“Women are not the weak, frail little flowers that they are advertised. There has never been anything invented yet, including war, that a man would enter into, that a woman wouldn’t, too.” –Will Rogers

Long before great women such as Alice Paul and Lucy Burns fought for the right for women to vote, women were fighting in wars. The fight wasn’t about equal rights or even voting rights, it was about protecting our children and homes. The fight was about defending our country.

There were many women that made a difference in the revolutionary war. From nursing our soldiers to spying on the English, women left their mark and even fought beside men. It wasn’t easy. Females were not allowed on the front line. So a disguise was required.

There are many stories of women dressing as men and joining the regiments, none as famous as Deborah Samson from Massachusetts. In 1778 Deborah disguised herself as a young man, named Robert Shirtliffe and presented herself to the American Army and served undetected for a year and a half. Deborah was wounded twice before she was discharged.

This trend continued into the Civil War. Francis Day briefly served as Sgt. Frank Mayne. In the spring of 1863 Sgt. Mayne was grievously wounded and her identity was revealed. She died from her wounds.

One of the more touching stories was of a woman known only as Emily. At the age of 19 Emily ran away from home and joined the drum corps of a Michigan Regiment. The regiment was sent to Tennessee and during the struggle for Chatanooga, Emily was shot in the side. Her wound was fatal and her sex was disclosed. As Emily lay dying she dictated a telegram to her father in Brooklyn.

“Forgive your dying daughter. I have but a few moments to live. My native soil drinks my blood. I expected to deliver my country but the fates would not have it so. I am content to die. Pray forgive me.” — Emily

In World War I over 30,000 women served in the Army, Navy, Navy Nurse Corps, the Marines, and the Coast Guard. At least 359 servicewomen died and none of these women yet had the right to vote.

During World War II the first class of Woman Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) graduated on December 17, 1943. The women had to pay their own way through the training program in Texas. A total of 1074 women graduated the program over the next few years and all at their own expense. These women flew over 60 million miles in operations. Thirty-eight WASP died in training or in the line of duty. A total of 543 World War II servicewomen gave their lives.

Over 265,000 women served in the armed forces during the Vietnam War. Approximately 10,000 served in uniform “in country” during the conflict. All were volunteers as women were not subject to the draft. Eight women’s names appear at the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. Lieutenant Colonel Annie Graham is one of those names. Lieutenant Colonel Graham was a veteran of World War II and The Korean War.

Eleanor Ardel Vietti, a civilian surgeon and missionary was captured by Vietcong forces in Ban Me Thuot on May 30, 1962. Her remains have never been found. Eleanor is still listed as missing in action. Betty Ann Olsen was captured in 1968 during the Tet Offensive. She died and was buried along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Her body was never recovered.

More than sixty civilian women gave their lives during the Vietnam War. Due to the type of gorilla warfare tactics prevalent in the war, women were not just on the front lines they were often times surrounded by the enemy.

Operation Desert Shield and Storm saw the largest deployment of military women in U.S. history. Over 40,000 women were called to duty in Iraq. Sixteen women died and two were captured as prisoners of war.

Updated since my speech in 2007

Currently in Afghanistan and Iraq over 130 U.S. military servicewomen have given their lives for our country. Women make up 16% of our U.S. armed forces. Like Vietnam, there are no definitive front lines and women are in the middle of the conflicts even if delivering supplies. These women have one thing in common with their fellow male counterparts; they carry weapons and know how to use them.

This year six female police officers have given their lives in the line of duty. The first Law Enforcement death of the year was Deputy Sheriff Suzanne Hopper. Deputy Hopper was 40-years-old and had served twelve years with her department. There are currently over 110,000 female Police Officers serving in the U.S. and over 9,700 women Firefighters.

While researching my Independence Day speech I searched for quotes to exemplify the role of women in service to our country. I found very few though two struck me as needing to be mentioned.

“To tell a woman everything she may not do is to tell her what she can do.” –Spanish Proverb

“War is not women’s history.” –Virginia Woolf

I leave you with my rebuttal to this last quote.

“Where ever there is war, there are women. We mend the wounded, mourn the dead and tend the home fires of both the winners and the losers. Even when we are a part of the fight we are all but forgotten. War is women’s history. Women are just the part not told.” –Suzie Ivy

The midterm elections of 2010 brought back a familiar rage and sick, queasy feeling as I watched women on both sides of the aisle being devalued with sexist diatribes. The hateful rhetoric that defined much of the 2008 presidential campaign was not an anomaly. When debating the merits of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy detractors could no longer say, “I don’t mind electing a woman – just not that woman.” Such a phrase was nonsense after all. Plenty of women seem somehow to be that woman. Though not seeking political office, even Michelle Obama did not escape. Once called angry and emasculating, she now tills a victory garden in designer jeans and Lanvin sneakers. Sarah Palin, derided as reactionary and “disabled,” seems a terrifying prospect to the left and even some on the right.

But none can compete with the twenty years of skewering Hillary Clinton has endured. In 2008, the breathtaking atmosphere surrounding Hillary and Obama’s first solo debate captured the imagination and hopes of millions, but my joy in watching a qualified woman vie for the presidency was marred by newsmen and pundits calling Hillary Clinton a hellish housewife, Nurse Ratched, she-devil and bitch.

Not content to take the word of the pundit class on Hillary’s character, I sought the reality under the damaging “divisive and polarizing” label that had long haunted her. Hillary Clinton’s accomplishments and tireless work ethic proved that she was not the harridan of pundits’ fantasies. I ignored my scattershot but steady career as an actor to work on Hillary’s campaign. That career was nothing fancy but I’d made a living in the business for many years. The only calling I have ever had or loved became an inconvenient distraction.

Did I want Hillary to win because she was a woman? No. Did I want her to win because I thought she had the best chops for the job? Yes. She was my candidate. But the long knives were out for Hillary, the media bias appalling. Her party turned a deaf ear and stood by as her policies were misrepresented, her character maligned, her womanhood degraded. The net result was to make me work harder.

Through my passion for Hillary’s candidacy, I evolved from actor and fearful news junkie to determined campaign grunt and citizen pundit. If you told me I would immerse myself in this effort, become a blog writer for the first time in my life, build a following on various political websites under the name “Ani” and write a book on the subject that I am currently working to get published, I would have said you were potzo.

In 2008, my reluctant odyssey into the world of politics forced me to examine the way women are treated in a post-feminist world. Especially women with high aims and hard heads. I questioned the bias against women in authority, the limitations women placed on themselves, my own preconceptions about party, my choice of career, and even some of my friendships.

The fever of that campaign is still with me for one reason only — as a society, we have learned nothing. We still practice the same behavior.

Speaking out on the internet, I raised my volume well past my comfort level. At the time, hiding my real name felt like a necessity. While I didn’t want my politics to interfere with my work as an actor, far more worrisome were the threats leveled at some of Hillary’s supporters. One friend received internet death threats. Another had someone vandalize her garage door painting “Hillary hag” on it for having a Hillary lawn sign in her yard. I read that a woman with a small Hillary sign in her car window was followed by a man in another car for blocks. When the man caught up with her, he screamed, “You can put up all the signs you want. That bitch will never be president.”

In a hostile atmosphere, so many of us whispered our support, as if it was somehow something to be ashamed of. Female columnists, even those touting Hillary’s qualifications often couched their commentary in cynicism, almost as a protective mechanism lest they be accused of being too soft for believing in her. Yet indulgent coverage of her opponent was not only common, but encouraged.

