Rolling Stone Magazine's September "True Blood" cover is getting a lot of attention.

Welcome, readers! Do you read Rolling Stone? I want your opinion about the Rolling Stone’s September issue. What do you think of the cover that features a woman sandwiched between two men? All three are very naked and very bloody. They appear to be covered in someone else’s blood.

Some people think the picture is sexist, but other people think it is perfectly okay because of sexual tension on the characters’ TV series. Furthermore, two of the actors are married (to each other or someone else, I don’t know), so it might be okay to photograph those naked people for a public audience.

Some people debate whether the brown-haired man’s hands are actually groping the woman.

14-year-olds see the cover at newsstands and say it is inappropriate.

Some people say the cover is not sexist because the woman on the cover is a powerful woman on the TV series.

Some people say the cover is degrading to women because the image is pornographic and degrading because she is sandwiched between two men.

Some people say that even if the cover is not sexist, it is nonetheless inappropriate for a public audience because it is, after all, pornographic due to the nudity and the sex positions.

So, readers… what do you think of the cover?

I’ve been watching the fourth season of Mad Men with a knot in my stomach.  For the first three, I convinced myself that the level of blatant sexism at the Sterling Cooper (now Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce) advertising agency was as retro as three-martini lunches and girdles.  But the most recent episodes have disabused me of those notions.  Truth be told, when it comes to sexism we have little to brag about.  After 40 years, we’re not as far from Mad Men’s women as we might like to think.

For the non-viewer, the show brings us back to the days right on the cusp of momentous social change – before women, people of color, and gays shouted “enough!” and demanded equality.  Mad Men focuses on the strained relationships between the sexes and the simmering anger that occasionally explodes when women scratch the surface of the sexism that defines their lives.  It’s now 1965 (the series began in 1960) and you can see the subtle shifts in how the women respond over these years to being treated as afterthoughts, trophies, sexual conquests or children.  Two years after the publication of The Feminine Mystique, junior copywriter Peggy Olson now pushes back harder against her dismissive boss and male colleagues.  Betty lashes out at ex-husband Don Draper’s self-involvement and Joan Holloway claims a less dutiful posture at the office – and at home — asserting her smarts and her limits.  Secretaries bedded by Don don’t automatically accept his morning-after nonchalance.

That said, it’s still a sexist cesspool at the ad agency, and the women who work there are generally leered at, laughed at, or ignored.  The cold crème focus group scene in Episode 4 was particularly painful to watch, as the women give voice to their rage and hurt (as their male bosses smirk from behind a two-way mirror, conveniently explaining away their angry tears with a “they just want to get married”).

It’s tempting to think that this level of sexism is behind us, and Julia Baird’s excellent piece in Newsweek reminds us how it made millions of women crazy and drove many to suicide (before they got liberated).  But honestly, we are really far from being out of the woods.  It may no longer be legal to bar women from certain jobs and fire them when they get married or pregnant, but laws that ensure a basic level of equality and protection against rape, harassment, domestic violence, stalking and other gender-based crimes don’t change the culture.

The dynamic between women and men in 2010 looks alarmingly similar to that of 1965.    Contempt for women is obvious in politics and business, and the sexualization of women is ubiquitous in entertainment and advertising.  The double standard around sexual freedom remains, with no male correlative to “ho” and “slut” that I know of (to some who think that owning one’s “slutiness” equals power, I respectfully disagree).  Glass ceilings are rarely shattered, gender discrimination and harassment on the job are common in many industries, and there is a growing trend throughout the blogosphere insisting that it is men who are the real victims of domestic and dating violence, even though nearly all battered victims are women.  But, what about those outlandish comments from Roger, Don, and the guys behind the two-way mirror?  In the past four decades, they’ve gone from clumsy double entendres to brutal, in-your-face, insults.

Getting back to that focus group, I can’t help think that the same would happen today – maybe worse.  Now, women might brush off the sexism they live with, or deny that it even exists at all. (The Mad Men women didn’t have that F-word baggage to contend with, yet.)   If Mad Men reveals anything about sexism, it’s not how far we’ve come, but how little progress we’ve made in 40 years.  We may have anti-discrimination laws and violence against women may now be considered a hate crime, but culturally, we share more with Peggy, Joan, Betty and the secretaries than we are willing to admit.

This has not been a good week for Democratic women.

First, a New York Times op-ed penned by two progressive feminists noting two disturbing trends:  1) Democratic Leaders have been bargaining away our reproductive rights, and 2) the Democratic Party is not seeking out nor encouraging strong women leaders .  Then, a Los Angeles Times story descrying that hopes for the “Year of the Women” are fading.  Given the projected seats losses by incumbent Democratic women, women’s representation in government will likely decrease in 2010 (for the first time since 1976).

Well, gosh golly gee.  Let me gather up some faux shock and righteous indignation and say:  “You mean the Democratic Party doesn’t care about women?“. There, that’s better.

Why are Democratic women moving backwards?  Because we’ve promised our vote to one party on the basis of one issue.  We have no bargaining power or leverage.  The old idiom:  Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?, has a DNC version:  If we pay lip service to the eggs, we’ll get their vote for free!

