Trying to keep up with all the pixels and ink spilled lately about Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Marissa Mayer’s office roll call at Yahoo!, the 100th anniversary of the Suffragists’ Parade, all hot on the heels of the the 50th anniversary of The Feminine Mystique, has been making my head spin. I will simply have to [...]
Pre-K as Policy, Not Politics
My favorite part of the President’s State of the Union address was his plan for expanding pre-kindergarten to all four-year-olds. The idea has been around for decades, and it did once very nearly become law until it was vetoed by President Nixon. But in the past 40 years, two big parts of the early education picture [...]
Guest Post: A Call for Reform – FMLA Didn’t Work For Me
As the 20th anniversary of the Family Medical Leave Act focuses attention on how unnecessarily hard it is to be both a worker and a mother or other family caregiver, Danelle Buchman writes of her own experience. She was a part-time employee at a organization too small to be covered by FMLA when she became [...]
Happy Birthday to the Family Medical Leave Act!
Wonky Washington is making merry about the 20th anniversary of President Clinton’s signing of the Family Medical Leave. This was the federal law that required some employers to allow some employees to take up to 12 weeks away from work, without pay, to deal with the birth or adoption of a child, a family member’s serious [...]
Without Us, You’re Nothing
Remember when Mika Brezezinski, co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, put out her book Knowing Your Value? It was advertised as a “surprisingly honest and unexpectedly revealing look at gender inequality in the workplace.” Mika argued that women generally underestimate their own worth and, for this reason, don’t advocate vigorously for themselves, and thus don’t receive the pay [...]
Women On Wrong End of the Gun
The United States experiences epidemic levels of gun violence, claiming over 30,000 lives annually, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For every person who dies from a gunshot wound, two others are wounded. In 2010, guns took the lives of 31,076 Americans in homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings. This is the equivalent [...]
From Good Girl to Feminist
There was nothing ambiguous about how I was raised. What my parents expected of me was crystal clear, as were the expectations of my teachers and my church. Always serve yourself last, my mother said. Make sure, wherever you are, that everyone else is taken care of before you think of yourself. Don’t raise your hand [...]
Keeping A-”Breast” of the New Health Care Law
A big change in public policy could bring mothers and their new babies much closer from now on. As of January 1, a provision of the Affordable Care Act, the health reform legislation passed by Congress in 2010, now requires that health insurers cover the cost of breast pumps and lactation services for new moms. Before [...]
To Birth, Or Not To Birth?
It’s all about who is having babies – or perhaps more accurately, who is NOT having babies. The declining birth rate in the U.S. prompted much discussion, some of which you’ll find below. The only thing the writers agree on is that fewer women are opting to become mothers. Arguments differ as to why motherhood has [...]
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