Woman have long been shamed for their sexuality, for being outspoken, for asserting themselves. Shirley Chisholm, who ran for president in 1972 said, “Tremendous amounts of talent are being lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt” and “My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn’t always discuss for reasons of political expediency.”

I no longer wish to hide. I want my name back.

As a blogger keeping my identity confidential, some readers on the internet who stood in firm support of my commentary trashed the profession they had no idea I had been part of for many years. Some of their statements repeated the bad rap Hollywood has long held: actors are vacuous, phony, amoral, and don’t know what they are talking about. To say that someone who lives in Hollywood is a brainless, lefty loony who hates America is just as unfair and baseless as saying those who live in red states are backward, uninformed hillbillies. These labels stop us from having a meaningful debate about much of anything. The behavior profits no one but politicians and special interests that pit us against one another, using our fears to fill their coffers, trotting out the same hot button issues every couple of years, never really intending to advance any cause beyond Election Day.

The stereotyping I witnessed, not only toward actors, but toward any and all defined groups, made clear how easy it was and is to practice contempt prior to examination. I felt a growing need to expand beyond my own circle, pushing back against those who would use demagoguery to keep otherwise likeminded people divided. I no longer trust labels or those doing the labeling.

Women are pitted against one another constantly in this same divide and conquer scenario. Yet Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin refused to have the catfight the media was aching to cover. Instead, both women took care to discuss each other in respectful terms. If women on the left and right could ever reach a truce on reproductive rights, the guys would never win another election until they stopped condescending to 52% of the population as one-issue voters.

The elections of 2008 and 2010 also instilled in me a deep need to understand where all the pent up hatred was coming from and why it was so easy to curse women for, well, being women.

Victoria Woodhull was a successful entrepreneur and activist who ran for President in 1872, almost 50 years before woman had the right to vote. The type of press coverage she received was not dissimilar to the tiresome focus on Hillary’s ankles, “cackle,” pantsuits and vocal quality. Kneecapping a woman with poisonous derision was an age-old practice simply refreshed with new verbiage in 2008.

In the early days of the presidential campaign, the Washington Post offered a story about “Hillary’s dip into new neckline territory”: “There wasn’t an unseemly amount of cleavage showing, but there it was. Undeniable.” This tidbit was picked up by news outlets and pundits from here to Australia. Senator Clinton was discovered in her incriminating ensemble as she stood on the floor of the Senate discussing the burdensome cost of higher education. Her wardrobe had once again trumped her issue.

In February of 2009, the stock market had just lost half its value, two wars continued abroad, we had inaugurated a new president, and Congress was about to pass the $787 billion stimulus bill. CBS, along with other news networks, were wondering…”Will Jessica Simpson’s Curves Hurt Her Career.” On CNN, “Jessica Simpson spoke out in her first interview since getting slammed for putting on a few pounds.” A preposterous amount of attention was focused on this woman’s waistline. In the midst of numerous crises, we were offered bread and circuses.

In 2010, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was referred to as “the Senate’s hottest member” by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Was that better or worse than Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley being referred to as an “ice queen?”

If the objectification of women was not endemic to our culture, it would find no quarter with the American people and those practicing it would have to find something else to talk about. We, too, are part of the problem. We are daily reminded what the feminine ideal should be via airbrushed and otherwise “enhanced” images of beautiful women who grace magazine covers. It is also clear how easily any woman can be the target for humiliating treatment if for whatever reason, she does not match up to that ideal, physically, socially or politically.

A woman’s appearance can be used against her via demeaning images in novelty stores, airports, greeting cards, television ads and magazines. There is no escape: Hillary nutcrackers, Hillary’s head sticking out of a toilet. Hillary as dominatrix dolls. Hillary toilet paper. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews displayed a photo of Hillary with horns coming out of her head on his show. Imagine the backlash had he made President Obama the target of such treatment.

To complement David Letterman’s references to Sarah Palin’s “slutty flight attendant look,” there were Sarah Palin orifice-accessible blow up dolls and ‘naughty Sarah’ action figures. Photographs were manipulated on the internet. The naked Sarah Palin and the naked VP Dick Cheney having sex, her legs up over his shoulders, was the nadir.

Ridicule. A woman’s sexuality is abused as a weapon to demean and humiliate. It would appear the thinking is, “If I can screw it, I can own it.”

One of the worst weapons is laughter. We are encouraged to listen to an endless litany of put downs with good humor and complain about none of it. Yet over time, it must have an effect on the way society sees women and the way women see themselves.

“They fined CBS a million dollars for Janet Jackson’s nipple. Just think what they could get for Hillary Clinton’s c_nt.”

–Bill Maher, HBO, “Real Time with Bill Maher”

Today, female candidates on average receive 40% less coverage on the issues and 350% more coverage about their appearance than their male counterparts. Calling a woman a whore is an old tactic and still an effective one. That more women candidates are facing these attacks head on doesn’t render them any more acceptable.

Nikki Haley, just elected the first female Governor of South Carolina overcame a phony sex scandal to win office. Current research indicates women do much better when they fight back rather than bear such accusations in silence. When women run, they tend to win almost as much as men do – but many don’t want to throw their hats into the ring if focus on appearance or character assassination will trump issues and qualifications.

Now that the midterm “shellacking” is done, media speculation has once again turned to both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin – will either or both of them run? If so, when? And does another vicious, sexist hazing await?

The majority of the pundit class and newscasters have exhibited a disturbing unwillingness to discuss an issue that shows little sign of dissipating. While looking away now may be the more comfortable choice, sweeping this issue under the rug ensures an encore of the same behavior the next time a woman dares step to the plate.

Born into a family where abuse to women was the norm, I am more sensitive to the warning signs. My beautiful and tireless mother was devalued and shamed to devastating effect so that my father could maintain superiority in our home. There is a personal, profound cost to each of us as similar types of assaults continue to unfold on a national level. Until that personal cost and innate bias is acknowledged, examined and debated, little will change.

Will we arrive at the point where misogyny’s tool kit loses its power to manipulate? For all our sakes, qualifications and policy positions had best trump branding, stagecraft or a focus on ankle size. I look forward to the day when considerations of race, gender or age will neither advantage nor disadvantage someone who has the courage to stand for our country and represent our interests.

Now we have women governors, senators, representatives, and Secretaries of State. I can only imagine what out founding mothers would have thought of that, the joy, the excitement, the relief. No doubt, things have changed in this country for women. Not that women are treated as full equals yet in the United States. The sexism and misogyny evidenced by one of the two major political parties in 2008 made that abundantly clear. But things are better. We strive, still, for equal equal pay, for equal representation, for our first woman president, but there is no denying we are better off now than we were 90 years ago.

Indeed, our foremothers worked hard for this, as many of us have in the intervening years. But there are other countries, like Afghanistan, for example, where girls are in danger for merely trying to get an education. Yes, on Wednesday of this week, a girls’ school had poisonous gas spread throughout the school, sickening a number of the girls and teachers. Who would do such a thing? The Taliban would:

[snip] Wednesday’s incident follows a similar pattern seen in other recent attacks at girls’ schools involving an airborne substance which officials say could be some form of gas.

Those have raised fears that the Taliban and other allied groups who oppose female education are using a new method to scare them away from classes. [snip]

Wow. I scarcely know how to respond to this. It is despicable. And it is a pattern with the Taliban:

[snip] “This has happened a couple of times before, mainly in the northern province of Kunduz. At the time, it was also said, that these girls were poisoned and officials pointed the finger at the Taliban and rightly so,” she said.