To get women back on the path of advancement, we need a new strategy.  It’s time for women leaders to voyage beyond womens studies and take a lesson from the economics department.  When business as usual stops working, it’s time to restructure and reinvent.

The imperious assumption that reproductive rights is the litmus test for our vote is holding us back.  United, women are a powerful voting block.  Divided, we are essentially stalled.  To move forward, women need to find common ground.  Here’s some tips on getting there:

1. Reproductive Rights should not be our centerpiece issue

I am pro-choice and reproductive rights are important to me.  But so are other issues.  A singular focus on reproductive rights is defeatist, myopic and exclusionary.  How about post menopausal women? Or lesbian women? Or women who are not sexually active?  Should one issue that impacts a slice of women and girls be our holy grail?

If we truly want to give women control of their bodies, women need economic freedom.  Women compose the majority of small business owners and employees.   We raise the vast majority of children.   In a year where uncertainty on taxes, healthcare costs and regulations has paused economic expansion, it is women who lose.  Women who are not financially secure are more likely to stay in abusive relationships (with their children), get foreclosed on, lose credit and so on.

We need to reformulate and update our list of what constitutes:  “women’s issue.”

2.  Republican Women are not the enemy

So sure that Republican women don’t care about women’s issues?  Think again!

Without the support of the four female Republican Senators, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would not have passed.  The Republican women were also instrumental in passing Al Franken’s Anti-Rape Amendment, working with Democratic women to co-sponsor Mammogram Coverage Amendment, and speaking out for the women of Afghanistan.

Our daily lives are improved by having women leaders from both parties.  My colleague Patricia Garrison, a registered Democrat, recalls having a difficult delivery of her daughter fifteen years ago.  Nonetheless, her insurance company instructed her check out the next day.  Then a light bulb went off.  Pat remembered that her governor, Christine Todd Whitman (R), had just signed a bill mandating  insurers to cover a second night in the hospital.  Pat readily acknowledges that if “Christine” was instead “Christopher”, from either party, Pat would have been shipped home 24 hours later.

3.  Women’s Groups’ anti-women rhetoric sets us back

Women’s groups should declare a moratorium on attacking Republican women.  As Anne Kornblut’s Notes from the Cracked Ceiling sadly documents, there is a large segment of women (and men) who will simply not vote for women because they presume we are not qualified.   Feeding into this ignorance by demeaning women candidates only steepens the slope for all women candidates.

The video “Sarah Palin Doesn’t Speak for Me” is unbecoming and a stain on the legacy of the  important organization that produced it.  So are the insidious op-ed’s written by leaders of women’s organizations attacking Republican women running for office.  If you run an organization whose goal is to get more women elected, then get women elected.  Send us a video of  Democratic women candidates who DO speak for you and tell us how we can support them.  Meet with the DNC and demand more support and funding for women running.

But don’t shame our gender by telling us the best you can do is to demean other women – it’s not only high school, it’s junior high school.  Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are serious women who ran Fortune 500 companies (only 3% of F500 CEOs are women).  Nikki Haley and Susana Martinez are minority women who made their own way to run as governors.  These women are not “wingnuts” or any of the  other verbal diarrhea being hurled their way.  Even if we don’t vote for these women, we can acknowledge and respect them.  If your organization REALLY needs to make it a fight on policy, then make a video attacking some of the Republican men running against Democratic women.

4. “A Palin of Our Own” is not the solution

It would be misguided to presume that the solution for the Democratic Party is to find our Sarah Palin.  The internalized sexism in our party is too systemic .  For example, the two progressive feminists who penned the ‘Palin of Our Own’ op-ed were unequivocally brutal towards Hillary Clinton, a woman in our party, publishing sexist articles like this.  Why didn’t the women in our party speak out?

We can, however, learn from Sarah Palin.  Palin unapologetically supports women in her party.  Even at times incurring her party faithful’s wrath when her choices were not conservative enough.

We should, as a starting point, expect that of our women leaders.  And, perhaps of ourselves.  Can we support the women in our party and give them the benefit of the doubt until we make some inroads towards gender balance?  Because there is no “perfect” woman candidate.  If Mother Teresa were running as a Democrat, we’d obsess over what her hair looked under the habit.

We don’t necessarily need to vote for women of the Republican Party if we disagree with their policies.  But as my dearly deceased mother used to say:  If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Supporting women.  Finding common ground.  These notions will get women moving forward once again!

So it is with the subject of Sarah Palin. She is constantly under attack and disrespected by feminists on the left, who often don’t know much about her other than what they hear in the echo chamber that is the left-blogosphere. The noise level has ratcheted way up since she started describing herself and her conservative sisters as feminists and “Mamma Grizzlies.”

As a writer who teaches people how to write, I can tell you that you’ll lose your audience if constant negativity is your opening strategy, which is why I almost didn’t finish reading the NYT op-ed by Anna Holmes and Rebecca Traister, A Palin of Our Own. It droned on and on for nine solid paragraphs (out of 15 total) of negativity and bad logic, using few, if any, examples or citations to back up questionable partisan speculation about Sarah Palin.

