Heather Holdridge from Care2. She's from upstate New York, not a new-agey person, but she admits to feeling the positive energy today.
It's important now to join together and move forward.
Linda Hallman, Executive Director, American Association of University Women
Kristina Wilfore - Ballot Initiative Strategy Center - when is it smart to run particular issues on particular ballots?
Liza Sabater - Culture Kitchen
Avis Jones-Deweever - Director, Research and Public Policy and Information Center for African-American Women, NCNW
Kierra Johnson, Executive Director, Choice USA - Speaks not only on choice issues but other reproductive rights and social justice issues.
Question for Linda: What has AAUW recently done on pay equity issues?
Lily Ledbetter and coalition partners - Lily Ledbetter Act -
AAUW's mission is advancing equity for women and girls through advocacy, education and research - that is how they moved LL bill through. Members worked tirelessly to pass it.
Pressure came from three main fronts: Hill lobby staff, AAUW members in the field and from their lobby corps, group of volunteers who come from DC/MD/DE area when Congress is in session, we brief them, give them materials and assignments and they hit the Hill. They ahve friends and allies on Capitol Hill on both sides of the aisle.
Equal Pay Day - marks point a which women's earnings finally match the man's from the previous year. It takes 16 months of a woman's labor to equal 12 months of a man's salary. Served cookies with bites out of them, held Unhappy Hours, examples of how community gets together.
Added new feature Web site - free fair pay compensation tool. Can plug in Zip code and what you do, find out what you should be making and how things differ. Knowing your salary scales empowers you, gives you a weapon to fight for what you deserve.
First research project refuted the notion that higher education hurt women's health. (!)
Women earn less than men do as soon as one year after graduation.
We get fuel for our work, continue to address wage discrimination. Current pay equity campaign = Keep the Change Until Women Have Real Change. Calling this one-cent raise chump change.
Linda: Volunteer lobbyists come on via word of mouth primarily. You want people who can do a good job lobbying. At this point it's self-generated. Every age from upper 20s to 80 year old woman.
Kristina Wilfore -I'm a feminist. I heard that was a little controversial in some of the panels today, people not embracing the term. I am and proud to be one.
Two formative experiences: grew up in Montana with Christian Conservative Evangelical REpublican parents. 1980 election - my mom was going to vote for Carter. Dad, a Reagan supporter, made fun. Mom voted for Carter anyway. A 14, Planned Parenthood clinics bombed. She was outraged, wrote letter to editor about reproductive choice to family's alarm. The rest if history.
How do we take this energy and put it to use in small and big ways?
What do we need going forward? Four things. I think we are in crisis. Do not think we have a feminist movement. Think we have vibrance of thought in writing, speaking, utterly lacking in political apparatus that takes women's issues to the level it needs to be effective in this society. It lacks discipline and lacks a plan.
Would not have Obama taking out family plannig component if there was a stronger women's political movement. Shows how lacking we are in something that has real political power. Think leadership is out there but we need a plan.
2. We need to be smarter how we frame issues. We are in a defensive posture and we gotta change that attitude.Three anti-choice initiatives have won.
There are rightwing gimmicks and real progressive solutions, so gimmicks aren't having as much power. We need to work our issues in without being defensive.
3. We have to jump on opporutnities, both threats and immediate opportunities. We beat for the first time in 12 years the attempt to roll back Affirmative Action as a ballot measure.
Local referenda are ignored in favor of national races and issues. Let's not look at Obama as savior, look at things we need to do on local level.
let's govern like we are the majority because we are.
4. It is time to define our enemies and go after them in smart, non-emotional ways. let guys get away with a lot in ways that ocntinue to undermine. it's an economic business for a lot of them, not an ideological sandpoint.
We need the blogosphere to do smarter campaigns, zone in on egregious backgrounds that most of them had. Defeated personhood in Colorado, alreayd moving in South Dakota. States banned same-sex marriage are already moving to strengthen these initiatives.
Banned gay adoption in Arkansas - will probably see this in many states.
Who is behind thees? What do they mean? How do we organize smartly on these issues? I think there's a lot of hope and opportunity, but we have a lot of work to do and need a lot more political organization in the women's movement going forward.
Heather: Former rap, Kumbaya Dammit -
Liza - Opportunities and threats at state and local levels. There is a disconnect still between vibrant, fast-growing feminist blogosphere and also women's issues online ecology that goes beyond feminist bloggers...and the advocacy organizations.
A lot of it I feel is new vs. the old, and also it has to do with tools. That's where tech investment is absolutely important. We bloggers took on these tools like water in the desert because a lot of us are writers, creatives who needed a soapbox and didn't ahve it before.Can see disconnect with organizations where we're linking to them but they're not to us.
We have to start thinking collectively as bloggers - will to start with some kind of foundation and let the people grow it.
Reframing - there is a lot to learn from bloggers who are wordsmiths, who use snark and parody and sometimes bad words in order to talk about politics, but there needs to be reframing about progressive issues. Our advocacy organizations allow GOP/conservative movement to frame issues and have us on the defensive.Sometimes the way we speak the issues has more resonance because they're more true - coming from persona nd not committee of PR people.
There is a lot to learn from wha we do online. One of the trends we're seeing - a lot of the health care battle is being reframed as culture wars. Disembowling of womens' health issues as we're getting closer to deealing with it on a national scale. As bloggers we can keep an eye on it but don't have access to Hill, lobbying reach.
She cannot get women to write about local politics. Hard to hit the pavement on a local level but that's wherea lot of our battles are being lost.
Avis - organization not new, has its disadvantages. We have to be pulled into the 21st century sometimes. Proud of new initiative, trying to merge traditional organizing techniques with new tech to spur movement and activism at local and national level.
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