Viva la Feminista

I am live-blogging from the Council On Contemporary Families Annual Conference. CCF: Work-Family Balance for Women & Men

Today at Work it, Mom! I say a heartfelt thank you to Joe Kelly and the team at Dads & Daughters for all the awesome work they did the past decade. I'm so sad that they had to close shop. The Chicago Foundation reminds us that only about 3% of philanthropic money goes towards women and girls-centered programming. Thus the closing of Dads & Daughters shouldn't be a surprise, but it still hurts. On the flip side...kinda...I got a call from the Tyra Banks show. They are looking for single moms who have babies or infants to appear on the show. You also need to be in a difficult situation, having a very tough time at life. If you fit that description and want to learn more email Sonia at sonia.juarez@tyratv.com. And let me know if you're going to be on! Yes, my readers are FIERCE! hehe....

Welcome readers from the 61st Carnival of Feminists ! Days after Tiger Woods won the 2008 US Open columns sprung up about his amazing feat especially after it was revealed that his next appearance would be in the operation room to repair a torn ACL: As great as Woods was in winning the most important major golf tournament of the year, he just got greater. We now know he gritted out all those big drives, made all those miraculous shots and holed all those magnificent putts on a knee that wasn't yet healed from April surgery. And on a leg with stress fractures in two places. - Christine Brennan, USA Today “The diagnosis was not to play in the U.S. Open,” Hank Haney, Tiger’s swing coach, said Monday before chuckling. “There was no way he wasn’t playing the U.S. Open.” That’s what makes Tiger, Tiger. His ferocious competitive streak – which in this case may prove harmful – coupled with his intense mental strength allowed him to not only proceed when he shouldn’t have, but actually thr...

First, my Work it, Mom column will be about Father's Day... check it out in the morning. Second, our daughter made a t-shirt at pre-school for her daddy that she is just soooo proud of. She wants him to wear it every where and he wants to keep it pristine so when we're old, we can pull it out and cherish it. We had IHOP for POP - Mmm....pancakes. Then we went to the Andersonville Midsommarfest and had a great time. Annie, our dog, was the belle of the ball. Our daughter got to the top of the mobile climbing wall. I was proud to walk past Women and Children First and NOT go in and buy a book. Of course, tomorrow is book club...The day was just perfect. Third, this post at Blogher about forgiving your dad is rather touching in both good and bad ways. I have a lot to forgive my father about, yet as my beloved Tia likes to remind me, I also have a lot to thank him for too. So while I wish he wasn't so old school that he could have told me how proud he was of me when I was gro...

There are plenty of things that make being a mom worth it. The hugs, the kisses, the seeing your almost 5yo run across a soccer field, kick a goal, and then throw a smile and shy wave in your direction. But in the top 5 of the list of things that make this whole motherhood gig worthwhile is the blossoming of my daughter's father's feminism. When I say blossoming, I mean it. When I met my husband (whom I married nine years ago today!) I was in some ways more radical than I am today. I was immersed in my Amnesty International activism and quite set in my 17yo ways. Heck, in my head I was on my way to Evergreen State College to kick my feminism into high gear! So he knew what he was getting into when he told me that he was crushing on me. I also knew what I was getting into when I said, ditto. While he was more Alex P. Keaton than Steven Keaton, he was feminist enough for me. When we first met the idea of his wife keeping her maiden name was out of the question...Here I am nine ye...

And to celebrate, I shall blog about boys & men. This is a phenomenal time to be a feminist, it really is. So much of what we have fought for in the last 150 years is finally blooming. No matter which candidate you stand behind, you have to stop and smile at how feminism has made it happen . The Council on Contemporary Families released a briefing paper a few days ago with an update on how men are faring in relation to their daily chores. While we are not at parity, they are doing a larger share than ever before (althou, I might suspect that when families were on farms, things were pretty 50/50). Thank you feminism. Hidden in the chore pieces is this tidbit: The most dramatic increase in men's contributions has been to child care. Between 1965 and 2003, men tripled the amount of time they spent in child care (Bianchi, Robinson and Milkie 2005; Fisher et al 2006). Fathers in two-parent households now spend more time with co-resident children than at any time since large-scale ...

