The Political Voices of Women

Here is a guest post by community member Emily Kronenberger…

[If you would like to be a guest blogger on The Political Voices of Women, just join our community, and start posting.]

A few days ago, I posted on my blog, New Wave Grrrl, about the gaps surrounding Sarah Palin’s purported policy priority of addressing the needs of children with disabilities. I questioned the McCain-Palin ticket’s ability to put our money where their mouths have been on the subject of more funding for people with special needs. On October 24th, Palin gave a speech in my home state of Pennsylvania, on just what she and John McCain planned to do in order to better serve children with disabilities.

Although Palin’s speech was heartfelt, and I believe she truly cares about disability issues as a parent and as an aunt of children with developmental disabilities, her speech and the so-called McCain-Palin plan for children with special needs (which comes less than two weeks shy of Election Day) still falls flat, and still lacks any real promise of change in the quality of life for individuals with disabilities.

One glaring reason for this is the complete lack of policies that support people with disabilities beyond childhood. People who live with physical, developmental, cognitive, and multiple disabilities need various levels of care and support services throughout their entire lifetimes, in order to achieve a better quality of life and live fully within their communities. This includes not just vocational services for people with disabilities who can and want to work, but actual Medicaid dollars to fund the programs that provide for independent living in the community and not in State institutions, regardless of the severity of one’s disability.

Read more »

Here is a guest post by community member Emily Kronenberger…

[If you would like to be a guest blogger on The Political Voices of Women, just join our community, and start posting.]

Many people, like myself, feel that the way in which a society supports its most vulnerable or disenfranchised citizens is a critical indicator of how healthy that society is, and where it is headed in the future.

The issue of disability policy and the improvements that are necessary to elevate the quality of life for children and adults with disabilities in this country has rarely made it into the mainstream discourse during this election. Unfortunately, this is not surprising as individuals with disabilities are typically excluded from the larger social and political environments, both by actual physical barriers and by traditional social practices in our society which make them invisible.

Read more »

Here is a guest post from community member Marcia G. Yerman, who also blogs at The Huffington Post.

[If you would like to be a guest blogger on The Political Voices of Women, just join our community, and start posting.]

“The Time Warner Summit: Politics 2008,” held at the Time Warner headquarters in New York City and co-sponsored with CNN, was a corporate branded event with big name heavy-hitters taking on questions about media, news, and the election. After attending both days of the conference, it reinforced my belief that digital media was the future for pushing out women’s stories, concerns, and dialogues.

There were many prominent women featured. Campbell Brown, CNN Anchor, moderated the opening keynote roundtable comprised of four men. Candy Crowley, senior political correspondent at CNN, spoke during the Media Power vs. Political Power session. One of the most dynamic speakers over the two days was Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent for CNN. Her persona and delivery style popped during the discussion with colleagues that included Wolf Blitzer and Fareed Zakaria and former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke.

Whether you consider women and minorities successfully enmeshed in the total media picture
or their specificity overlooked, depends upon your point of view. But the conference was a definitive contrast to presentation I recently attended at St. John’s University, which totally focused on the intersectionality of race and gender with the election story. There, a majority of the speakers were law professors presenting academic work.

The Time Warner symposium included one panel entitled Women and the 2008 Election: Playing Politics with Gender–Media, Candidates and the Majority Vote. Led by Lisa Witter, Fenton Communications COO and co-founder of SheSource — a “brain trust” of female experts — six women explored women as swing voters and the cultural phenomenon of Sarah Palin’s candidacy. In reference to Michelle Obama, they also discussed whether you could be an outspoken black woman without being described as “angry” by media pundits.

As Witter pointed out while speaking to a full room of women — “Wish there were more you!” she joked to the sprinkling of men — 59 percent of primary voters were women. At the end of the discussion, Carol Jenkins, Women’s Media Center president, posed questions going forward for the media. She called for continued examination of “who is calling the shots, who is making the decisions, and who is missing from the picture.”

