NEWSWOMEN IN POLITICS

Cross-posted from EMILY's List.

I grew up in a close-knit, opinionated family, and my grandfather, who was called Baba Charlie (one grandchild simply could not pronounce “grandpa”, and the rest is history), was my greatest fan – but also full of advice and admonishments. His favorite was, “Jenny! Act like a lady.” At first, I chafed at this. To me, it meant, don’t bite your nails. Don’t misbehave. I thought it basically meant, don’t speak your mind. But as I got a little older, and understood him more, I got it. My grandfather values civility above all; to him, acting like a lady meant: speak respectfully, be kind to others, care for those who need it.

Well, it’s pretty clear Cong. Allen West never learned any of those lessons. In case you missed it, West sent an email tirade on Tuesday to EL’s own Debbie Wasserman Schultz, congresswoman from South Florida, devoted mother and community leader, and history-making Chair of the Democratic Party.

West’s email is at once adolescent and threatening, sexist and full of rage:

"Look, Debbie,…let me make myself perfectly clear…you are the most vile, unprofessional, and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up. ..You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!”
Congressman Allen West, in a public email to Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, July 19, 2011

"I’m a woman and I never felt discriminated against. I saw a lot of black people who didn’t want to work as hard. Women don’t want to work as hard as men." -- Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern, during an April 27th debate on affirmative action.

These were fighting words to Sally’s List, an Oklahoma-based group dedicated to electing pro-equality women to state and local positions. (And, no, Sally's List is definitely not named for the offensive Sally in question.) The group started a petition on Change.org to tell Kern she does not speak for all Oklahoma women and to demand an apology for her racist, sexist rhetoric.

Almost 500 Change.org members signed Sally’s List’s petition and on Monday, Kern issued an apology to the full Oklahoma House of Representatives. “I said some words that were not real thought out and that offended many African-Americans and many women,” Kern said. “That was not my intent. ... I take full responsibility for it and I am truly sorry.”

In an example of political reporting at its best, local St. Louis paper the Riverfront Times recently led its news section with some heavy-hitting reporting: "Sarah Steelman: Hot or Not?"

In all seriousness, a story called "How Hot is Sarah Steelman anyway?" -- a piece judging the attractiveness of potential 2012 Missouri Senate candidate Sarah Steelman -- is a good example of the unequal treatment of political women in the newsroom and our political discourse at large. Inspired by a radio host who called her "hot" but not intelligent, the Riverfront Times ran with the story: "Just how hot is Sarah Steelman? Is she Sarah Palin hot? Nikki Haley hot? Or -- be still our hearts! -- Kirsten Gillibrand hot?"

Reporter Sarah Fenske actually justifies the fact that she's discussing a candidate's looks before launching a call for reader feedback on Steelman's hotness quotient: "​For the record, we don't believe women should be judged on the basis of their looks, or lack thereof...[but] Steelman's looks are clearly gonna be an issue." Okay, it's unfortunate that the political discourse immediately trends towards judging women's looks rather than, rather than discussing their policy positions. But -- tempting as it is to join in the hot-or-not-fun -- here are a few directions the author could have gone in instead:

National Organization for Women (NOW) President Terry O'Neill has a message for anyone disappointed by yesterday's election: "Don't Compromise, Organize!"

Sure, we couldn't even get health reform to go the way we wanted with a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate, giving the unfortunate growth of anti-choice politicians who call themselves Democrats. But NOW promises to "fight harder and motivate our grassroots" — that means you, by the way. You are the grassroots. You are the ones who have to demand woman-friendly policies from Congress, since we all know they won't just hand them over of their own accord.

Plus, the election wasn't all bad. Yeah, head-stomper friend Rand Paul, who opposes abortion even when a woman's life is in danger, won the Kentucky Senate race despite the rampant misogyny of his campaign. And Pennsylvania went with Republican Pat Toomey, who thinks we should lock up abortion providers, over Joe Sestak, who realized the importance of affordable health care when his four-year-old daughter contracted brain cancer (the now-eight-year-old is adorable in his concession speech). But Sharron "Incest Victims Should Make Lemons Out of Lemonade" Angle, my biggest nightmare, lost soundly to Sen. Harry Reid in Nevada, and hard-core anti-choicer Christine O'Donnell's campaign bit the dust big time.

