Focus on Women

Julia Bluhm is 14.  But already, she is making a difference in raising awareness of how the media negatively impacts girls’ perceptions of their bodies and consequently their own beauty.  How did she do this?  Julia started an online petition asking Seventeen magazine to publish at least a few photos per month in the magazine that are not modified with Photoshop.  Yesterday, she hand delivered 25,000 signatures to the editor of Seventeen, demonstrating that she’s not alone in thinking the media should show what women and girls really look like, instead of using altered images that distort our perceptions of what constitutes “beauty.”

http://jezebel.com/photoshop-of-horrors/

Violet Richardson Ward, Soroptimist’s first club president (circa 1921) probably would be horrified at the media images girls are exposed to these days.  But I know she’d be proud of Julia’s passion for awareness, advocacy and action.

I have long respected Ashley Judd for not only her talent as an actress, but also for being smart and inspiring.  Here’s the latest example–an op-ed piece she recently wrote for The Daily Beast.  In it she explains why she is tired of women’s bodies being used as the primary basis for judging their competence or worth.  She writes:

The Conversation about women happens everywhere, publicly and privately.  We are described and detailed, our faces and bodies analyzed and picked apart, our worth ascertained and ascribed based on the reduction of personhood to simply physical objectification.  Our voices, our personhood, our potential and our accomplishments are regularly minimized and muted….”

Judd states that she normally ignores media reports about her, but the focus on her allegedly “puffy face” went too far. “I choose to address it because the conversation was pointedly nasty, gendered and misogynistic, and embodies what all girls and women in our culture, to a greater or lesser degree, endure every day, in ways both outrageous and subtle.”

To read the full piece and respond to her call to action, click here:  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/09/ashley-judd-slaps-media-in-the-face-for-speculation-over-her-puffy-appearance.html

Let’s start a different kind of conversation–about why one’s appearance has become the most important element by which we are all (both men and women) judged, and what we can be doing to change that.

If you’ve ever wondered why Soroptimists are so committed to improving the lives of women and girls, let me boil it down for you.  We make a difference.  My club recently honored an amazing woman named Francina who is trying to live her dreams for economic empowerment by getting a college degree.  Not only is she raising her daughter as a single mother, she is raising her sister’s children, too.  Francina received a Soroptimist Women’s Opportunity Award on March 8.  Her thank you note to our club says it all.

I want to use this free time to express my heartfelt thank you.  I had a wonderful evening on Thursday, and it was a pleasure meeting all of you. Each of you are a role model to me because you do dedicate your lives to do what I want to be able to achieve in the future: that is helping and encouraging others. My nerves did not let my brain work as well as I would’ve wanted that evening, so I really couldn’t express how wonderful and how great it was to spend those hours with all of you.

I would like to add that my children were also very happy about the award. When I returned home and showed my daughter the award certificates, she ran inside to her room to bring the rest of the kids out while shouting:”You guys, my mommy got an award for being the best mom ever!”

They began celebrating too, and it got even crazier when I told her that I also got a check for one thousand dollars. She told everyone, “And guys, we are not poor anymore! My mommy got ONE THOUSAND dollars”. My nephews and her were jumping and giggling in celebration. I thought that was so funny that I wanted to share it with you.

Thursday’s dinner will remain in my heart for a long time. Thank you.

Francina

Love/Social and MissRepresentation.org have produced a wonderful and powerful video about the impact of media on girls.  Must see viewing for all girls–and their parents, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv5Z2Xv8iJU

And I am absolutely thrilled that Jennifer Siebel Newsom (the Director of the film “MissRepresentation” is going to be a keynote speaker at the SIA Convention in Hawaii–and that we’ll get a chance to watch a screening of MissRepresentation as one of the Convention workshops!!!

For more information about the SIA Convention and other workshops, visit www.soroptimist.org

For most of my career, I made more money than my husband.  That changed when I chose to quit my full-time job to concentrate on being SIA President for a year.  Today he still earns more than I do–although I am quickly catching up again.