I’m glad I did finish it though, because it is the most promising sign yet that feminists on the left are finally willing to address their #1 problem: internal issues regarding women and the Democratic Party. For a while now feminists on the left have been engaged in a profoundly destructive focus, clearly seen in the various campaigns to tear down Sarah Palin, the vitriol directed at her and other Republican women, and the impulse to, ironically, defend feminism against expansion. It’s a weird dynamic akin to xenophobia, and it has cost them the ears, hearts, and minds of many women of every generation, but especially those of us who didn’t get to go to the best colleges or didn’t go to college at all, and who don’t live in fabulous urban areas. In other words, most of America. The kind of internal focus promoted by Holmes and Traister in their article will be a necessary step in creating a constructively focused feminism that can attract these women back.

The buried thesis of the op-ed is that Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for Palin meeting a need the Democratic Party only pays lipstick service to. This thesis is correct and, unlike with their caricature of Palin, they actually back it up. They cite Hillary Clinton’s treatment during the campaign, which I must admit, is quite a turnaround for both of them (consider that Traister was saying this in 2008 and Holmes published this ugly diatribe, among other truly troubling posts, at Jezebel in 2008). They also cite the trade-off of “reproductive rights” for “Democratic majorities and progressive legislation.” They don’t hold Pelosi accountable for the trade-off of those rights for health care, saying the decision was “forced” on her. But they do hold both Clinton and Pelosi accountable for not wanting to “mount a Palin-style girl-powered campaign.” Oh, and for not wearing miniskirts.

Holmes and Traister do have points about reproductive rights, the signature issue for feminists on the left.  They’re also correct about the expectations of the largely male hierarchy of power within the Democratic Party that women will be good and play nice, and that any attempt to secure too much power will result in painful and ugly verbal attacks (and probably back-room maneuvering, though they don’t say that). And they’re finally aware that Palin’s success is as much a result of “the obvious national appetite for female leadership” as it is of Palin’s own charisma. That realization in the context of this largely negative opinion piece is merely a baby step for Holmes and Traister, but it could perhaps create a giant leap forward for feminists on the left. One can hope, anyway.

Holmes and Traister end their article by suggesting that women of a different (read: younger) generation will have to “come to terms with (and [invent]) new models.” Though they think it’s “twisted,” perhaps Palin can serve as a kind of inspiration for that new model for the left. The longest paragraph in the piece, the second to last, is their fantasy of what a Palinesque Democratic candidate might look like, taking to Twitter and Facebook to proudly proclaim her womanhood and who isn’t afraid to get sassy. Here we get to the heart of Holmes and Traister’s point. This is what they have found to admire about Palin—her willingness to publicly own her femininity and exploit it for gain on social networks.

But there’s so much more to politics—and to Sarah Palin—than the internet! Maybe one day Holmes and Traister will come to know that. Right now it’s their job to churn up political noise on the internet, so that’s the world they know and that’s how they understand political power. As third-wave feminists, exploiting their femininity for gain is how they navigate the world, thus it informs their understanding of the world and the women in it.  They don’t yet understand that progress for women will necessarily be predicated on the increased participation of women, all women, and that numbers, not consensus, equals power.

In the end, it’s ironic that Holmes and Traister would call Sarah Palin a “dim, opportunistic, mean-girl prom-queen,” when they are the ones to simultaneously attack the older women in their party and smear Palin with their ignorant caricature of her person and achievements. Mean girls, indeed. It’s also ironic, because they stand on the shoulders of those older women, who currently hold the power and would make excellent allies, just as they accuse Sarah Palin of building her success on the work of such women. Sadly, they fail to realize that it’s the tone of so much of their rhetoric that outsider-feminists, whether they are liberal, conservative, or independent, find so alienating. Is it any wonder, then, that young left-feminists have a problem creating networks and attracting support? Of, in short, having a Palin of their own? Who needs enemies with friend like these?

Still, in a twisted way, their article gives me hope. It’s about time women on the left started taking a positive tone and talking about themselves, rather than attacking and denigrating women they don’t approve of. And it’s okay with me if that dialogue starts on Twitter and Facebook.

~This article has been cross-posted from Peacocks and Lilies.

A small cadre of women rallied on the steps of New York’s City Hall on April 28th, 2007, the day known as a Equal Pay Day. This day marks the time when a working woman catches up to what a white male earned in the previous year – she puts in 16 months of work to make what he earned in 12 months pay. It is a calendar translation of the often-recited statistic that a woman earns 77 cents to one dollar earned by a man.

Sponsored by the New York Women’s Agenda, this was the first ever recognition of Equal Pay Day in New York City. Those of us on the steps wore red because when it comes to pay, women are in the red. We were also seeing red, but turned that energy into the formation of a new coalition of 41 diverse organizations that is attempting to transform our town into the best city in the nation for working women. Called the Equal Pay Coalition NYC (EPCNYC), we are leading the way for New York City to take the lead in addressing the persistent pay gap.