“However, there is still no hard conclusion on who is behind this attack and what kind of poisoning is taking place.”

The Taliban banned education for girls during their Afghan rule from 1996-2001, but have condemned similar attacks in the past.

They have, however, set fire to dozens of schools, threatened teachers and even attacked schoolgirls in rural areas.

In one attack in Kandahar in 2008,around 15 girls and teachers were sprayed with acid by men on motorbikes.

In parts of southern and eastern Afghanistan, particularly in Taliban strongholds, schools for girls still remain closed. [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

This attitude toward women and girls is a bitter pill to swallow. As is this headline from The Hill, “Sen. Kerry: ‘Very active’ efforts under way to reach settlement with Taliban.” What? How? Why? Kerry explains:

[snip]“I can report without being specific that there are efforts under way. They are serious, and I completely agree with that fundamental premise — and so does General [David] Petraeus and so does President Obama — there is no military solution,” he told NPR. “And there are very active efforts now to seek an appropriate kind of political settlement.”

U.S. officials have acknowledged that some sort of political settlement must be reached with the Taliban — a loosely affiliated group of Islamic insurgents that control large swaths of territory in Afghanistan — in order to bring an end to the almost nine-year-long U.S. war there.

The beginning of settlement negotiations represents a significant development in terms of Western involvement there…

Kerry said any “appropriate” settlement would have to include “a renunciation of al Qaeda,” a “reduction of violence,” a “recognition of the constitutional rights of both Pakistan and Afghanistan and greater efforts to reduce sanctuaries for insurgency.”[snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

And what about the women and girls, Senator Kerry? What about them, in your “negotiations” with terrorists? Yeah, I know – who gives a damn about them? They are just “casualties,” I suppose, necessary capitulations to this woman-hating group.

How it is Kerry, and Obama, think having active negotiations with the Taliban is a good thing? What are the chances, really, that, if they can even get some of these groups to come to the table, they will even keep their word should a compromise be reached?

And what about these women, these girls? The ones gassed by members of the Taliban to prevent them from learning? Or, the Taliban members who throw acid in the faces of these girls in an attempt to force them our of school? Oh, yeah – these sounds like just the kind of people with whom we should be engaging in “very active” negotiations. You know, since we are choosing to negotiate with terrorists in the first place.

I cannot help but be reminded of this powerful moment (again) of CJ Craig on “West Wing”:

Wow. Yep, that sounds a little too familiar…

Indeed, I am thankful, grateful, and humbled for the work our foremothers did to secure us the right to vote in this country. For the women who fought to make this possible: Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and all the other remarkable women who enabled for us to have this right, thank you.

May the young girls and women of Afghanistan one day be allowed to learn, to study, to be educated. And may they, one day, one day soon, be full participants in their country. Sadly, that day is not today.

One other note – almost 200 women and 4 boys were raped near a UN Peacekeepers camp in Congo. And what has the UN said about it? They’re looking into it. Well, it only happened three weeks ago, so you can see why it might take them a while to come out with any kind of statement. Right. Sec. Clinton spoke out about this atrocity, and you can read her remarks HERE, but this sums it up:

[snip]“Sexual violence harms more than its immediate victims. It denies and destroys our common dignity, it shreds the fabric that weaves us together as humans, it endangers families and communities, it erodes social and political stability, and it undermines economic progress. These travesties, committed with impunity against innocent civilians who play no role in armed conflict, hold us all back. [snip]

Amen to that.

International Women’s Day has been observed since in the early 1900′s, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies.

1908
Great unrest and critical debate was occurring amongst women. Women’s oppression and inequality was spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Then in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.

1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman’s Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913.

1910
In 1910 a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named a Clara Zetkin (Leader of the ‘Women’s Office’ for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women’s Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day – a Women’s Day – to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women’s clubs, and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin’s suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women’s Day was the result.

1911
Following the decision agreed at Copenhagen in 1911, International Women’s Day (IWD) was honoured the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. However less than a week later on 25 March, the tragic ‘Triangle Fire’ in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This disastrous event drew significant attention to working conditions and labour legislation in the United States that became a focus of subsequent International Women’s Day events. 1911 also saw women’s ‘Bread and Roses‘ campaign.

Fifteen thousand women marching in New York City over a hundred years ago – wow, that must have been some sight to see. To read the rest of the history about International Women’s Day, click HERE.

In honor of this day, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, prepared this address:

No discussion of IWD would be complete, though, without one of the most powerful speeches about Women’s Rights and Human Rights. That would be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech to the UN 4th World Conference on Women Plenary Session in Beijing:

Wow – moves me to tears every time I watch this speech for a number of reasons: to have such an amazing advocate for women’s rights, and human rights; the awe of her making this point to such a wide ranging audience, and grief that so much about which Clinton spoke – economic inequality, educational inequality, and the rampant rape of women around the globe, often as a tool of war. After all these years, it is not decreasing, but increasing.

And one area in our hemisphere where rape is on the rise is in Haiti after the earthquake:

Thank heavens some of these women will be safer due to the security patrol, but this is an aftershock of the earthquake about which we have heard nothing. What a grave disservice to women that it is not being reported, and that these women are in such fear. Sadly, that is the case for many women, here and abroad.

On this day, this 99th celebration of International Women’s Day, let us renew our resolve to make meaningful changes in the lives of women in the United States, Haiti, Sudan, Bosnia, England, all around the globe. Let us be mindful of what other women endure in other countries, as well as at home. Let us work for social justice, equality, and abolition of violence against women. And may we not falter, for our sake, for the sake of our children, for the sake of humanity.

The last word on this day may come from a surprising source – NATO. Yes, that NATO. They make a suggestion behind which I can get 1,000%:

The seed for the first Woman’s Rights Convention was planted in 1840, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton met Lucretia Mott at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, the conference that refused to seat Mott and other women delegates from America because of their sex. Stanton, the young bride of an antislavery agent, and Mott, a Quaker preacher and veteran of reform, talked then of calling a convention to address the condition of women. Eight years later, it came about as a spontaneous event.

In July 1848, Mott was visiting her sister, Martha C. Wright, in Waterloo, New York. Stanton, now the restless mother of three small sons, was living in nearby Seneca Falls. A social visit brought together Mott, Stanton, Wright, Mary Ann McClintock, and Jane Hunt. All except Stanton were Quakers, a sect that afforded women some measure of equality, and all five were well acquainted with antislavery and temperance meetings. Lucretia Mott Fresh in their minds was the April passage of the long-deliberated New York Married Woman’s Property Rights Act, a significant but far from comprehensive piece of legislation. The time had come, Stanton argued, for women’s wrongs to be laid before the public, and women themselves must shoulder the responsibility. Before the afternoon was out, the women decided on a call for a convention “to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman.”

To Stanton fell the task of drawing up the Declaration of Sentiments that would define the meeting. Taking the Declaration of Independence as her guide, Stanton submitted that “all men and women had been created equal” and went on to list eighteen “injuries and usurpations” -the same number of charges leveled against the King of England-”on the part of man toward woman.”

You have to love the symmetry with which Stanton crafted the “Declaration of Sentiments.” And what an interesting choice of words for the Declaration, isn’t it? Stanton didn’t stop there:

Stanton also drafted eleven resolutions, making the argument that women had a natural right to equality in all spheres. The ninth resolution held forth the radical assertion that it was the duty of women to secure for themselves the right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton afterwards recalled that a shocked Lucretia Mott exclaimed, “Why, Lizzie, thee will make us ridiculous.” Stanton stood firm. “But I persisted, for I saw clearly that the power to make the laws was the right through which all other rights could be secured.”

