An Appropriate Response to GOP's All-Male Hearing on Women's Contraception

Last week, Rep. Darrel Issa held a Government Reform and Oversight Committee hearing on the contraception controversy. The good chairman, however, did not see the need to invite any WOMEN to talk about health care and birth control. The Democrats had a young woman witness selected, a student at Georgetown University who uses the Pill for health reasons additional to contraception. Chairman Issa would not allow her to testify. Instead he accepted a panel of men, all opposed to the Obama Administration's new rule, and those men testified against women's access to contraception. Talk about tone deaf. And insulting. And downright stupid. The GOP's concentration on taking away women's contraception is already galvanizing women voters, and will continue to do so through Election Day.








The Zaftig Redhead. All Rights Reserved.

Rhode Tackles "THE BEAUTY BIAS: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law" in New Book

•Why, when over 1/6 of the population lacks access to basic health care, are cosmetic procedures the fastest growing medical specialty—with women accounting for 90% of the procedures?
•Why have beauty pageants for girls between the ages of 5-10 evolved into a billion dollar industry?
•Why, in representative surveys, have over half of young women reported that they would prefer to be hit by a car than be fat, and two-thirds would rather be mean or stupid?

Because we live in a culture of severe BEAUTY BIAS.

Deborah L. Rhode -- Legal Momentum Board Member and Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and the Director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford University -- explores the answers to these questions, and addresses many other costly, time-consuming, and even deadly trends in THE BEAUTY BIAS: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law. In this sobering look at aesthetic demands in America, Rhode surveys the pervasive discrimination against people—many times women—over issues ranging from hairstyle to weight and beyond. "The kind of attention people once gave to the state of their souls," Rhode writes, "they now give to the state of their bodies. And too often, the result is far from constructive."

Drawing from both research and first-hand experience, Rhode tours the cut-that-throat-and-tighten-it effects of beauty obsession. We learn that:

•Attractive students receive more attention from teachers and classmates
•Overweight individuals are often assumed to have poor work habits
•Short males are penalized in hiring, promotion, and earnings
•Minorities spend billions in plastic surgery for Anglo-European features
•Waitresses can be restricted to specific weights, hairstyles and shoes, when it is rarely the case for their male counterparts

THE BEAUTY BIAS is a call to action, demanding we treat appearance "not just as an aesthetic issue, but as a legal and political one as well." Here, Rhode not only points out the flaws in current discrimination law, but offers a plan to temper America's ever-growing and destructive addiction to "beauty."
To learn more about the book, please visit THE BEAUTY BIAS: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law.

Mama Grizzlies Speak Out: Sarah Palin Doesn't Speak for Us!

"EMILY doesn't get mad....she gets ELECTED" (Gov. Jennifer Granholm [D-MI]). Check out the new rogues gallery of Palin's radical candidates -- and she called feminists a cackle of rads???




Sign the pledge today to vote in November and send the message loud and clear: Sarah, you do NOT speak for me.

The Zaftig Redhead. All Rights Reserved.

Guest Blog: Women & Elections: 5 Reasons Why Women Make Great Political Candidates

In honor of Women's Equality Day and the 90th anniversary of women winning the right to vote, here is a guest blog from Phil Van Treuren at Killer Campaigning.

One of the reasons we started Killer Campaigning was to show potential political candidates of all demographics how to serve their communities by running for office. As a former political consultant and campaign manager, however, I’m especially interested in encouraging women to get into politics–particularly because I know how effective they can be as candidates in local elections.

While women often make unparalleled government officials, they also have a knack for being very competitive political campaign candidates. As a political consultant, I would have much rather worked for a strong female candidate than a typical male candidate–for many reasons. While female politicians and candidates are outnumbered by their male counterparts today, I’m encouraged by the growing number of talented women entering political campaign races every year.

So, how do women win such a large percentage of campaigns and elections they enter, and what characteristics make females such effective political candidates? The reasons why women are often more successful than men in politics are far too numerous to list in one article, but we’re going to take a look at five of the most compelling below. If you have more to add to the list, please leave a comment at the end of this post.

And if you’re a women thinking about starting a career in politics and elections, I hope you’ll go for it . . . your country and community needs more talented females in government!

Top 5 Reasons Why Women Make Great Local Political Campaign Candidates

1. Natural Communication Skills

While nothing in this post is meant to stereotype men or women, it’s a fact that females are often more talented and comfortable in the realm of effective communication.