Talk about Equal Pay is all the rage today. The Wall Street Journal blogged about Equal Pay Day. Lilly Ledbetter became a news fixture after she helped get a law passed to extend the time limitations for cases of secret pay discrimination — she had been denied compensation on those grounds for years of underpayment. A long-running lawsuit against Wal-Mart for paying less to women has been given the go-ahead in court, and in May, a jury awarded women at Novartis Pharmaceuticals substantial sums in back pay and punitive damages after finding of sex discrimination in the compensation.

There is a growing recognition, nationally and globally, that women’s economic security and well-being is a vital issue of our day, closely linked to the nation’s security, financial recovery and future health. But, there is little forward movement to create the needed change.

Overcoming the “Mad Men” Mentality

On the federal front, our Equal Pay laws, passed in the early 1960s when the world of “Mad Men” was not fiction, are weak. A partial fix, legislation known as the Paycheck Fairness Act is closer to passage this year because of the united effort of major women’s groups organized by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). It has a tough Senate fight ahead, and that’s before the midterm elections. The Paycheck Fairness Act would strengthen current “equal pay for equal work laws” and protect workers from retaliation for sharing salary information. It has a chance, unlike the languishing Fair Pay Act, which would tackle “equal pay for work of equivalent value,” a critical reform but more difficult to explain and institute, making it harder to rally support.

A few states have initiated stronger regulations than federal law provides, most notably Minnesota, which instituted public sector pay equity in 1982 and continues to monitor salaries. Last year, New Mexico took the lead by conducting pay equity analysis of its state workers and by requiring contractors with the state to provide pay equity reports. This may prove to be a successful way to make private sector companies examine – and realign – their pay practices. When vendors protest, “Do we have to?” Martha Burk, the feminist magician behind the scenes, simply replies, “No you don’t….unless you want a government contract.”

Public opinion is increasingly in favor of change. Both the 2009 Shriver Report and June 2010 Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project confirm that Americans know women are underpaid and their opportunities for employment are limited. President Obama, summed it up in May on the 47th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act: “Women now make up nearly half of the nation’s workforce, most homes have two working parents, and 60 percent of all women work full-time. As we emerge from one of the worst recessions in American history, when families are struggling to pay their bills and save for the future, pay inequity only deepens that struggle and hampers our economy’s ability to fully recover.”

This administration priority was spotlighted in July when Obama’s new National Equal Pay Enforcement Task Force called for passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act, improved data collection, public education and enforcement. The Department of Labor also rolled out a series of initiatives, including an Equal Pay Checklist, a revamped Equal Pay Employer Self-Audit tool, and an Equal Pay Research Summit, in addition to the White House’s Work-Flex program. All positive progress.

With two-thirds of families with children dependent on a mom’s salary, many as primary breadwinners, fair pay can’t come soon enough. This great recession is increasing the urgency because so many men are losing jobs, making women’s paychecks the basis of financial stability. These “New Breadwinners,” as Heather Boushey describes them, smash the ’60s stereotype of women working for “pin money.” They are working for survival. Almost 30 percent of families with a female head-of-household are poor, and 15 percent are living in deep poverty. So, good jobs and fair pay are profoundly important to them and millions of other women working to make ends meet.

So far, education is not the antidote for inequity we imagined. No matter one’s educational level, from day one, the disparity is present. A woman will earn more with a college-degree, but still earn less than her male counterpart. This loss of income over time — the “career gap” — for a high school grad can be as much as $700,000, and for women with college and advanced degrees, $1.2 to 2 million dollars! Women do not just lose wages, but pension savings, Social Security and years of investments. (This leaves older women particularly vulnerable and explains their high poverty rates.) Evelyn Murphy, author of “Women Are Getting Even” (WAGE), advises women to make this personal and gets her audiences to shout out, “I want my million dollars!” Now that’s inspiring!

So, there is this reality for women in the U.S.: Poverty is up and wages are down. Our equal pay laws are outdated and our concept of equal pay is limited. Sexism and stereotyping continue to shape a woman’s experience in the workforce and the check she takes home at the end of the week. This affects women, their families and our nation. But, knowing and doing something about it are two different things.

Why the U.S. remains in this 1960s reality is important to understand as many longtime advocates plot a 21st century campaign for Pay Equity.

At its heart is the continuing and deeply rooted sexism within our society, our decision makers and ourselves which results in undervaluing, underpaying and under-appreciating the work of women. Or, as pay equity author and activist Ellen Bravo says, “That’s why those who care for our young children earn less than those who care for our cars, our pets, our lawns.” The necessary “see” change may happen over time, but workers and their families need remedies – stronger protections – now.

Five Key Proposals to Quicken the Pace

How to affect this change has been the focus of advocates for decades. In New York, the struggle for equal pay for work of equivalent value goes back 30 years to the Long Island based Women on the Job Task Force, which brought a complaint to the NY State Division of Human Rights. After a 10- year investigative and judicial process, the task force was informed that the clerical employees in the Sachem School District could not get fair pay because there was no law against unequal pay for different job titles even though they require equal levels of skills and responsibilities.