The convention, to take place in five days’ time, on July 19 and 20 at the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Seneca Falls, was publicized only by a small, unsigned notice placed in the Seneca County Courier. “The convention will not be so large as it otherwise might be, owing to the busy time with the farmers,” Mott told Stanton, “but it will be a beginning.”

A crowd of about three hundred people, including forty men, came from five miles round. No woman felt capable of presiding; the task was undertaken by Lucretia’s husband, James Mott. All of the resolutions were passed unanimously except for woman suffrage, a strange idea and scarcely a concept designed to appeal to the predominantly Quaker audience, whose male contingent commonly declined to vote. The eloquent Frederick Douglass, a former slave and now editor of the Rochester North Star, however, swayed the gathering into agreeing to the resolution. At the closing session, Lucretia Mott won approval of a final resolve “for the overthrowing of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman equal participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce.” One hundred women and men signed the Seneca Falls Declaration-although subsequent criticism caused some of them to remove their names.

How telling is that, that no woman felt “capable of presiding” at their own Rights Convention? Holy smokes. At least there were some supportive men there, including Lucretia Mott’s husband, to step up. But not everyone was supportive:

The proceedings in Seneca Falls, followed a few days later by a meeting in Rochester, brought forth a torrent of sarcasm and ridicule from the press and pulpit. Noted Frederick Douglass in the North Star: “A discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency by many of what are called the wise and the good of our land, than would be a discussion of the rights of woman.”

But Elizabeth Cady Stanton, although somewhat discomforted by the widespread misrepresentation, understood the value of attention in the press. “Just what I wanted,” Stanton exclaimed when she saw that James Gordon Bennett, motivated by derision, printed the entire Declaration of Sentiments in the New York Herald. “Imagine the publicity given to our ideas by thus appearing in a widely circulated sheet like the Herald. It will start women thinking, and men too; and when men and women think about a new question, the first step in progress is taken.”

Stanton, thirty-two years old at the time of the Seneca Falls Convention, grew gray in the cause. In 1851 she met temperance worker Susan B. Anthony, and shortly the two would be joined in the long struggle to secure the vote for women. When national victory came in 1920, seventy-two years after the first organized demand in 1848, only one signer of the Seneca Falls Declaration-Charlotte Woodward, a young worker in a glove manufactory -had lived long enough to cast her ballot.

What a day that must have been for Charlotte Woodward, but how sad it took 72 years for women to get the right to vote after Seneca Falls, and that she was the only remaining one able to cast her vote. Still, what a joy that must have been for her. Can you imagine it?? WOw.

Let’s just see how far we have come in the past 161 years:

We have come nowhere near far enough. I can only imagine what Mott, Stanton, and the others, would have thought of this past primary season. On the one hand, no doubt, they would be thrilled that a woman would win the popular vote, would win almost all of the big states, many by a landslide. On the other, they most likely would have seen the treatment of that woman (and Sarah Palin, too), as more of the same. Forced by the powers-that-be to give up delegates she won fair and square for the inexperienced, younger man, forced to play by a different set of rules at the Convention than anyone else EVER, a different kind of convention from Seneca Falls, that’s for sure. It was one that failed to live by its OWN rules in order to put this woman firmly in her place. No doubt, what happened this past year would feel all too familiar to them. And to too many of us.

My deepest appreciation to these women who began this process. We have come a ways from that Convention 161 years ago, but we have far, far to go to achieve real equality in this country. One thing I do know – no one is going to hand it to us. We must keep fighting, like Hillary Clinton kept fighting in the face of the naysayers. And maybe next time, the best person, who happens to be a woman, will actually win…

“Let Women Wear the Hijab: The Emptiness of Obama’s Cairo Speech“:

I know many will gush over President Obama’s Cairo speech and I’m likely swimming against the tide of the media and my fellow Democrats and progressives. But reading the transcript, I was struck by two things:

1. Aside from a few platitudes, it is disappointingly weak on human rights and specifically women’s rights.

2. It betrays a naiveté, perhaps feigned, about how the Arab world works. [Susan's Note: Here at NoQuarter, we're all familiar with Obama's inexperience and lack of knowledge that lead to his dangerous naivete.]

I sometimes preface my posts by explaining that my Mideast perspective is that of an American-Lebanese-Christian-Jew who grew up in Muslim West Beirut at the height (or should I say depth) of the Lebanese civil war. The tumultuous and bloody intersection of religions and geopolitical interests is painfully real to me.

Yes, Obama is targeting the Arab ‘street’ and global public opinion – but to the corrupt regimes that dominate that region of the world, his oration means virtually nothing. Repression and suppression will go on uninterrupted. And to those whose abiding hatred of Israel (and thus America) is absolute, Obama’s words will be seen as empty and hypocritical.

Egyptian blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy explains:

Right before he took off from DC, on what the media has been depicting as some “odyssey,” to address the Muslim World from Cairo, President Obama had described the 81-year-old Egyptian President Mubarak as a “force for stability.” This week Cairo and its twin city Giza have been a showcase of what this “stability” cost.

The capital is under occupation. Security troops are deployed in the main public squares and metro stations. Citizens were detained en masse and shops were told to close down in Bein el-Sarayat area, neighboring Cairo University, where Obama will be speaking. In Al-Azhar University, the co-host of the “historical speech,” State Security police raided and detained at least 200 foreign students, held them without charges in unknown locations.

Is there an overarching purpose to Obama’s speech? Is it to repair our image after eight years of a radical rightwing administration? Of course. But if the goal is to repair our image, then how about shunning the barbaric concept of indefinite detention? How about heeding the increasingly distressed calls of those who view the new administration’s actions in the realm of civil liberties as a dangerous, disturbing, and precedent-setting affirmation of Bush’s worst excesses?

Glenn Greenwald writes:

The White House is actively supporting a new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman — called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 — that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any “photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States.”

What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people? Read the language of the bill; it doesn’t even hide the fact that its only objective is to empower the President to conceal evidence of war crimes.

That this exact scenario is now happening in the U.S. is all the more remarkable given that the President who is demanding these new suppression powers is the same one who repeatedly vowed “to make his administration the most open and transparent in history.” After noting the tentative steps Obama has taken to increase transparency, the generally pro-Obama Washington Post Editorial Page today observed: “what makes the administration’s support for the photographic records act so regrettable” is that “Mr. Obama runs the risk of taking two steps back in his quest for more open government.”

What makes all of this even worse is that it is part of a broader trend whereby the Government simply retroactively changes the law whenever it decides it does not want to abide by it.

Glenn has been documenting – and railing against – dozens of similar instances. I echoed his concerns in a recent post:

[...]

I wish I could quote Peter’s essay in its entirety. I have written an e-mail to him, requesting just that.

In the meantime, read all of “Let Women Wear the Hijab: The Emptiness of Obama’s Cairo Speech.”

Here is the full text of Obama’s speech.

For more blog reactions, check Memeorandum.com.

Here’s one for the feminists. It’s another tongue-in-cheek song from my musical $ucce$$! (now seeking a Broadway home). The song is sung by an Irish-Latino character named Juanita Fitzgerald. The lyrics are as follows:

JUANITA:
Don’t trust a man or you’ll be sorry
Men just cause worry

CHORUS:
They’ll make a fool of you

JUANITA:
They only bring anxiety
Just take it from me!