Being able to communicate your ideas in a compelling fashion is a vital trait for political candidates, and the person who can do so naturally–without having to be taught how–has an advantage in any campaign. Many voters find the communication style of women candidates more appealing, which helps in both one-on-one grassroots situations and public forums or debates.

2. Higher Thresholds for Campaign Trail Stress

The rigors of the campaign trail–even in local elections–can be much more demanding and stressful than new candidates expect. A woman’s innate ability to process and deal with stressful situations calmly is a huge boon in political campaigns.

Not all men are hotheads, but a male political candidate is much more likely to respond to respond to the steady stress of campaigning in a damaging fashion. Angry outbursts, impulsive comments and bad attitudes just aren’t as common in female candidates.

3. Better Ability Make Supporters & Volunteers Feel Appreciated

One of the most important–and overlooked–things that political candidates can do for their campaigns is making employees, volunteers and supporters feel as though their hard work is appreciated.

I can’t tell you how many male candidates I’ve worked with who treat their staff and volunteers like dirt, which leads to awful productivity. This kind of arrogance and lack of empathy might be present in some women candidates, as well, but it isn’t as common. Women are often much better at letting people know how important and needed they are.

4. Lower Likelihood for “Skeletons in the Closet”

Sure, women can have their secrets, too, but they are much less likely than men to have career-destroying skeletons hanging in the closet. As a campaign manager, one of your greatest fears is that something scandalous is going to be revealed about your candidate in the last few weeks of the election.

Male candidates certainly don’t have a corner on the scandal market, but many of them do seem to have more political baggage. How often do you see a scandal involving a female politician in the news?

5. Greater Voter Appeal and Demographic Advantages

It’s a well-known fact in political consulting circles that a female candidate will often run a few points ahead of a male challenger just because she is a woman. We’re not going to explore the reasons for this, but in most districts, being a woman is automatically going to give you a head start in the race.

Now, just being female won’t win the election for you–it also takes good planning, hard work and a bit of luck. As a man, though, I would much rather run against another man than go head-to-head with a female candidate at the polls.


The Zaftig Redhead. All Rights Reserved.

Why There's Still A Wage Gap (With Apologies To Peggy Olson)

Blog reposted in part, with permission from author Doree Shafrir. Originally posted on Jezebel.

A couple weeks ago on Mad Men, Peggy got recruited to go to another, much larger ad agency. Instead of saying yes right away, she went into Don Draper's office to see if she could get a raise.

She's a copywriter, but she gets paid much less than the other copywriters, all of whom happen to be male. And so she invokes the recently passed Equal Pay Act. "It's a law now," she says. "Equal pay for equal work." Don looks at her as though she's speaking another language. "Peggy, it's not a good time," he tells her. Then he asks her if she wants a drink.

When Peggy confronts Don, it's 1963, and the median annual income for women was around 60 percent of men's. Today, it's around 77 percent—a gain, to be sure, but hardly anything to be thrilled about. While some of the so-called gender gap can be explained by the fact that women tend to work in lower-paying fields—such as education and child care (I'm going to bracket the debate about whether these deserve to be lower-paying fields at all)—there's still a five percent wage gap for male and female college graduates, even after controlling for things like age, race and ethnicity, region, marital status, children, occupation, industry, and hours worked, according to testimony given in April to the United States Joint Economic Committee. The conclusion? "It is reasonable to assume that this difference is the product of discrimination."

But it's slightly more complicated, I think, and it raises uncomfortable questions about the differences between men and women—whether they're socially determined or not. A couple years ago, there was another study that focused on men vs. women in negotiations; men, it showed, will take the initiative and ask for things like more money or a promotion, while women will wait to be asked.

It's hard not to look at these studies and think about anecdotal evidence from my own life. At my first job out of college, I was offered just that salary: $25,000 a year. I didn't even think about negotiating. Sure, you could argue that I wasn't exactly coming from a position of strength, as a 22-year-old college graduate with little experience who was desperate for a job. But over the years, I saw how certain people—and nearly all of them were men—were able to ask for things that I wouldn't even have thought of to ask for: Extra vacation days. Bonuses. When I was in graduate school, better teaching schedules (and better professor assignments). A few years later, I was offered another job at what I now considered a laughable salary, $35,000 a year. I countered at $65,000. We settled on $57,000, with a guaranteed raise to $60,000 after three months. And I came up with a new motto: "You don't ask, you don't get."


Read the full blog and comments here.

It's time to update the Equal Pay Act, untouched since its passage in 1963. Go here for more information and to write a letter to your Senator -- The Paycheck Fairness Act has passed the House, but is stuck in the Senate and needs your voice.