Their advocacy led to a one-time pay equity adjustment for NYS workers, but there was strong resistance to institutionalizing this concept into law. A disappointing outcome for advocates, but their fire did not burn out. More recently, the state coalition NYSPEC has been working for a comprehensive pay equity and worker protection package, which has been passed annually since 2002 by only one house. It is edging closer in the state Senate, but remains unpassed.

The Equal Pay Coalition NYC had an additional idea. We began to look at city-based laws – after all, this is the nation’s largest city and has a population bigger than many states, as well as headquarters for innumerable companies.

In 2008, the New York City Council showed that it was favorably disposed by unanimously passing two resolutions calling for the passage of the NYS Pay Equity bills and the federal Paycheck Fairness Act. We reasoned that we might garner wider support and more immediate results from New York City that could ultimately influence outcomes on the state and federal stages.

At a recent hearing of the Women’s Issues Committee, Equal Pay Coalition NYC’s Agenda for Change presented New York City officials with five key proposals, as described in our Pay Equity Guide.

1. Equal Pay for Work of Equivalent Value: We recommended that New York City amend its Human Rights law to cover work of equivalent value. Protections for equal pay for work of equivalent value more effectively strike at the wage disparity that affects female workers, particularly women of color. Research also reveals this approach is an effective anti-poverty tool.

2. Equal Pay for Equal Work: We recommended that New York City amend its Human Rights law to protect workers against retaliation when they share salary information that promotes fair pay practices. While progress is being pursued on the federal and state level, New York City has a unique opportunity to protect its workers and create a model for the country.

3. Access to Better Jobs: Being paid equitably for a low wage job would certainly boost the earnings of large numbers of women, but garnering better paying jobs which a family can live on is essential to breaking the cycle of poverty for New York City women. We recommended that New York City institute a strong commitment to “non-traditional” jobs that offer women a living wage.

4. Access to Capital for Minority and Women Business Enterprises: A lack of funds continues to hinder the success of women and minority businesses, which, in turn, slows the “economic engine” of the city and nation. We recommended that New York City adopt measures to improve the success of minority and women-owned business enterprises in city contracting by setting higher goals, mandating their use and monitoring the contracts. (Good news: New York State passed a strong Minority and Women Business Enterprise law this session.)

5. Task Force on Pay Equity: Achieving parity and opportunity for women is a complex, long-term undertaking. The Equal Pay Coalition NYC called for the creation of an officially sanctioned entity to study policy issues and to recommend enforceable procedures that promote fiscal parity and equal opportunity for New York City women. For example, the task force could oversee pay equity audits of city agencies and develop pay equity standards for private contractors doing business with the city. A task force could also educate and engage the business community as a partner in making ours the “Best City for Working Women.”

We aim to manifest a fairer, more robust economic environment for women, families and our community. It is our patch of what could be a grassroots wave — a national web of collaboration — to push for, insist on, demand, and, ultimately, secure reforms that protect, promote and nourish women’s economic health. We hope that others will jumpstart this effort in their communities. Our checkbooks depend on it.

The woman who was butchered and meat-hooked using photoshop for the ad featured in my last blog post may or may not have known how the image of her body would be used by advertisers.

But Canadian-born actress Pamela Anderson, whose boob-jobbed breasts famously drew millions of viewers to the infamously bouncing-down-the-beach TV series Baywatch, volunteered to be drawn and quartered by anti-fur lobbyists PETA for this protest piece, which was recently banned in Canada:

The Best Of Intentions…?

Pamela and PETA may very well have noble intentions (I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt here), but their continued used of the female form (almost always revealingly and tantalizingly unclothed), as an attention-getting strategy is, in my humble opinion, distasteful.

On its website, PETA proudly displays its growing list of overtly sexual, and possibly-designed-to-be-banned-and-so perhaps-not-surprisingly-banned advertising including the two below, both reportedly not accepted to be run during recent Superbowls. The banned ads can be found on the PETA site in a section disturbingly called “The Peta Files.”

Exhibit 1 is soft porn with vegetables:

A Tenuous Link At Best

Despite being vibrantly sensuous, sexy, and attractive (as well as a vegetarian), I find the link between mostly naked women (”making it” with pumpkins, brocolli and asparagus), and the anti-fur lobby, to be tenuous at best.

And, while I’ve become increasingly inured, and simultaneously incensed, at the sight of naked women attached to everything from machine guns to motorcycles, I draw the line at our objectification to ostensibly save the pelts and flesh of our furry little friends. Puh-lease PETA, give me a break!

As Rachel from Glasgow, Scotland, commented on the mailonline story which featured the Anderson ad:

“I think it’s really hypocritical of an animal rights group to fight against the degradation of animals, yet they degrade humans in the process.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m as much an animal lover as the next gal; my Mom’s cat Pia Roma is the latest in a string of pets whom I and my whole family have dearly loved for more years than I care to count.

Likewise, as I’ve already said, I’m a vegetarian.