CHORUS:
Men will just leave you blue

JUANITA:
Don’t trust a man
He’ll only hurt you
He’ll only make a fool of you
He’ll take what he can
And then desert you
That’s men for you
They’ll leave you blue
There’s nothing much a girl can do

CHORUS:
He will hurt you
Then desert you

JUANITA:
All men are swine as you’ll discover
You won’t recover

CHORUS:
They’re evil through and through

JUANITA:
They’ll promise you the earth and sky
Then leave you to cry

CHORUS:
That’s what a man will do

JUANITA:
You always hope there’s one exception
One who will make your dreams come true
But all you get is lies, deception
That’s men for you; I know it’s true
All men are rotten through and through

CHORUS:
Love is just a misconception

JUANITA:
Men have a single function, namely
They just exist to plug the gap
Most of them do it rather lamely

CHORUS:
Let’s wipe ‘em off the map!

JUANITA:
I think it’s clear that we don’t need ‘em
So we won’t breed ‘em

CHORUS:
Then there’ll be none at large

JUANITA:
We just won’t bear their progeny
That’s how it will be

CHORUS:
Then women can take charge

JUANITA:
We don’t need them as pollinators
Test tubes will do their work instead
Then they’ll have no chance to frustrate us
They’ve had their day; that’s what I say
I can’t see any other way

CHORUS:
We don’t need ‘em
We won’t breed ‘em

JUANITA:
A man was born to cause us sorrow
Sure as tomorrow

CHORUS:
That’s all a man is for

JUANITA:
All those I’ve known turned out to be
A burden to me

CHORUS:
Let’s show ‘em all the door

JUANITA:
A man will always try to use you
Then he’ll abuse you

CHORUS:
We just can’t take no more

JUANITA:
I think that we can do without it
No doubt about it
We’ll have no more

CHORUS:
Give ‘em what for
We’ll show ‘em all the door
Clear the floor
Clear them out
Till there’s no more

JUANITA:
We’ll have no more

CHORUS:
When there are none at large
We’ll take charge
When they’re gone
We’ll carry on

JUANITA:
We’ll soldier on

ALL:
And then we’ll all be free
Free to be anything we want to be

Yesterday, I wrote of Afghanistan, Iraq, and the US. Today, it is India:

What courage, what strength, these women demonstrated. May their success be far and wide.

Speaking of courage and strength, here is a broader retrospective of Women Leaders in our history who helped get us where we are:

Here is one of my favorite athletes in one of my favorite sports (soccer), a woman who made history, Julie Foudy, in celebration of Women’s History Month:

Oh, and yes, Hillary should have been in the video of Women Leaders. So this one is for her, and for all of us:

The Other Tea Party that Launched a Revolution

The Women’s Rights Movement had its start on a sweltering summer day in upstate New York, when a young housewife and mother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was invited to tea with four women friends. Their conversation turned to the limitations that still remained on women under America’s new democracy. While the American Revolution, fought just 70 years earlier, was waged to win freedom from tyranny, women had gained little if any freedoms. And the friends agreed, that women should play a more active role in this new republic.

Within two days of their afternoon tea together on July 13, 1848, this small group of women had picked a date for their convention, found a suitable location, and placed a small announcement in the Seneca County Courier. They called it “A convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman.” The gathering would take place at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20, 1848.

Today we are living the legacy of that afternoon conversation. ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY years after a friendly tea party, we are looking at the massive changes these women set in motion when they daringly agreed to convene the world’s first Women’s Rights Convention.

A HISTORY OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

1769 – American colonial laws were based on the English common law, which said, “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in the law. The very being and legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated into that of her husband under whose wing  and protection she performs everything.”

1839 – The first state (Mississippi) grants women the right to hold property in their own name, with their husbands’ permission.

1866 – The 14th Amendment is passed by Congress (ratified by the states in 1868). It is the first time “citizens” and “voters” are defined as “male” in the Constitution.

1869 – The first woman suffrage law in the U.S. is passed in the territory of Wyoming.

1875 – The U.S. Supreme Court declares, a state can prohibit a woman from voting. The court declares women as “persons,” but holds that they constitute a “special category of _nonvoting_ citizens.”

1890 – The first state (Wyoming) grants women the right to vote in all elections.

1918 – Margaret Sanger wins her suit in New York to allow doctors to advise their married patients about birth control for health purposes.

1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified. It declares: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

1923 – National Woman’s Party proposes Constitutional amendment: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and in every place subject to its jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

1963 – The Equal Pay Act is passed by Congress, promising equitable wages for the same work, regardless of the race, color, religion, national origin or sex of the worker.

1964 – Title VII of the Civil Rights Act passes including a prohibition against employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex.

1971 – The U.S. Supreme Court outlaws the practice of private employers refusing to hire women with pre-school children.

1972 – Title IX (Public Law 92-318) of the Education Amendments prohibits sex discrimination in all aspects of education programs that receive federal support.

1972 – The Supreme Court rules that the right to privacy encompasses an unmarried person’s right to use contraceptives.

1973 – The U.S. Supreme Court bans sex-segregated “help wanted” advertising as a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended.

1973 – The U.S. Supreme Court declares that the Constitution protects women’s right to terminate an early pregnancy, thus making abortion legal in the U.S.

1978 – The Pregnancy Discrimination Act bans employment discrimination against pregnant women.

1984 – The state of Mississippi belatedly ratifies the 19th Amendment, granting women the vote.

1996 – United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996), affirms that the male-only admissions policy of the state-supported Virginia Military Institute violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

1997 – Elaborating on Title IX, the Supreme Court rules that college athletics programs must actively involve roughly equal numbers of men and women to qualify for federal support.

2009 – The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act expands workers’ rights to sue over pay discrimination.

For a more comprehensive History of Women’s Rights go to The National Women’s History Project website here.

Women Taking the Lead to Save Our Planet is this year’s National Women’s History Project theme. It is in recognition of the important work women are doing in the on-going “green movement. The 2009 Honorees include scientists, engineers, business leaders, writers, filmmakers, conservationists, teachers, community organizers, religious or workplace leaders or others whose lives show exceptional vision and leadership to save our planet.

Among the honorees is Hillary Rodham Clinton, who, while serving in the United States Senate, worked to secure federal legislation to protect the environment both on the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee and as the senior Democrat on the Fisheries, Wildlife and Water subcommittee. She co-sponsored the Petroleum Consumer Price Gouging Protection Act and Close the Enron Loophole Act to enable the President to declare an energy emergency and trigger federal gouging protections.

Pictured above is honoree Dr. Jean McLain, research microbial ecologist. For more information on Dr. McLain and the other honoree, please go here.

And this more recent speech from the 160th anniversary of Seneca Falls:

Wow. Someone please tell me how is it that Hillary Clinton was depicted as “uninspiring”??? Only by those who had never actually bothered to hear her SPEAK is all I can figure. Yet another one of those memes started by someone to demean her.