Meanwhile, long-time defender of women's rights Barbara Boxer (D-C.A.) held onto her seat, despite attempts to bash her for insisting on being called "Senator," her title, rather than ma'am. And I was happy to discover I wouldn't have to move out of New York, because sexist, anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-poor people Republican Carl Paladino lost the race for governor to pro-choice Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

So don't give up. Don't despair. And don't compromise. It's time to organize. The Tea Party doesn't have a monopoly on powerful grassroots movements.

Photo credit: luckywhitegirl

Dilma Rousseff isn't a household name outside of Brazil, but the newly chosen first-ever female President-elect has a lot of reasons to be celebrated by the international community and women's rights advocates.

Sixty-two-year-old Rousseff is a lifelong civil servant who worked in outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's administration for a number of years before launching her own Worker's Party campaign earlier this year. Impressed by her years of service and common sense values, Lula has dubbed her the "mother of the nation," signaling her commitment to continuity from his administration, under which the standard of living rose for many Brazilians. Perhaps no surprise, Rousseff's most prominent voter support came from households earning just under $800 a month.

Rousseff's personal struggles lend just as much to her credibility as a strong candidate of the people. A recent survivor of lymphatic cancer, she has also survived being imprisoned and tortured by her own government for leftist political involvement after the 1964 military coup. The daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant, she's uniquely sensitive to the plight of poor workers in Brazil; even though she grew up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, her enduring socialist and leftist politics help her lead with an empathic voice for the people.

In a time when Americans are bombarded with stories of female candidates who want to outlaw abortion even when a woman's life is at risk and are attacked and publicly shamed for their sexual history, it's refreshing to hear that Rousseff is flipping the script on gender in Brazil.

Photo Credit: alexandre_vieira

This Saturday, swarms of people who approve of sane, rational discourse will descend (politely) upon the National Mall for the Rally to Restore Sanity. The event, just a few days before election day, is being orchestrated by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show and Comedy Central, who are well-versed in the problems of insane political discourse, since they mock it on a daily basis.

On a regular basis when I pick a topic to write about, I think: whoa, that's insane. Earlier this morning, it was a Rand Paul campaign coordinator who stomped on a defenseless woman's head as she was restrained against a curb. I mean, seriously, he stomped on her head? And let's not forget the protesters that scream "baby killer" at an already traumatized woman aborting a deformed fetus with no chance of survival or who try to blow clinics up. Violence against and harassment of women definitely does not count as sane political discourse. It's safe to stay that head-stomping will not be welcome at the Rally to Restore Sanity.

Of course, even a Rally to Restore Sanity wouldn't be a real sanity without the three S's: signs, stickers, and slogans. Huffington Posts has a collection of sign suggestions, with reasonable messages along the lines of "I don't agree you you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler." Because nothing says crazy extremist like comparing your opponent to a genocidal maniac. Some are solidly in-the-middle statements of proper etiquette, while others are a bit more targeted political statements: "The Religious Right Is Neither."

NARAL Pro-Choice America has decided to jump on the Sanity Bandwagon by holding a contest for a sanity sticker slogan. And the winner is: "Vote Pro-Choice: Politicians Make Crappy Doctors." Okay, not quite as light-heartedly humorous as "Obama is a Muslim" or "God Hates Hommos!! It's Too Garlicky!" But sane? Yeah, I think it qualifies.

Before a debate between Kentucky Senate candidates Rand Paul (R) and John Conway (D), Paul's Bourbon County campaign coordinator, Tim Profitt, was caught on video stomping on a woman's head.

That's right: He stomps on her head. The 23-year-old woman, Lauren Valle, was there to present a fake "RepubliCorp" award to Paul as part on a MoveOn.org campaign calling attention to the way conservatives have sold people out to corporations. Valle is attacked by Paul supporters, who yank her to the ground, and while she is lying still in the fetal position, held down by multiple large men, Profitt picks up his foot and stomps on her head.