Nevertheless, I don’t think flaunting flesh with veg is the most effective way to get the anti-fur, anti-meat message widely accepted. Principles PETA, prinicples. Ya’ gotta’ stick to ‘em! And that goes for you too Pamela Anderson. Keeping more of your clothes ON increases your credibility, not vice versa.

Titillating Tactics: Do They REALLY Work?

Exhibit 2 is a third-rate take-off of third-rate soft porn; it advocates the substituion of zuchinni for sausage (!):

There’s something to be said for the argument that ANY exposure is good exposure.

Clearly PETA’S titillating tactics increase the likelihood of its message being viewed, along with the ample, and undoubtedly airbrushed ass-ets of Ms Anderson (compare the ‘All Animals Have The Same Parts’ cartoon with the real-life pic that accompanies the article and tell me what you think….).

Ironically, this blog post is a prime (no pun intended) example of just how effective the “sex sells” strategy can be. You’re reading it after all, aren’t you?

But: does more seeing more human skin prevent people from purchasing less animal skin?

And: does seeing more human flesh encourage people to eat less animal flesh?

Ummm… I’m not convinced PETA. Nope. I’m not convinced at all…

I just love this video, and I have to keep watching it over and over again. At first, I wondered if it were a commercial or preview for an actual movie. However, after looking through www.imdb.com and finding nothing, I think this is a video a bunch of women created just for fun. And it certainly is a lot of fun.

This is a nifty yet anachronistic take on 1800s women who are bored into depression and need some adrenaline and excitement in their lives. Thus, they obtain stronger self-confidence and a different perspective. Instead of just waiting for men to notice them, they actively go out and get the men of their dream.

Carrie Clinton Lane was a trailblazer all her life. She graduated Valedictorian of her class at Iowa State College—the only female in the class of 1880. A mere five years later she became superintendent of Mason City, Iowa schools. Though she married twice, both of her husbands died, leaving her to live half her life with her suffragist companion (and Indiana native) Mary Garrett Hay. Chapman Catt and Hay are buried together at Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York. We visited their graves on our women’s history tour this July, but more on that later.

What Chapman Catt was most famous for were her tireless efforts and dogged determination to pursue voting rights for women. Alice Paul and Lucy Burn are often credited with the final push that resulted in the 19^th Amendment, and they deserve that credit. But their tactics would likely not have worked if Carrie Chapman Catt, along with Susan B. Anthony and other giants of the first wave, had not laid the groundwork. It was also Chapman Catt and her organization, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), who finished the work that Paul and Burn, sick and frail from their hunger strikes and prison beatings, could not.

(1917) Jeanette Rankin and Carrie Chapman Catt at Suffrage House (DC) hours before Rankin was sworn in as the first woman in the United States elected to a national office.

A protégé of Susan B. Anthony, Chapman Catt was Anthony’s hand-picked successor to the NAWSA. She was elected president of the organization in 1900, the year Anthony stepped down, and again in 1915. During her tenure, the NAWSA leveraged the greatest advances in the history of our pursuit of suffrage,  until the 19^th Amendment came along and granted the vote to everyone.

Suffragists had been told for years by federal politicians that the matter was a state matter, and thus out of their hands. Building a consensus state-by-state became Chapman Catt’s strategy, and she encouraged local and state chapters of the NAWSA to work tirelessly to persuade their local officials. By the time NAWSA member Jeanette Rankin was elected to the House from Wyoming in 1917, women could vote in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Washington, California, Illinois (with some restrictions), Arizona, Oregon, and New York.

While armies of volunteers dedicated to the cause of women’s suffrage worked their local politicians, Carrie Chapman Catt was building relationships at the national and international level. The networks she and her army of women built were priceless in the wake of congressional approval of the 19^th Amendment. After all, 36 of 48 states would have to ratify the amendment. While Alice Paul convalesced, Carrie Chapman Catt took the train and campaigned for nearly 18 straight months before that hot and fateful day in Tennessee when women won the War of Roses. Carrie Chapman Catt had been on a whirlwind speaking tour across Tennessee in the weeks before the vote, and she was on hand to see it pass.

But here’s another unknown part of the story, for the battle did not end there. Various legal stalling techniques were employed, including attempts at court injunctions to invalidate the vote of the Tennessee legislature on technical grounds. Carrie Chapman Catt and her entourage left Nashville immediately for Washington, D.C., were they met with various officials and kept a vigilant eye. Secretary of State, Colby Bainbridge, receive the paperwork from the Governor of Tennessee at almost 4:00 in the morning of August 26, 1920, but did not sign it until 8:00, after a legal review and a “breakfast” of coffee. No women were present for the signing of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. Bainbridge would not give Chapman Catt an audience, but she was waiting outside when the package arrived and when it was signed.

Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt had an uneasy relationship for much of the time they struggled for women’s suffrage. Paul had left Chapman Catt’s organization to found the National Women’s Party, and thereafter the two organizations were known to the media and many Americans as “conservative” (Catt) or “militant” (Paul). This division is reminiscent of the disunion among conservative and liberal women today, both of whom are increasingly using the label “feminist.” Catt and Paul were able to set their differences aside and work together over the 2 years that saw the Amendment pass through Congress and achieve 36 successful ratifications. That’s why this history, the whole history, needs to be told, because it provides a model and a roadmap for women and men today who want to achieve progress and justice for women.