Oh, what should have been. Sure would have made Women’s History Month this year something special. Instead, we get to “celebrate” the return of blatant sexism and misogyny in our country after this past election. Woohoo – NOT. Sadly, we still have far, too far to go…

And on a MUCH lighter note, it is time for photos of the PUPPIES! They are one week old today! Here they are:

Their names are, starting from the one on the bottom left, the first born, Lucas; the brown one is Leo; moving clockwise, the brindle is Leila; the one at the very top is Lucky; next is Luna (the last born); under her is Loco, short for Locomotion (he is motoring around all over the place, even though he can’t see where he is going!). In the top photo, Loco is the one with the triangle of white on his neck, with his head on top of Lucas; and in the middle is Lani. Notice a pattern with the names? Since their mother is Lucy, we thought we should give them “L” names! They have doubled their weight in a week, and seem to be doing well. Their mom is taking a few more breaks from them, but continues to be an excellent mother!

Join Dr. Lynette Long for her weekly call-in show, SINS OF OMISSION, where she unapologetically discusses sexism in our society. Dr. Long will use your examples to highlight both Sins of Commission (blatant sexist attacks) and Sins of Omission (the under-representation of women). In her direct no-holds-barred style, Dr. Long will offer listeners strategies to combat sexism in their lives and will solicit the help of the listening audience to eradicate sexism in our society. Get ready to roll up your sleeves and do some heavy lifting — something has got to give.

by Lynette Long

The current cabinet of the United States is attended by the President, fifteen Cabinet Members, and six cabinet level administrative offices that includes the Vice-President and the White House Chief of Staff for a total of 22 members. 

The Bush Cabinet has four women: Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State, Elaine Chao as Secretary of Labor, Mary Peters as Secretary of Transportation, and Margaret Spellings as Secretary of Education. 

In addition Susan Schwab has Cabinet level rank as United States Trade Secretary.   

Out of the 22 people that attend cabinet meetings, The President, the Vice-President, the Cabinet, and the Cabinet level administrative offices, five are currently women, which is 23%. 

Will President-Elect Obama appoint more women to his cabinet than President Bush?   I am starting a cabinet watch. 

Help me.  I would like to see 50% of the female cabinet women.  I am starting a cabinet watch.  As the cabinet members become appointed I will color the titles blue or pink. 

Please lobby the Obama campaign for more women in the cabinet.  Call his office at 202-224-2854. Thanks. 

·         The President

·         Secretary of State

·         Secretary of the Treasury

·         Secretary of Defense

·         Attorney General

·         Secretary of the Interior

·         Secretary of Agriculture

·         Secretary of Commerce

·         Secretary of Labor

·         Secretary of Health and Human Services

·         Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

·         Secretary of Transportation

·         Secretary of Energy

·         Secretary of Education

·         Secretary of Veterans Affairs

·         Secretary of Homeland Security

Cabinet-level administration offices ·         Vice President of the United States
·         White House Chief of Staff
·        Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
·         Director of the Office of Management and Budget
·         Director of the National Drug Control Policy
·         United States Trade Representative	·	·

]]> http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/6004/parity-in-the-cabinet/feed/ 51 http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/5982/nqr-announcement-women-push-for-increased-representation-in-turkey/ http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/5982/nqr-announcement-women-push-for-increased-representation-in-turkey/#comments Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:55:20 +0000 Dr. Lynette Long http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/11/08/nqr-announcement-women-push-for-increased-representation-in-turkey/ Ed. Note: We are so very, very, very proud to announce that, starting this Monday night at 9:00 p.m. ET, Dr. Lynette Long will be hosting a weekly radio show that takes callers — like you! Dr. Long chose the name, Sins of Omission, and wrote this description of her plans for this NoQuarter Radio show that, as with all of our other radio shows, you can listen to at any time, starting right after the show is over at 10:00 p.m. ET:

Join Dr. Lynette Long for her weekly call-in show, SINS OF OMISSION, where she unapologetically discusses sexism in our society. Dr. Long will use your examples to highlight both Sins of Commission (blatant sexist attacks) and Sins of Omission (the under-representation of women). In her direct no-holds-barred style, Dr. Long will offer listeners strategies to combat sexism in their lives and will solicit the help of the listening audience to eradicate sexism in our society. Get ready to role up your sleeves and do some heavy lifting — something has got to give.

PARITY IN TURKEY

"Engin says the days of women having only five percent of the seats in parliament have to end.

"Once we are going to have more and more women in parliament, I believe the rights of the women have to be much more discussed in the parliament," siad Engin.

Kader, a non-partisan group, wants to put more women in parliament. Nuket Sirman is one of the founders of Kader. She says the members of the organization came up with what they think is a winning slogan to promote their cause.

"We took out mustaches and stuck them on our faces, and the slogan was, is a mustache necessary, in other words do you have to be a man to go into parliament," said Sirman.

Kader took the idea a step further. The group persuaded many of Turkey’s most powerful women, including pop stars and business leaders, to don mustaches, to highlight the male domination of parliament. The media ran with the story. Soon Turks were seeing famous women wearing mustaches on television and in newspapers and magazines. Sirman says the publicity campaign has struck a chord."

They succeeded!!

http://www.esiweb.org/index.php?lang=en&id=245

"With the elections on 22 July in Turkey, the percentage of women in parliament sprung from 4.2 % to 9.1%, from 24 women to 50. Of these 30 are from AKP, 10 from CHP, 2 from MHP and 8 are independents supported by the (pro-Kurdish) Democratic Turkey Party.

Two of these women are now deputy parliamentary speakers: Istanbul Deputy Meral Akşener (MHP) and İzmir deputy Güldal Mumcu (CHP). The only other time a woman served as deputy parliamentary speaker was 38 years ago. Being deputy parliamentary speaker involves chairing the sessions of the General Assembly that the speaker does not attend (and the speaker usually only attends the historically significant sessions) and serving as Acting President of the Republic when both the President of the Republic and the Speaker of Parliament are abroad.

Sarah Palin has become my new hero. While I don’t agree with some of her political positions, I love that she is unapologetically herself. And she is a REAL feminist, representing many of us who don’t toe the line of some definition of what that is. The so-called “progressives,” men and women alike, don’t approve of anyone diverging from their definitions. Like me, Palin could care less what they think. From her interview with Curic:

I’m a feminist who believes in equal rights and I believe that women certainly today have every opportunity that a man has to succeed and to try to do it all anyways…[A feminist is] someone who would not stand for oppression against women.

I like that definition. I like it because I am a lifetime radical feminist who believes that real feminism is not about receiving the approval from a misogynist like Andrew Sullivan, but rather about women living full and free and authentic lives. I may disagree with Palin on some matters of policy, but I agree with her that feminism is about the existential choices women make for themselves. It’s all about freedom: women can stay home or work, get married or have a partner, take their husband’s name or keep their own, have children or not, run for office or run corporations, be a Democrat or a Republican. Feminism is freedom and it dovetails perfectly with American freedom.

I love listening to Palin calling out the Poster Boy of Male Privilege, Obama, for his lies and omissions, and she does it with relish. WaPo quotes Palin:

Okay, so, Florida, you know that you’re going to have to hang on to your hats, because from now until Election Day, it may get kind of rough.

And while the Democrats and the main stream media attack her for everything from her mothering to her idiomatic, “Joe six pack” speech, The Barracuda flexes her muscles and says:

“For me, the heels are on, the gloves are off”

Sharpening her attacks against Obama’s lack of support for our troops, she has the audacity to speak the truth:

Obama doesn’t like American soldiers. He said that our troops in Afghanistan are just, quote, ‘air-raiding villages and killing civilians’

Palin continues to hammer home Obama’s close association with unrepentant domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers:

Obama held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers’s living room, and they’ve worked together on various projects in Chicago. These are the same guys who think that patriotism is paying higher taxes — remember that’s what Joe Biden had said. “And I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America, as the greatest force for good in the world. I’m afraid this is someone who sees America as ‘imperfect enough’ to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country.