TUESDAY, TUESDAY, TUESDAY...Get your lobbying fingers ready and let's fight hard for child care and Head Start. The National Women's Law Center (NWLC) has a campaign going on that we should all jump on. Access to child care and Head Start is vital to women's economic well-being and the ability of their children to succeed in school. The Bush administration’s proposed FY 2009 budget would continue the administration’s long-standing pattern of freezes or cuts to child care and Head Start. Under its proposed budget, 200,000 low-income children and their families would lose child care assistance, and 14,000 children would lose Head Start. Call or e-mail your Senators and Representative and let them know that they must reject the President’s FY 2009 budget request for child care and Head Start and support more funding for these programs. To call your members of Congress, please dial 1-888-460-0813 and ask to be connected. To find out who your members are, search the NWLC dire...

My latest column at Work it, Mom! The Presidential campaigns have been raging for just over a year now. The GOP has their candidate, even if a certain former Governor hasn’t gotten the memo, and the Democrats are still in a horse race. What has been most intriguing to me during this primary is how Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton have been seen in the media. I was a senior in high school when Bill and Hillary were on the path to the White House the first time. I was proud and quite surprised that the country was embracing this strong feminist of a woman. It seemed odd to me that so many people were embracing the idea of having a hands-on First Lady. Of course, I knew that she wouldn’t be the first. In the fourth or fifth grade I was obsessed with First Ladies. I even made a zine of them and highlighted my favorites: Abigail Adams , Eleanor Roosevelt , and Jackie Kennedy . Having grown up with some pretty wimpy First Ladies – Barbara and her books and Nancy and her guest appearance ...

Way back in August I blogged about a lawsuit between Geena Davis and Dads & Daughters about the ownership of See Jane. Well they have settled the lawsuit and on my birthday! woot! Here is a snippet of the press release: OSCAR®-winning actress and producer Geena Davis and the charitable organization Dads & Daughters (DADs) today formally announced the transition of the SEE JANE™ program from the Minnesota-based DADs to a new life as an independent, Los Angeles-based nonprofit. In order to have more direct influence in Hollywood, See Jane will now be part of Community Partners, the Los Angeles incubator for growing nonprofit organizations and social entrepreneurs with innovative ideas for building communities. Ms. Davis and DADs have previously been engaged in litigation over See Jane. However, Ms. Davis has recently withdrawn that litigation and retracted all claims against DADs as well as its President Joe Kelly and former Executive Director Nancy Gruver. Davis said, “I am ...

Would you: Leave your child with the old lady next door that you really don't like? Leave your child with a the guy you just met? Take your child with you toting a box of crayons & coloring books? Go back to work less than a week after giving birth? Hide your pregnancy as long as possible? My reaction is "hell no!" But I also know I'm one lucky chick. I work for an organization where I get a ton of sick and vacation days AND there has to be one hell of a good reason for me to NOT take a day when my girl needs me. The only time I ever felt like I needed to choose between my job & my daughter was a very short time I worked for a nonprofit and since I was less than six months didn't have ANY sick days. I also know that many women, too many parents, have to choose between their job and their child's safety. Screw the mommy wars, we're talking about choosing between a sick kid with a 102 degree temperature and reporting to your hourly job where you live...

Have you ever wondered why we don't see more girls as lead characters in children's movies and shows? Have you ever stopped to figure out the ratio of boys and girls as characters period? Well earlier this year, Dads & Daughters , released a study through the See Jane program, about gender and racial disparity in TV shows. In 2006 they released a studies about gender, gender roles for boys, and occupation in G-rated movies. All fabu work! The See Jane program was touted with Geena Davis' name attached on press releases and fund raising efforts. When I first saw all this, I thought two things: WOW! About time! and Go Geena! But today I read a story via the Chronicle of Philanthropy that Geena is now suing for ownership of the See Jane program. It boils down to who came up with the idea. In 2004, Davis allegedly conceived the See Jane program, for which she has since raised $750,000, according to the suit. She actively promoted the program while working with Dads and ...

I have to admit that I scoff at fatherhood initiatives. While the PR people might tell dads to buck up and take time for the kid, his work place tells a different story. Well, except that dads are the great winners in the wage gap war. Anywho, another celebrity became a daddy this week - Tom Brady . The whole world seemed to know that his ex-girlfriend and baby mama was about to give birth. It was reported that Brady asked for some time off to be at the birth (which he missed by minutes) as well as afterwards to be with his child. I cant' find any reports if he's taking paternity leave, but he was back in the game for a pre-season game on Friday. Thus, one of the biggest names in professional sports can't even get a week off to be with his new baby? What kind of message does that send to all the dads & young men watching the game? In a different show of fatherhood responsibilities, Tony Snow , White House spokesman, has quit his $168,000 job because it's not coverin...