When my daughter and I visited Carrie Chapman Catt’s and Mary Garrett Hay’s graves this summer, this point was driven home to me even more by a remarkable and unprompted action of my daughter’s. That day at Woodlawn Lily, Amelia and I wandered throughout a section of the cemetery for about half an hour trying to locate Chapman Catt’s grave. We had no idea Mary Garrett Hay even existed at the time. As we walked I told them what I knew of Chapman Catt’s story, and how she had been a forgotten name in our history. We scoured the grounds and were about to give up when we spotted a dirty concrete rectangle in the ground by the road, placed dangerously close to some tree roots. Could this be it? It was.

Lily cleaning Carrie Chapman Catt's headstone.

We had picked some flowers from one of the many hydrangea bushes that had burst their blue flowers across the cemetery grounds. My daughter is an artist and she is sensitive to visual displays. I was just about to prompt her and Amelia to place the flowers when she frowned and asked for the car keys. I handed them over with a quizzical look. “Just trust me,” she said.

She returned with a bottle of water and a towel, and then she got down on what are traditionally very lazy knees, and she began to clean the stone. As she cleaned, she declared that it was a shame that the site was allowed to get dirty at all, especially considering some of the other gleaming monuments on the vast grounds. I was astonished. What had happened to my apathetic teenager who had only agreed to go on this trip because she got to see New York City? I’m not ashamed to admit that a fat tear of gratitude rolled down my cheek.

This is my favorite story to tell from our trip. Through it, I understand why I am compelled to remember, and to share the stories with others. History is context and context is everything. Today, on the 90^th anniversary of the 19^th Amendment, I encourage readers to share some of the history surrounding this day, to celebrate the achievements of the diverse and long line of women who worked so hard to make sure that everyone could vote. It might be a conversation with a co-worker, an e-mail sent out reminding friends or loved ones of Women’s Equality Day, or telling the story to a child. Whatever you do, celebrate this day. It’s ours.

In our privileged world “Feminism” has become a dirty word. For most western young women, to be called a Feminist is an insult.

My son and his girlfriends associate Feminism with anti-men and women who wear unattractive clothes. To them the “F” word is, at best, dated and no longer relevant.

In the U.S., Feminists have become divided along Party lines with women on the right and left fighting amongst themselves – which isn’t helping the feminist cause.

This is why The New Agenda is campaigning against sexism and for collaboration across the political divide on a “Pro-Women” platform. As Amy Siskind, President of The New Agenda, stated in The Huffington Post, “why should we care whether it’s Republican or Democratic women (or both) who lead us to gender equality?”

I don’t really care whether we call it Feminism or Pro-Women.

What I do care about is that the job of Feminism is far from done, and the in-fighting amongst feminists is distracting us from the many urgent reasons why we need Feminism, or the Pro-Women Movement, now more than ever.

Here are 20 of those reasons:

1. Approximately once every ten seconds, a girl somewhere in the world is pinned down. Her legs are pulled apart, and a local woman with no medical training uses a knife or razor blade to slice off some or all of the girl’s genitals. In most cases, without anesthetic.
2. Of the estimated 300,000 child soldiers around the world, about 40% are girls and most are sexually abused.
3. An estimated one hundred million girls worldwide are involved in child labor.
4. More than 900 million girls and women are living on less than a dollar a day.
5. More girls have been killed in the last 50 years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the battles of the twentieth century. (Read this one again to make sure you really got it.)
6. Female infanticide persists in many countries, and often it is mothers who kill their own daughters.
7. One American-sponsored abstinence-only approach to controlling the spread of AIDS, consists of handing out heart-shaped lollipops inscribed with the message: DON’T BE A SUCKER! SAVE SEX FOR MARRIAGE. Then the session leader invites girls to suck on the lollipops and explains:  “Your body is a wrapped lollipop. When you have sex with a man, he unwraps your lollipop and sucks on it. It may feel great at the time, but, unfortunately, when he’s done with you, all you have left for your next partner is a poorly wrapped, saliva-fouled sucker.”
8. Approximately 730,000 American teenage girls will get pregnant this year.
9. When a group of girls were interviewed on 20/20, ABC’s primetime news magazine, and asked if they’d rather be fat or lose an arm, they unanimously answered that they’d rather lose an arm.
10. The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is twelve times as high as the death rate of all causes of death for American females aged fifteen to twenty-four.
11. Far more women and girls are sold into brothels each year in the early twenty-first century than African slaves were sold into slave plantations each year in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries.
12. Approximately one third of women worldwide face beatings in the home. Women aged fifteen through forty four are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined.
13. A major study by the World Health Organization found that in most countries, between 30% and 60% of women had experienced physical or sexual violence by a husband or boyfriend.
14. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz, a leading religious authority in Saudi Arabia, declared in 2004: “Allowing women to mix with men is the root of every evil and catastrophe.”
15. It is increasingly common for men in South Asia to hurl sulfuric acid into the faces of girls or women who have rejected them. The acid melts the skin and sometimes the bones underneath; when it strikes the eyes, the women are blinded.
16. In South Africa, rape has become so endemic, that some women protect themselves by inserting a device called a Rapex. It’s a tube, with barbs inside. The woman inserts it like a tampon and any man who tries to rape her impales himself on the barbs and must go to an emergency room to have the Rapex removed.
17. In 2008 the United Nations formally declared rape a “weapon of war.”  In one of its reports it claimed that in parts of Liberia during the civil war, 90% of girls and women over the age of three were sexually abused. Major General Patrick Cammaert, a former UN force commander, said: “It has probably become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in an armed conflict.”
18. 122 million women around the world want contraception and can’t get it. Up to 40% of all pregnancies globally are unplanned or unwanted – and almost half of those result in induced abortions.
19. The equivalent of five jumbo jets’ worth of women die in labor each day. The World Health Organization estimates that 536,000 women perished in pregnancy or childbirth in 2005, a toll that has hardly changed in 30 years.
20. It would take an estimated $9 billion a year to provide all effective interventions for maternal and newborn health to 95% of the world’s population. In contrast, the world spends $40 billion per year on dog food.