FLOTUS Wows with Speech on Women and Health Care Reform

Finally, the health insurance reform debate turned its focus -- albeit briefly -- on women and girls. About time. Women make most of the health care decisions in American families, and because of our longevity we tend to use more health care services as well. Further, because a persistent wage gap deprives many women of fair pay, women also have a harder time paying for health care and health insurance. And, to add insult to injury, insurance is typically more expensive for women. Without commonsense reform, insurance companies could continue the discriminatory practice of gender rating, and women could continue to pay monthly premiums ranging from four percent to 48 percent higher for individually-purchased health care plans than men. FLOTUS Michelle Obama's first foray into the health care debate was quite welcome, and could not have come at a better time.

Enjoy a clip, and read the full text below.



REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY
ON WHAT HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM MEANS
FOR WOMEN AND FAMILIES

September 18, 2009
Eisenhower Executive Office Building
Room 450

11:33 A.M. EDT

MRS. OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you all. Please, sit. Rest. (Laughter.) First of all, good morning. I am so thrilled to see so many of you here this morning at the White House. Welcome. And that’s including my good friend, Dr. Dorothy Height. (Applause.) You know, she is always there, for the past eight months and before. If there was a big event, an important event, she finds a way to be here. She is my inspiration, and it is wonderful to see you again today. Thank you so much. (Applause.)
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Thank you all for joining us today for the outstanding work you’re doing every day on behalf of women and families all across this country. I have to thank our extraordinary Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, for taking the time to be here. (Applause.) And for her tireless efforts to keep our nation healthy. And that includes not just pushing for health insurance reform but preparing us for H1N1, pursuing cutting-edge research to find treatments and cures for tomorrow. Clearly this is not the easiest portfolio she could have, but she is doing a terrific job, and we are grateful for her leadership.

And I also want to thank Tina Tchen, who you all know, for emceeing today. (Applause.) She, too, is doing a fabulous job as Director of our Office of Public Engagement, and she played a critical role in pulling together today’s event — not just as an emcee but as a key figurehead, making sure that we’re all aware of what’s going on.

And finally, I want to thank the three women behind me — to Debi, Easter, and Roxi. (Applause.) It is not easy to come here and tell your story. And these stories aren’t new. You know, these stories are happening all over this country, not just for thousands of women — for millions of them. For two years on the campaign trail, this was what I heard from women, that they were being crushed, crushed by the current structure of our health care. Crushed. But these stories that we’ve heard today, and all of us — if we’re not experiencing it, we know someone who is. These are the stories that remind us about what’s at stake in this debate. This is really all that matters. This is why we are fighting so hard for health insurance reform. This is it. This is the face of the fight.

And that’s why I’d like to talk to you today. That’s why I’m here. That’s why reform is so critical in this country — not tomorrow, not in a few years, but right now. People are hurting in this country right now.

But there is also a reason why I invited this particular group to talk today. There’s a reason why we’ve invited the leaders not only from family advocacy groups and health care advocacy groups, but for so many organizations that have been fighting for decades for empowerment for women. And that’s because when it comes to health care, as the Secretary said, as we all know, women play a unique and increasingly significant role in our families. We know the pain, because we are usually the ones dealing with it.

Eight in 10 women, mothers, report that they’re the ones responsible for choosing their children’s doctor, for getting them to their checkups, for managing that follow-up care. Women are the ones to do it. Mothers are the ones that do it. And many women find themselves doing the same thing for their spouses. (Laughter.) And more than 10 percent of women in this country are currently caring for a sick or elderly relative. It’s often a parent, but it could a grandparent, or a mother — or a relative of some sort — but it’s often a parent. So they’re making critical health care decisions for those family members as well.

In other words, being part of the sandwich generation, is what we are now finding, raising kids while caring for a sick or elderly parent, that’s not just a work/family balance issue anymore. It’s not just an economic issue anymore. More and more it is a health care issue. It’s something that I have thought a great deal about as a mother.

I will never forget the time eight years ago when Sasha was four months that she would not stop crying. And she was not a crier, so we knew something was wrong. So we fortunately were able to take her to our pediatrician that next morning. He examined her and same something’s wrong. We didn’t know what. But he told us that she could have meningitis. So we were terrified. He said, get to the emergency room right away.

And fortunately for us, things worked out, because she is now the Sasha that we all know and love today — (laughter) — who is causing me great — excitement. (Laughter.)