A new book by Liza Mundy called The Richer Sex explores the impacts of a trend that is cutting across race, geography, and socioeconomic status–more and more women are the primary breadwinners for their families.  Although about 40 percent of working women out-earn their husbands today, that percentage is expected to grow in the future.  I plan to read the book, but in the meantime, here’s a link to a summary of some of the Mundy’s key findings, and the questions they raise for the changing role of women in society.

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/18/148677267/the-battle-of-the-sexes-when-women-out-earn-men

Happy International Women’s Day!

100 years after the celebration of the first International Women’s Day, we are starting to realize the benefits of ensuring that women and girls have access to education, health care, and basic human rights.  Here’s the link to a brilliant one-page summary documenting the benefits of investing in women on families, communities–the entire world:

http://www.womenforwomen.org/assets/files/invest-in-women.pdf

The facts speak for themselves.  So, tonight my Soroptimist club will celebrate International Women’s Day with a Live Your Dream Dinner.  As part of the celebration we will be using a Soroptimist Women’s Opportunity Award to invest in a woman who is trying to live her dream for economic and social empowerment by getting an education.

Women have come a long way in the last 100 years, but many are still struggling today.   How much are you willing to invest to change a woman’s life–and help her change the lives of those around her?

Just in time for International Women’s Day tomorrow, a great article from The Atlantic on “how far women have come in the world economy — and how far they still have to go, even in the U.S.”

Must reading for any of you who want to learn more about how different the experience of women in developing countries is from those of us living in the developed ones.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/the-spectacular-triumph-of-working-women-around-the-world/254063/

I am so infuriated by Rush Limbaugh’s offensive name-calling.  When Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke testified before Congress to protest attacks to limit women’s access to birth control, Rush Limbaugh called her a “slut” and a “prostitute.”   Actually, what he said was:

“What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute…She wants to be paid to have sex.  She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception.” 

And in response to the sudden backlash, Limbaugh not only wasn’t apologetic or contrite, he took things further by making additional offensive and inflammatory comments (which I decided not to include).

To me, this is not about whether you believe contraception is a good or a bad thing, or whether you believe contraception should be covered by employer health plans.  (Although it personally irked me that Viagra was covered by some insurance plans long before birth control pills were.)

This is about men thinking it is okay to call women derogatory names when they speak out about something.  For decades, women who have advocated for women’s rights have been called aggressive, pushy, strident, hormonal–and now this.

So I asked my husband (who agrees that Limbaugh has gone way too far) what the derogatory word is for a man who buys condoms because he wants to have lots of sex.  He looked at me for a moment and said, “I don’t think there is one.”

Bingo.

What do I call a man who calls a woman a prostitute?  “Misogynistic idiot” works for me.  If you want to add your voice to the chorus of people who are calling on Limbaugh’s advertisers to stop supporting his sexist attacks on women, you can sign an e-petition at this link:

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/limbaugh_ads/

Women’s History Month will begin on Thursday.  Sheheroes.org, an inspiring website featuring stories about extraordinary women from various careers, provides some excellent suggestions for celebrating it.  One of them is to talk to teachers at your local school to find out whether there are any lesson plans for Women’s History Month, and if not, to offer to do a program in partnership with the school.

Sadly, “most girls grow up knowing very little about the Women’s Suffrage movement, and what a long hard battle those women fought so we could simply step in a voting booth,” according to the site.  The good news is that we can do something about it.  After all, how can we expect children to celebrate Women’s History Month (and International Women’s Day on March 8), if we don’t celebrate it ourselves?

For more suggestions to raise awareness of the contributions of women this coming month, visit:

http://sheheroes.org/2012/02/7-ways-to-celebrate-women%E2%80%99s-history-month/

You go, girls!

Even though Japan’s economy is in decline, one important national resource for helping it improve continues to be untapped–the number of college-educated women.  Japanese women constitute nearly half of university graduates, but only 67% of them are employed, according to a recent report in time.com.  It’s not because they are staying home to raise children–the birthrate in Japan has also significantly declined.  So what is it that makes employment for Japanese women so difficult?  Why are they more likely to find a job in a foreign country than at home?

Find out here: http://www.genderacrossborders.com/2012/02/20/why-arent-women-in-japan-working/

http://ideas.time.com/2011/12/11/japans-working-woman-problem/