Profitt, who is thankfully now an ex-campaign coordinator, has alleged that the camera angle made the assault look worse than it was, that he was concerned for Paul's safety, that the police weren't doing their jobs, that he had to step on her to restrain her because of a bad back, and that it was her fault. Anyway, he says in an interview, it's not "that big of a deal," and the Curbstomper, as he has been dubbed in

Tea Party Republican and seasoned forced-pregnancy activist Missy Smith is running for Washington D.C.’s shadow congressional seat against Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), a strangely bold move considering beating a progressive incumbent in the majorly Democratic District is pretty much impossible. Smith is even running against the wishes of the D.C. GOP (who objected to her campaign because it fails to address any issue besides abortion), leading some to suspect her intentions are more about cheaply airing unregulated "shocking" anti-choice propaganda than actually getting elected.

They're right.

In a letter to the anti-choice community, Smith admits she is "running for Congress with the express purpose of running political ads on TV of graphic pictures of healthy and dead babies," as well as compelling supporters to "dig deep into their pockets and give until it hurts, as Mother Teresa would say." Randall Terry, famous anti-choice terrorist, longtime Smith associate, and current "volunteer campaign manager," appears to have orchestrated her candidacy and freely revealed the true objective of this scheme last year.

The ads supposedly began airing in D.C. on Monday, and while one was already pulled from YouTube for violating community guidelines, television stations say they're legally required to run the spots unedited.  The ads feature bootleggy slideshows of babies and "aborted" fetuses, one with Missy lamenting: "I killed two of my babies by abortion. I was told, 'it's not a baby.' They lied. They exploited me. Then I learned the truth, and I have suffered for years."

In 2003, EMILY’s List toasted Alex Sink as the only pro-choice member of Florida's cabinet. Unsurprisingly, she is also its only woman. Florida has never had a female governor; its one and only female U.S. senator survived one term. It's one of the many reasons the Florida gubernatorial elections this November are critical.

When Floridians go to the polls on November 2, they have two stark options for governor. There’s Alex Sink, a pro-choice Democrat and the state’s Chief Financial Officer, running on a record of competence and bipartisanship. The man she running against is a parasite at best, a criminal at worst.

Rick Scott, the Republican nominee for governor of Florida, has spent his professional career in the health care field. In 1998, he was ousted from his position as CEO of Columbia/HCA after the company pled guilty to 14 felony charges of defrauding the government of Medicare funds and paying a record $1.7 billion in fines (criminal). In his next business venture, Solantic clinics, is a chain of for-profit medical clinics in Florida. In both 1993 and recently, Scott has been a loud, organized, and well-funded opponent of health care reform -- mostly because he feeds off of high insurance costs, defrauding the government, and luring the uninsured to his clinics (parasite). Not even all Republicans can get on board with Scott’s sleaze, as demonstrated by conservative political strategist Dick Morris who told a reporter, "I think Rick Scott is a criminal who belongs in jail not in the governor's office."

We're number 19! We're number 19! Hm ... that doesn't have quite the snazzy ring we might like. But the United States ranking number 19 on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report (pdf) is big news, because we've never broken into the top 20 before. Actually, last year we were ranked number 31. Yikes.

Of course, it would be nice if being number 19 wasn't such a big deal for us: you'd think the U.S. of A. could put itself into a better position when it comes to gender equity. But we're just not competitive with the gender progressive Nordic countries, which consistently dominate the top four. To be fair, we're quite a ways out of their league, with a number of other countries between us too.

So what's the good, the bad, and the ugly of America's position on gender equality? We're among the top ranked countries when it comes to education, with high literacy levels and educational enrollment for both men and women, so Americans can feel free to gloat over that one, at least. And we're none too shabby on economic participation and opportunity: we come in at number six, with 68% of women in the labor force and 80% of men, a decent ratio of women in managerial positions, and a women's income increase that gives a boost. Unfortunately, with a high perceived wage inequality when men and women do work of the same kind (putting us at 64 on that sub-item), we lose points.