With the understanding that women do not getting their narratives adequately told — if told at all — the need for a fresh playing field is palpable. In the new media, women have an opportunity to create their own communities and their own brands. Whether on the left or right of the political spectrum, a mommy blogger or a political blogger, women are flooding the Internet. This was borne out by a BlogHer/Compass Partners survey found 36.2 million women were actively participating in blogs. Of women online, 53 percent were reading blogs, 37 percent were posting comments, and 28 percent were writing or updating blogs.

Read more »

Here is a guest post from community member Anita S. Lane.  You can read more from Anita at her blog Unconventional Politics.

[If you would like to be a guest blogger on The Political Voices of Women, just join our community, and start posting.]

Majority of Americans Don’t Want a Bailout and Are Willing to Suffer the Consequences!

Estimates reveal that the proposed $700 billion bailout plan will cost $2,333 for each person in America. For my family that means $13,998. Hec, I’ve got my own debt to pay down.

As it turns out, I’m not alone. Many Americans (about 1/3) are not inclined to support this bailout. Another third will consider voting for the bill only if it’s done right—and I fully understand.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and President Bush assert that if we don’t approve the bailout, and I paraphrase, “all hell will break loose.” And if it does? …

What I and most Americans want to know is whether this plan will serve as a temporary bandaid that just postpones the inevitable, or will it incorporate systemic policy changes that will help prevent a similar crisis in the future?

No New Crisis
Truthfully, many of us in America are pretty fed up and are willing to just let the whole thing burn. Most of us have already been burned. Middle and working class American families have been in a crisis for a while. Between rising gas, food and energy prices, depreciating housing values, layoffs and few raises to offset the cost of living increases, ordinary Americans have been looking for our own bailout plan, and it just doesn’t exist.

Now, the treasury and the President wants each American to dig a little deeper into our own bleak pockets and cough up $2,333 per person to rescue Wall Street—effectively increasing our record high national debt by almost an additional trillion dollars.

Treasury Secretary, I’m sorry to inform you, but we cannot afford a bailout of this magnitude. We simply don’t have it. There has to be another way. Keep thinking…

Debtor Nation
Increasing our current $10 trillion debt by another $700 billion just cannot be sound financial policy. Is it fair that a few folks on Wall Street could so detrimentally impact the masses? No. Should someone be held accountable? Sure, but the bottom line is, if we Americans are willing to take our chances and decide we aren’t willing to bailout Wall Street, then let it be our decision—you know, “we the people?…”

But what if Wall Street crumbles? Well, we’ll just have to take it and make some good ol’ American apple crumble. Americans know how to bounce back. We always do. If our paper house burns down. Little-by-little, we’ll just build it back up again. That’s old-school. That’s the American way. There simply are no short fixes and get-right-quick schemes when it comes to finances.

Sorry, King Paulson.

 Here is a guest post from community member Marcia G. Yerman, who also blogs at The Huffington Post.

[If you would like to be a guest blogger on The Political Voices of Women, just join our community, and start posting.]

A “grassroots” letter that will be presented to Sarah Palin by MomsRising is currently on their site, available for signature. To date, 20,000 women’s names have been collected. The question is asked of Palin, “Where do you stand on issues that matter to me?” After extending heartfelt congratulations to the Governor on her path from “PTA to Vice Presidential candidate,” the organization gets down to brass tacks by specifically asking what she and the Republican Party would do for mothers and families.

MomsRising was founded in 2006. It grew out of a book project undertaken by Joan Blade and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner. Released on Mother’s Day of that year, The Motherhood Manifesto, “explored the struggles of the American family.” It later became a documentary film. Having reached a critical mass with their extensive research data, Blades and Rowe-Finkbeiner decided to mobilize the strength behind mothers’ voices and their concerns.

A non-partisan organization, which works at the state and national level, MomsRising tackles problems that don’t get adequate recognition. Statistics that the public should be aware of are underscored. For example, you may not hear on the campaign trail that 25% of families with children under six live in poverty, single mothers make 60 cents to a man’s dollar, or that 75% of American mothers are in the labor force.

Read more »

Here is a post by community member Lindsay Ross from Young, Political & Fabulous.

[If you would like to be a guest blogger on The Political Voices of Women, just join our community, and start posting.]

