The estrogen level on the floor of the US Senate skyrocketed last week when female Senators blasted health insurers for their discriminatory practices. In back to back speeches, they vigorously denounced charging women higher premiums and excluding coverage for gender-specific conditions. They were indignant, passionate, and unflinching in their delivery, which made a most welcome [...]
About Valerie Young
Valerie Young is a public policy analyst who is mad as hell about the status of women in the United States and is doing her part to promote social justice by arming mothers with information and a healthy dose of outrage. She works for the NAMC as the Advocacy Coordinator of their MOTHERS initiative. Follow her on Twitter @WomanInDC and on Facebook as Valerie Young and Your (Wo)Man in Washington.Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE) in the US Capitol
This week on the Hill, members of the Work, Family and Health Network presented their findings at a congressional briefing about the intersection of workplace policy and workers’ health and well-being. When employees face conflict between work and family obligations, there is an increase in their stress level, greater risk of heart disease, and a [...]
Musical Chairs in the US Senate
In the alphabet soup which is our federal government, the US Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is known as HELP (which some might find an apt description of what is needed in Washington). The powerful committee chairman had been, for many years, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who had promoted many important causes such [...]
Work Environments that Work for Families
Written by MOTHERS volunteer Kelly Coyle DiNorcia (ahimsamama.blogspot.com) Before I became a mother, I spent long hours in the office. I probably logged sixty or seventy hours a week as an administrator for a non-profit organization on average – during busy times it was more than that and less during the slower months. When I [...]
The Opting Out Myth
The US Senate decreed in 2003 that October be designated Work and Family Month. This year’s observance started off with a BANG this morning with the Washington Post announcing on its front page that the “opt out revolution”, i.e. working women leaving the board room for the play room, was a myth. Based on US [...]
Women & Workplace Violations – Exploiting Us All
The (Wo)man in Washington is always looking for ways to level the playing field for women. After all, the structure of our society and economy impacts men and women in different ways, and it is not accidental. Women, especially those with children, make up the majority of those in poverty for a reason – the [...]
100 Best Companies for Family Friendly Policies – Really?
Working Mother magazine has just hit the desk, and the cover trumpets the annual listing of 100 Best Companies for working mothers and other caregivers. The implicit message is that American business acknowledges the value of workers with caregiving responsibilities, and is happily adopting workplace practices to enhance their effectiveness at both the work and [...]
Childbirth as a Pre-Existing Condition
The National Women’s Law Center report “Nowhere to Turn: How the Individual Health Insurance Market Fails Women” exposes the use of gender ratings and “pre-existing conditions” to make healthcare more costsly for women and deny them necessary services. The report states, in part: Insurance companies can reject applicants for health coverage for a variety of [...]
Kim Clijsters, Motherhood & Feminism
From the New York Times about Kim Clijsters winning the Women’s Singles US Open Championship after having a baby 18 months ago: “The Clijsters narrative is not just about an underdog’s comeback, but about the dreamy, irresistible illusion the 1970s wrought: the fantasy that women can be all things, the idealized mother and the brilliant [...]
Women and Healthcare – We’ve Got More Skin In The Game
It’s tempting to just screen out all the noise and hoopla about healthcare reform. The TV glows with dozens of “experts” nattering on and on. Newspapers are full of charts and graphs. One group yells, another group yells louder. It would be easy to shrug your shoulders, say it’s a mess, and look away. It [...]
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