quality of life for family child care providers. Sixty percent of family child care providers who became licensed through the program earned $5,000 more the first year after getting licensed, and forty-five percent of providers earned at least $10,000 more the second year. Fifty-five percent of providers used their increased income to pay down debt, forty-two percent opened a savings account, thirty-one percent moved to a larger apartment or house, and twenty-four percent bought or leased a car. Moreover, fifty percent of the child care providers went on to achieve either an Associate’s Degree in Early Childhood Education or a Child Development Associate credential.

Through its impacts on both providers and parents, the Tool Kit Licensing program generated $18.4 million in additional tax revenue and $15.2 million in gross regional product (GRP) between 2006 and 2009.

In total, the University of Connecticut study found that for every $1 spent on the Tool Kit Licensing Program, $15-20 are returned to the economy in terms of gross regional product (GRP).

That is a significant economic impact, and the findings reify something many feminists have long known: that child care is a job issue, a matter of economic justice.

Lack of access to reliable, high-quality child care makes it more difficult for parents – especially mothers - to hold or find jobs, particularly when the jobs they have or need are during nonstandard hours (forty percent of Americans work some form of nonstandard hours). And the high cost of child care, coupled with the fact that many parents have lost their child care subsidies due to state funding cuts, means that many parents cannot afford child care while they look for work or work low-wage jobs.

But parents shouldn’t have to choose between the economic survival of their family, and the safe, healthy development of their children.

It is critical that economic development and recovery plans, which have focused heavily on male-dominated industries such as construction and banking, include women and children. It is critical that these plans include family child care providers, not just because family child care providers care for the majority of our most vulnerable infants and toddlers, but because investing in them gives parents the support they need to work and has the potential to boost our economy.

It also provides our children, the workforce of tomorrow, with the educational foundation they need to succeed in school and in life. Children in high-quality early childhood education programs are less likely to be held back, drop out of school, go on welfare or commit crime. According to studies, every dollar invested in early childhood education today saves the public eight dollars later.

When that figure is combined with the immediate economic impact, it is easy to see that investing in our children, and the women who teach and care for them, really is the best of investments: the social benefits are enormous and the economic return rate is high – both today and for years to come.

Guest Blog: And the Award Goes to…The ‘Help’ Today

By Meches Rosales

Today, I join thousands of domestic workers, children and parents in congratulating actresses Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer for their Golden Globe and SAG nominations. I hope these talented women understand the powerful impact their creative work is having on domestic workers across the nation and the families who employ us.

I am a proud domestic worker, originally from Guatemala. In my seven years as a nanny, and even before then in my home country, I have witnessed and experienced for myself the harsh treatment and exploitation that domestic workers often endure. We are isolated, mostly working by ourselves behind closed doors. We are the invisible ones who make it possible for our employers to go to work and enjoy leisure time. We care for the most important elements of our employers’ lives.

Most of the time when we see ourselves on the big screen or on TV, domestic workers are just as invisible and one-dimensional as society believes us to be. “The Help” offered a surprisingly different take.

The move is based on Kathryn Stockett’s book about African American domestic workers and the white homes of 1960s Mississippi in which they toil. We meet Aibileen Clark, a domestic worker, who mourns the death of her son every day and pours her love into the white child she takes care of, as she’s done with 16 other children. We meet Minny, Aibileen’s friend, known for her outspokenness, who often faces the wrath of the white ladies for telling it like it is. We meet Skeeter, a young white woman pursuing a writing career, who befriends Aibileen and Minny. Together, the three set out to document the oral histories and some of the indignities that African American domestic workers suffered in places like Jackson, Mississippi.

Much of “The Help” resonated with my own experience as a nanny in the U.S. I deeply felt the pain of many of the domestic worker characters, from the loss and suffering that comes from not being able to be with their own loved ones while they care for someone else’s loved ones, to feeling powerless.

I’ve listened to my sisters with an open heart, feeling impotent, frustrated, and angry that we are often forced to stay in bad jobs and face racism and discrimination and mistreatment. The same fear that the characters experience is not unlike what many of us feel today. The experience of African American women in the Jim Crow South repeats itself for many immigrant women of color in today’s right-wing, anti-immigrant climate.

Their organizing and activism also resonated with me, the drive to want to do something to change our conditions—not just for ourselves as individuals but for the whole group. When the African American workers in the film had the courage to share and document their life stories, it was as much an act of resistance and breaking the silence as it is today when domestic workers from New York to California organize for power, respect, and the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Our stories need to be told. We are the only ones who can make change happen. This is why we organize.

Long History of Our Struggle

For me, as a member of Domestic Workers United, showing the long history of struggle was also critical. Aibileen and her sisters were contemporaries of Rosa Parks and Medger Evers. In our political education classes at DWU, we discuss the important role that domestic workers played in the civil rights movement. Everyone needs to know that history. We must hold our heads up high because the work we do is dignified and because we are standing on the shoulders of the freedom fighters who came before us and paved the way.

Last year DWU saw the fulfillment of our historic six-year campaign to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in New York state. The only law of its kind in the U.S., it brought domestic workers out of the shadows by guaranteeing us the rights and protections we have long been denied, like overtime pay after 40 hours, workers’ compensation, and a guaranteed day off each week.

The history portrayed in “The Help” might seem like a long time ago, but we have only just started to reverse the legacy of exclusion and discrimination. New York was the first step. Next is California. Before long, we will be in more states, and then in the nation’s capital.

Entire families should see this movie and discuss it, especially those who employ domestic workers. It’s important for them to understand some of what we experience and what we feel, so that they can begin to recognize the invaluable contributions we make and the great care we bring to the work.

Like the partnership between Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter, and the diverse coalition that made the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights a reality, it’s going to take all of us to change the way that domestic work and the people who perform it are treated in our society.

I walked away from “The Help” feeling seen and proud and more committed than ever not to stay silent and to keep working to build the power of domestic workers and all workers.

Last week we launched the #BeTheHelp campaign to help other viewers of “The Help” learn how they can help create respect for domestic workers. Join us and #bethehelp we need at www.domesticworkers.org.

Meches Rosales lives in New York and joined Domestic Workers United -- a Ms. Foundation for Women grantee -- in 2010. A version of this blog was originally published as “The Help Today” at www.labornotes.org on September 1, 2011. Translated from Spanish by Telesh Lopez.

Reproductive Rights Are Human Rights

Saturday was Human Rights Day, an opportunity for us to reflect on the most basic of human rights – reproductive rights. The ability to control what happens to our bodies entails more than just domain over who may touch our bodies and when. Human rights, by their very nature, dictate that women have complete control over their own fertility.

Unfortunately, this year’s acknowledgement of Human Rights Day follows the announcement that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius torpedoed the FDA’s decision to lift the age restrictions on Plan-B One Step.

Despite scientific evidence in favor of lifting the restrictions, young women 16 and younger will continue to need a prescription to purchase emergency contraception. Many will not get the prescription, because their primary care physician is closed on the weekend. Or because they don’t have a doctor at all. Or because it’s not safe for them to admit to their parents that they are sexually active. Their pregnancies will be among the 50 percent that are unplanned.

It’s an unprecedented move; no health secretary has ever before overruled the FDA. At the end of a year in which a record number of anti-women’s health bills were introduced in states across the country, this latest setback throws salt in the wound of those who trust women to make decisions about their own bodies. And it disregards an important and fundamental human right.

The fight for reproductive justice is far from over. But with the Ms. Foundation’s support, grassroots organizations in communities across America are working toward a future in which women have access to the resources they need to make decisions about their bodies.