Politics: Women on the Move
May 3, 2009
by Amy Siskind
|This week The New Agenda was featured in Politico which described our organization as:
…a group dedicated to putting more women in high-level government positions.
Amen to that!
Here’s an update on a couple of female candidates that TNA is keeping an eye on: Meg Whitman and Leslie Crocker Snyder.
Meg Whitman
Meg Whitman is running for Governor of California. This week, Meg launched MEGaWOMEN, a website dedicated to women.
Here’s why MEGaWOMEN was formed:
California is home to 13 million adult women and more than 850,000 women-owned businesses. The Coalition provides dynamic women throughout California — Republicans, Democrats and independents — with a direct link to the campaign. eBay’s foundation was built on the power of many. By harnessing the energy, ideas, and inspiration of California women through her new coalition, MEGa WOMEN, Meg will restore greatness to the Golden State. Members of MEGa WOMEN believe in Meg’s inspiring vision, in her core values and in her unparalleled economic experience that, taken together, make her the most qualified candidate to solve the state’s enormous challenges.
The New Agenda applauds Meg Whitman for recognizing the importance of women as a constituency.
Leslie Crocker Snyder
We also noted an interested article in the NY Daily News about Leslie Crocker Snyder who is running for Manhattan DA. Leslie was also a panelist at our VAW Forum and when she spoke about how the media had already treated her in a sexist way, someone in the audience shouted “WE HAVE YOUR BACK!” (see video here).
The article is titled: Manhattan District Attorney candidate Leslie Crocker Snyder urges women voters to support her. In the article, Leslie boldly speaks out about what many of us already saws in the 2008 election (my emphasis added):
“Women simply don’t stand up enough for other women, and why – psychologically – I don’t know,” Snyder said on an online radio show Monday night, just days after Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, the only female citywide elected official, endorsed one of her opponents.
“Women claim they’ll support other women, but they don’t always do it. Women say they’ll donate money to women and they often are very cheap about it,” Snyder said. “They really haven’t mastered the whole concept of how important it is to have a network.”
Snyder, who wants to be Manhattan’s first female top prosecutor, said she doesn’t believe women should “blindly” support other women. “But, you know, the old boys’ club is out there. It’s extremely powerful,” she said.
“If we want to change things, women have to be willing to band together and stand up for what they believe in and elect other women.“
I say this to Leslie: YOU GO GIRL!!!
Meg Whitman has many admirable qualities, but she does not support gay marriage. As a Californian, I will be voting for a candidate who does–and we will probably have at least two or three such candidates to choose from.
“If we want to change things, women have to be willing to band together and stand up for what they believe in and elect other women.“
Amy, I want to let you know that I understand completely what your goal is for The New Agenda.
I just spent 12 days in Europe and for some of that time I stayed with two women friends in Madrid. They explained to me that it is a LAW in Spain for women to have 50% representation in government. 50%! My friend Angeles says she believes it is a little over 50% at this time in Spain, but it struck me when she said, it is the LAW.
Spain has universal health care, gay marriage is legal, abortion is legal with certain restrictions. These important issues which Americans call “socialist” are WOMEN’s issues. I believe that electing women is the goal we must strive for. Gay marriage is of course an important issue, but more important, we need women representation. Gay marriage will follow naturally.
Gale,
Women don’t get far because to many of us put everyone else first. We don’t stick together because we don’t think we deserve our rights to be front and center. We believe that every other group with a grievence should be made whole before us. One flaw in a famale candidate and it is women who are the most critical and first to reject her. Meantime, we accept sexist males of all races and sexual orientaions over a women with a single flaw. I am pro gay marrage, but I am sick of voting for sexist men who are pro everyone elses rights but women, whether they be gay rights, civil rights for minority races or something else. We just got a belly full of left wing misogyny during the presidential primaries and election. Some of the sexist things that came out of the mouths of male democratic elected officials was comparable to the racism of the 1950s. It was like the democratic party had become the women hating Klan.
And just in case you didn’t know, President Obama is against gay marriage.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), mulling a Senate run, throws her annual “women’s power lunch” fundraiser Monday at the Hyatt Regency with marquee speakers White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, Director of Public Liaison Tina Tchen and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).
This will be a homecoming for Jarrett and Tchen who will know just about everybody in the crowd. The event will also serve to introduce Klobuchar, a rising Senate star, to an important Chicago network of Democratic activists.
Schakowsky’s “power lunch” funder–her major event–brings together mainly women from the Chicago’s feminist, progressive, Democratic activist, charitable communities.
Last year, Michelle Obama was the speaker and outlined in broad strokes what her agenda would be if she became First Lady.
Schakowsky said she will decide by June 8 is she will give up her House seat to jump in the 2010 Illinois Senate primary.
[...] Whitman, a Republican running for governor of California, reached out to women early on in her campaign by forming a coalition of women aptly called Megawomen. MEGaWomen, our women’s [...]
Leave your Response
Supporting women.
Ending sexism.
Finding common ground.
We’re in the Media »
Click to see our latest stories in the media
More Stories »Recent Comments
The Latest from our Blog
Archives
Blogroll
Find the New Agenda Online
Subscribe Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS)
The New Agenda is a 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls by bringing about systemic change in the media, at the workplace, at school and at home. More...