One of the many blatant hypocrisies that has stood out for me during this election is the fact that Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin supporters, who are so quick to cry sexism, remain silent when seemingly sexist connotations are assigned to Michelle Obama.

Most recently, Bill O’Reilly stated, “Now, I have a lot of people who call me on the radio and say she looks angry. And I have to say there’s some validity to that. She looks like an angry woman.” I wouldn’t be surprised that if such a description was attributed to Clinton or Palin, supporters would assert that there’s a double standard that women who are smart, serious and professional are considered “angry.” Not to mention that such a statement seems completely untrue. At most appearances, Michelle is either smiling or serious – and certainly does not come off as an “angry woman.” What’s more, the Fox News’ characterization of Michelle Obama as “Obama Baby Mama” in June was also met with radio silence from the feminist community. But why?

Could it be that the intersection of race and gender just gets too hairy and so the battle is best left alone? The “Obama Baby Mama” comment is soaked in both sexist and racist connotations and perhaps many supporters of Clinton and Palin would rather avoid a subject where racism plays a role. It is clear that some republicans are trying to associate Michelle with pejorative images that are specific to African-American females. They would like to perpetuate the image of the “angry black woman” to instill hatred and fear in small-minded people – much like Ronald Reagan tried to do with the image of the “welfare queen” during his presidential campaign.

Or are we dealing with that aged-old taboo question from the Suffragist Movement that Women’s Rights has always been an exclusively white middle class woman phenomenon and black women are rarely invited to the dinner table? Such a question reemerged during the primary election, when Geraldine Ferraro asserted that; “Gender is the most restricting force in American life.” It is a zero-sum game to try to quantify sexism, racism or any other “ism” for that matter, but many women of color shuttered when they heard this comment. It brought back the fears that women of color and black women in particular have always been on the sidelines when it comes to fighting for equal rights for women and that they are virtually ignored when sexist comments are hurled their way.

Here is a guest post from community member Kimber Caldwell, from The Politics of Joy.

 [If you would like to be a guest blogger on The Political Voices of Women, just join our community, and start posting.]

Not too many days ago, Cynthia and I were discussing Sarah Palin’s right to choose HOW she gave birth to Trigg.

#1… She chose to complete a pregnancy that was probably considered high risk, considering her age, the discovery of Down’s Syndrome in the baby and the fact that this was at least her 5th pregnancy. I have 5 children, but have had 6 pregnancies, one that ended in a miscarriage at 12 weeks. I don’t know many women who haven’t miscarried who have this number of children. It is not unusual.

#2… She chose to travel, despite how far along she was. When her water broke in Texas, she made the choice to fly home and then subsequently drive 50 miles to her chosen hospital or birthing center. Now, I’m not sure about you, but I remember the times when my water broke… As Cynthia pointed out, she would have had to have SEVERAL changes of clothes and a box of chux pads. Not to mention that labor usually intensifies after the water breaks, so I am sure she had the complete attention of the flight crew. But this was HER choice.

At first, I was a little appalled about some of her choices. But then I recalled the choices I made in my pregnancies.

Read more »

Our very own PunditMom was on Fox and Friends yesterday morning. We finally have a clip, and she did a great job.

Pundit Mom On Fox Talking About Oprah/Palin Controversy…

Way to go Joanne!

[Cross-posted at BlogHer Health & Wellness]

This is the thing…Blogging about politics is very stressful.   And, we all know what stress can do to our health.

Do you blog about politics?  Is politics making you stressed?  Is your blood pressure running a bit high?  Are you getting more headaches than usual?  Are you losing sleep because you’re blogging to all hours of the night?  Does the release of poll numbers give you heart palpitations?  Do you ever get the urge to lock yourself in a dark room and not come out until after the election?  If you have answered yes to any of these questions, you may be suffering from Political Blogger Stress Syndrome (or PBSS).

There is no medicine or treatment for PBSS [Although, give the pharmaceutical companies some time, I'm sure they will come up with something...expensive], and many sufferers don’t even realize they have it.  So.  What can we do to combat the symptoms of PBSS?

Read more »

Here is a clip of Erin Kotecki Vest being interviewed live on CNN. GREAT JOB ERIN!

—