Stand up and be counted

It’s not sexy to be a feminist; it never has been. You won’t be the most popular girl in the room if you have the courage to use the “F” word or take a Pro-Women stance.

But Feminism, and what it stands for, is needed as much now as it was a hundred years ago when women fought for the right to vote.

Of course we must continue to support women in our own countries who want to lead governments and organizations – we still have our own battles to fight.

But even more important, we need to support our sisters worldwide who are fighting for their lives and their fundamental human rights.

5 things you can do right now:

1. Start the discussion – forward this article and argue about it with others (women and men).
2. Read “Half The Sky. Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. When you’ve recovered from the shock of what you’ve read – get angry about it.
3. Be inspired by watching Isabel Allende’s passionate TED talk
4. Support women survivors of war and help them to rebuild their communities through Women for Women International.
5. If you think the term “Feminism” is divisive, working against rather than for us – join The New Agenda and support it’s collaborative, “Pro-Women” approach to gender equality.

Information in this blog courtesy of:

Half The Sky. Turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

I Am An Emotional Creature. The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World by Eve Ensler

Corporate Women Directors International 2010 Report: Women Board Directors of the 2009 Fortune Global 200.

Women in National Parliaments: World Classification

The current media frenzy about the latest female celebrity to replace her last name with that of her new spouse is sure to infuriate long-standing feminists who have fought long and hard for women to keep their maiden names …or not. You see, this time, the rules have changed, and they have been forever changed by Portia DeRossi.

The 37-year-old actress has filed a petition in a Los Angeles court to change her name from DeRossi to DeGeneres, the last name of her much more famous same-sex partner, giving birth to a new debate about whether taking a spouse’s name is, in fact, a feminist issue, when that spouse is, in fact, of the same gender.

On one side of the debate is Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, who has recently put forth a bill that would make California the seventh state to give married spouses and domestic partners equal opportunity to take their surname of choice. Ma says the proposal is really about “equality in relationships.”

But would pioneering feminists like Lucy Stone, the 19^th century women’s rights champion who advocated for women to retain their own names after marriage, necessarily agree?  Quoted as saying that ‘A wife should no more take her husband’s name than he should hers…my name is my identity and should not be lost,” the Lucy Stone League, which carries on her work, proclaims that when women take their spouses names it is considered ‘name-abandonment,’ but that this is so much a part of U.S. culture that few recognize it for what it is: a powerful instance of sex discrimination that has a major effect on women’s lives and work.

The issue of sex-discrimination is obviously erased when referring to same-sex couples, but it can still be similarly damaging to ones career.  Journalists, for example, build their careers, reputations and even brands based upon their bylines, so changing ones name can cause much confusion, particularly in today’s new media world where content is shared at lightning speed, with little or no time for consumers to read the fine print.   But it doesn’t stop there.

According to a European study published earlier this year entitled, ‘What’s in a Name? 361.708 Euros: The Effects of Marital Name Change,’ women who took their partner’s name appear to be different from women who kept their own name on a variety of demographics and beliefs. A woman who took her partner’s name or a hyphenated name, for example, was judged as more caring, more dependent, less intelligent, more emotional, less competent, and less ambitious in comparison to a woman who kept her own name. A woman with her own name, on the other hand, was judged as less caring, more independent, more ambitious, more intelligent, and more competent, which was similar to how unmarried women and men (married or not) were judged in the study. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, a job applicant who took her partner’s name, in comparison to one with her own name, was less likely to be hired for a job and her monthly salary was estimated €861,21 lower, or $1109.32 in U.S. dollars.

But somehow, in the case of the new Ms. DeGeneres, I don’t think this will necessarily be the case.

Lori Sokol, Ph.D., is the President of Sokol Media, Inc., and host of the weekly radio show, ‘Juggling Act,’ on 1490AM WGCH. She can be reached at lori@sokolmediaonline.com