You can see this speech in a post by SusanUnPc, which also includes Paul Villareal’s videos.

I love Sarah because she’s one of us. As Truthteller documented, like us, she’s been accused of racism for daring to criticize Dear Leader. She’s been accused of being a hick, a barbie, a pig with lipstick, and in Ani’s post about the misogyny that has welcomed her onto the national stage, Palin has even been called “disabled.” The insults range from the horrendous to the ridiculous, as in NewHampster’s post about the extreme closeup designed to expose Palin’s wrinkles. The list goes on and on.

In a brilliant post, feminist writer Dr. Violet Socks suggests that the attacks on Palin from women are sycophantic acts to gain favor with the “liberal,” male power structure:

Whenever women in a patriarchal society buck male opinion, there’s hell to pay and they know it. Women in America really went out on a limb this year by backing Hillary in the face of withering derision from men (and from young women attempting to curry favor with men, consciously or not). Now they’re making amends by piling on Palin.

Ridiculing Sarah Palin as a moron — which she clearly is not — is de rigueur for everybody now in the Obama camp. It’s their preferred sport. It’s true that Palin is verbally awkward in interviews, but then, Obama himself is a man whose unscripted remarks are so confused they defy belief. A teleprompter-deprived Obama thinks there are 57 states in the Union, believes Oregon is in the Great Lakes region, doesn’t know which states border his own state of Illinois, and has no idea which Senate committees he’s on.

But still: people always make fun of their political opponents, and they’re rarely fair about it. What interests me about the Palin attacks is their vigor. To a large extent, it’s a continuation of the misogyny that is such an integral part of the Obama movement: from the campaign itself, from the media collaborators, from the male supporters, from the self-loathing young female supporters.

Typical of liberal sexism, PBS’s program NOW has a poll asking if Palin is qualified to serve as vice president, although Palin has more executive experience than any of the three male candidates, their names are conspicuously absent. Why the question is not asked of Obama, a man who was in the senate for 143 days prior to running for president (and before that a part-time state senator) just shows the incredible bias against women who seek power. Vote in the poll here.

The sexists attacks on Palin are the same sexists attacks on Hillary, and from the same sordid cast of characters: Obama, Sullivan, MoDo, Josh Marshall, Chris Matthews, et al. An Obama victory will codify sexism in the media and Democratic Party for a generation. That’s why I can disagree with Palin and oppose Obama.

When asked in an interview what attacks on her REALLY get to her–which ones wake her up at night–Palin just laughed and said something like, none, that it comes with the territory. But then she paused and looking deadly serious for an instant and said that the attacks against her children got to her and brought out her “mama bear.”

Pit Bulls can do serious damage, but if you get between a mama bear and her cubs, you’re lunch.

(You can watch the two-part interview at the Patriot Room linked here.)

Yes, today is the 88th Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment “giving” women the right to vote. And to celebrate this auspicious occasion, Barack Obama chose to have two men, one who is anti-choice (that is, does not believe a woman has the right to choose what to do with her own body), to speak at today’s UnDemocratic Convention. Oh, and one of those men is the KEYNOTE speaker. Woo – Happy Anniversary, Ladies!! Ahem.

Read the rest ->
It reminded me of the following article, which I m reprinting fully here because, well, it deserves it: Casting The Vote Of A Lifetime: Dying woman realizes a dream in marking ballot for Hillary, then Bill Clinton sends her a kiss.

By Kevin Woster, Journal staff Sunday, May 11, 2008

They figure the next best thing came April 29 for the 88-year-old Rapid City woman, when she rallied long enough in her bed at Rapid City Regional Auxiliary Hospice House to cast her vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

To a woman born seven months before her gender won the right to vote in August 1920, seeing Clinton’s name on a presidential ballot and marking her vote nearby was a dream realized, Steen’s daughter, Kathy Krause, said.

“She was just very happy that day,” Krause said. “She really rallied and was sitting up in bed talking to people. That was the best day we’ve had.”

There haven’t been many good days lately for Steen, who is suffering from congestive heart failure a year after a stroke began her downhill slide toward hospice. But even sliding hour by hour toward the inevitable, Steen found the strength to study and mark the absentee ballot that her daughter brought to her room.

“I had asked her if she wanted to vote, and she said, ‘Yes, I really would like to vote for Hillary,’” Krause said. “So I filled out the papers. She signed them, and I went to the courthouse and got the ballot.”

To add an air of patriotic celebration to the occasion, family friend Louise Engelstad brought a United States flag from her garden, and she and Kruase draped it behind Steen’s bed.

“Then I got mother her glasses, and she sat up. She was very alert, very serious in studying the ballot,” Krause said. “And when she marked it, she just kept circling and circling that mark with her pencil. I thought she was going to mark a hole in it.”

Krause, who had already voted for Clinton by absentee ballot, said her mother’s health has deteriorated sharply since the day she voted.

But the vote set in motion a warm response from both Bill and Hillary Clinton.

When informed of Steen’s condition and vote by the Journal, Clinton’s campaign staff provided a comment from the New York senator, who appeared in Sioux Falls Thursday.

“I’m so flattered to have the support of Florence and so many like her,” Clinton said. “I have met so many women from my mother’s generation who come up to me and say they were born before women could vote and now want to see a woman in the White House.”

Then, family friends and campaign staffers informed Bill Clinton of Steen’s vote, and on Saturday, he sent word that he wanted to meet Krause and her husband, who were at Stevens High School for his speech.

“They called my husband and said the president wanted to meet us,” Krause said.

When they went to meet him, “He expressed his sympathy for my mother’s failing health,” she said. “He said he was really sorry and he understood our loss. He really appreciated that my mom had made an effort to get out and vote for Hillary by absentee ballot. He has great respect for women of my mother’s generation.”

Krause said Clinton had tears in his eyes when he spoke to her and told her to go and give her mother a kiss for him.

She did just that, though she isn’t sure if her mother understands that she met Clinton.

Sitting by her bed every day, Krause remembers a mother who was both comforting and inspirational.

“I suppose everyone who is losing their mother thinks the same thing: She was always there,” Krause said. “She taught me to excel in everything I did. She always wanted my daughter and me to be able to take care of ourselves and have an assertive role in our own lives.”

Krause said her mother was a survivor, a quality that Clinton has shown in her life and in the presidential campaign.

“I think there are a lot of similarities between them,” Krause said. “My mother certainly doesn’t have the wealth or notoriety or reputation. But she’s been a survivor, just like Hillary. And whether you like her (Clinton) or not, she’s a survivor. You have to respect her for that.”

Yes. You do.

And so today, on our 88th anniversary, our Congress has only 17% women in it. SEVENTEEN percent. Conversely, Rwanda, you know, the country which is just coming out of a horrendous, horrifying period of massive genocide, in which women were routinely raped, gang raped, tortured, and mutilated, has in their 2003 Constitution that women MUST constitute 30% of the official representatives. In fact, their numbers are closer to 50% (figures taken from the linked article written by Cindy McCain. I know – I was as surprised as you are. It is a very good editorial, actually, about women in Rwanda. Who knew?!?). That number is the highest for any country.

Here we are – 88 years later, and the first major woman candidate, who received more votes than any other primary candidate EVER, is not the Democratic presidential nominee. Despite her years of experience, and legislative accomplishments, she is not the one selected by the DNC. No, she was passed over by the Party Elite for a younger man with no real accomplishments to his name. May we not have to wait another 88 years before we can have equal representation in Congress. May we not have to wait to have the candidate who garners the most votes not be denigrated mercilessly by the Media and Party Elites because she is a woman. May we have the most qualified candidate as our nominee “even though” she is a woman. May we not lose hope. May we not lose faith. May we see these changes in our lifetime. Happy Anniversary, Sisters.

Good evening. Before I begin I’d like to thank the people who made it possible for me to be here tonight. They know who they are so I will allow them to remain anonymous. It is in honor to be a voice for those who could not make the journey. I’d also like to thank everyone at Seneca 160, the Asheville Hillary Meet Up, and of course the bitter crew at Bitterpoliticz for their unwavering support of Hillary throughout the election, into the summer, and beyond. And I want to thank all of you. Like Hillary, you stuck it out to the end and beyond. When everyone said shut up, you raised your voices louder. When Democracy was threatened you stood up in its defense. You have a lot to be proud of, and I am proud to call you my sisters and brothers in arms.

Read the rest ->
History has a way of repeating itself. Some fail to study the journey of the past, often with disastrous consequences. Then there are those who look at the past, absorb it, and set themselves to the task of shifting the course of human events to alter the outcome, to advance and elevate the path of society. Even so, history does have a way of repeating itself.

In 1840 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott traveled to England to attend an abolitionist convention in London. Being shut out, due to their gender, they found each other on the street and agreed that a convention must be held to address the economic and political needs of women. That convention was held 160 years ago in Seneca Falls, New York. Three hundred-eighty women and men gathered to begin a conversation that changed the course of human events. The first wave of feminism was born with the words, “All men and all women are created equal.”

By 1912 that convention of 380 had grown exponentially. Women rose up for their rights in the work place, and for their right to vote. At the 1912 New York City March for Suffrage some 20,000 people marched. A reported half million lined the streets. The movement continued to grow, and once the challenge of gaining suffrage was accomplished, the fight for equality and women’s rights went on.

One hundred forty-seven years after Seneca Falls, then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, went to Beijing to address an international women’s conference themed, “Listen to the Women.” In a singular act of bravery, and at great political and personal risk, Hillary Clinton, standing on the shoulders of Stanton, Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Lemlich, Alice Paul, Eleanor Roosevelt, and others too many to name, changed the course of the conversation of the women’s movement forever. Before this international gathering of women leaders Hillary Clinton gave birth to what I consider to be the fourth wave of feminism with the following words:

It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.

It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution for human greed — and the kinds of reasons that are used to justify this practice should no longer be tolerated.

It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire, and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.

It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.

It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes by their own relatives.

It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely — and the right to be heard.

Women must enjoy the rights to participate fully in the social and political lives of their countries, if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure.

Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debate openly. It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their governments. It means not taking citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them, or denying them their freedom or dignity because of the peaceful expression of their ideas and opinions.

That speech was heard around the world and inspired the international women’s movement. But American society is still trying to catch up to where Hillary has been for thirteen years. She was ahead of the curve as usual. Hillary planted the seed for the fourth wave of feminism; the wave that says this is not simply an issue about women. It is about all people. The seed has grown to a tree. The tree has born fruit. That fruit is us.

About 18 months ago Senator Clinton asked us to engage in a new conversation when she began her historic campaign for the Presidency of the United States. Joining the ranks of Victoria Woodhull, Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun, and many others, she set out to smash what she has called, “…the highest and hardest glass ceiling.”

She made history by being the first woman candidate to win a Presidential primary. She made history by winning more congressional districts and counties than any candidate in the 2008 Democratic Party Primaries. She made history by garnering more primary votes than any candidate in the history of the Democratic Party. And had the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee seated the Michigan and Florida delegations at full strength, and with fair reflection of the votes cast in those states, she would have finished the primary season with more pledged delegates. And those who failed to understand the lessons of history once again tried to prevent a woman from taking her rightful place at the Convention. Fortunately, we learned those lessons, and took action to make sure that history was not repeated.

It is obvious, to all who are paying attention, that the coup we witnessed this year was not simply directed at Senator Clinton. It was directed at us. It was directed at Democracy. When delegates can be stripped from one candidate given to another, whose name did not even appear on a ballot, then my friends, all we hold sacred as Americans is in jeopardy. It is not going to be enough to resist. It is not going to be enough to just say no deal. If we walk away from this at the end of the 2008 election cycle and the people who brought us this fiasco; Leah Daughtry, Alexis Herman, Donna Brazile, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean and the rest of the junta are still in power at the DNC when the smoke clears, then The Democratic Party will remain a poisoned tree that will only deliver bitter fruit. And what will we do about it? Voting Republican and staying home are not viable options moving forward from 2008.

Where do we begin then? We can start by continuing to support the agenda that we fought for with Senator Clinton: universal healthcare, the green economy, the accessibility and affordability of a college education, the advancement of human rights, and the defense of equal rights. Not as platitudes to get elected, but solutions to the pressing issues that face our nation, and our world. We can support the work of Hill Pac, which is currently circulating a petition in defense of family planning. We can support Hillary in the Senate, or whichever office she may hold, by lobbying our elected officials to support legislation she is sponsoring. We can support the National Women’s History Museum in its effort to find a permanent home in our nation’s capital so that there is a place dedicated to telling the unique story of women in America. Most importantly, we must strengthen our political voice. We are not here because we’re sore losers. We are not here because we’re bitter. We are here because we are clinging. Clinging, with all the strength we have left to all we hold dear about this country.

We deserve a party that will not violate the most sacred codes that we honor and hold dear as Americans, and I say here and now that if the Democratic Party will not uphold those values then perhaps the time has come to break from that party and start anew. We will not let Democracy die at Invesco Field on Friday. We must eject the anti-democratic cabal from the DNC, or be prepared to build a new party out of the Democratic Party’s ashes: A party that stands unequivocally for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

A party that stands unequivocally for gay marriage and the equal protection of all people regardless of the color of their skin, religion, sexual orientation, age, economic status, or gender.

We deserve a party that stands for universal healthcare; a party that stands for the separation of church and state; a party that stands for our right to privacy and doesn’t sell it to complicit telecom companies; a party that stands for one person, one vote.

This road will not be easy. We have been called enemies. We have been threatened. Those who oppose us have tried to break our spirit, our will, and our determination, but will not be turned back. We will not be stalled. We will not be cowed, and we will not be broken. To paraphrase the oft quoted Susan B. Anthony; no self respecting American should wish or work for the success of a party which ignores them. We will not be enslaved.

The Mahatma once said, “How can one be compelled to accept slavery? I simply refuse to do the master’s bidding. He may torture me, break my bones to atoms and even kill me. He will then have my dead body, not my obedience. Ultimately, therefore, it is I who am the victor and not he, for he has failed in getting me to do what he wanted done.”

We will not do the master’s bidding. We have lived with this for too long. Hillary showed us what it means to stand and fight for what one believes in. Now it is time for us to rise.

Approximately 50-100 people attended the event ready to celebrate Hillary’s rise. They were excited and eager to share their Hillary stories and their sadness. Their sadness at the corruption, race baiting and denigration of the Clintons by Obama. Obama who has never treated Hillary or her supporters with any respect, will unfortunately become the Democratic nominee.

Rise Hillary Rise!

“We will take it from here”!