But it is that moment in our lives that flashes through my head every time we engage in this health insurance conversation. It’s that moment in my life. Because I think about what on earth would we have done if we had not had insurance. What would have happened to that beautiful little girl if we hadn’t been able to get to a pediatrician who was able to get us to an emergency room? The consequences I can’t even imagine. She could have lost her hearing. She could have lost her life if we had had to wait because of insurance.

And it was also fortunate that we happened to have good insurance, right? Because if we hadn’t had good insurance, like many of the panelists up here, we would have been saddled with costs for covering that emergency room visit for her two days in the hospital. We would have still been paying off those bills.

And this issue isn’t something that I’ve thought about as a mother. I think about it as a daughter. As many of you know, my father had multiple sclerosis. He contracted it in his twenties. And as you all know, my father was a rock. He was able to get up and go to work every day, even though it got harder for him as he got sicker and more debilitated. And I find myself thinking, what would we have done as a family on the South Side of Chicago if my father hadn’t had insurance, if he hadn’t been able to cover his treatments? What would it have done to him to think that his illness could have put his entire family into bankruptcy? And what if he had lost his job, which fortunately he never did? What if his company had changed insurance, which fortunately never happened, and we became one of the millions of Americans, families, who can’t get insurance because of a preexisting condition?

So these are the thoughts that run through my mind as I watch this debate and hope that we get it right.

But let’s be clear: Women aren’t just disproportionately affected by this issue because of the roles that we play in families. As Tina and Kathleen mentioned, women are affected because of the jobs that we do in this economy. We all know that women are more likely to work part-time, or to work in small companies or businesses that don’t provide any insurance at all.

Women are affected because, as we heard, in many states, insurance companies can still discriminate because of gender. And this is still shocking to me. These are the kind of facts that still wake me up at night; that women in this country have been denied coverage because of preexisting conditions like having a C-section or having had a baby. In some states, it is still legal to deny a woman coverage because she’s been the victim of domestic violence.

And a recent study showed that 25-year-old women are charged up to 45 percent more for insurance than 25-year-old men for the exact same coverage. And as the age goes up, you get to 40, that disparity increases to 48 percent — 48 percent difference for women for the exact same coverage in this country.

But it’s not just women without insurance, as we’ve heard, as we know who are affected. Plenty of women have insurance. But it doesn’t cover basic women’s health services like maternity care or preventative care like mammograms or pap smears, which we all know we have to have. We can’t go without these basic services. But many insurance policies don’t even cover it.

Or policies cap the amount of coverage that you can receive, as you’ve heard, or it drops coverage when people get sick and they really need the care. Or maybe people have coverage but they’re worried about losing it if they lose their jobs or if they change jobs or if the company changes insurance carriers. Out-of-pocket costs get higher and higher. It’s hard to be able to plan your monthly bills when you don’t know what your premiums are going to be. So a lot of people find they have to drop their insurance because they can no longer afford it.

Just think about it. Many women are being charged more in health care coverage, but as we all know, women are earning less. We all know that women earn 78 cents on the dollar to every men — to a man. So it’s not exactly surprising when we hear statistics that more than half of women report putting off needed medical care simply because they can’t afford it.

Now, we have trouble putting ourselves first when we have the resources — just making the appointment when you have insurance to get your regular screenings, to take care of those illnesses, those bumps and lumps and pains that we tend to ignore. But then not to be able to do it because you can’t have insurance, you don’t have insurance — it’s not surprising that so many millions of women around this country are simply going without insurance at all.

See, and the thing that we all know is that the current state — this current situation is unacceptable. It is unacceptable. (Applause.) No one in this country should be treated that way. It’s not fair. It’s not right. And these are hard-working people we’re talking about, right? People who care about their kids, care about their lives. And these circumstances could happen to any of us. This is one of those, “There but for the grace of God go I” kind of situations. None of us are exempt — ever.

So I think it’s clear that health insurance reform and what it means for our families is very much a women’s issue. It is very much a women’s issue.

And if we want to achieve true equality for women, if that is our goal; if we want to ensure that women have opportunities that they deserve, if that is our goal; if we want women to be able to care for their families and pursue things that they could never imagine, then we have to reform the system. We have to reform the system. The status quo is unacceptable. It is holding women and families back, and we know it.

Fortunately, that is exactly what my husband’s plan proposes to do, and it’s important for us to understand some of the basic principles of that plan. Under his plan, if you don’t have insurance now, or you lose your insurance at some point in the future, you’ll be able to purchase affordable coverage through an insurance exchange — a marketplace with a variety of options that will let you compare prices and benefits. This is exactly the approach that is used to provide members of Congress with insurance. So the thought is that if it’s good enough for members of Congress, it should be good enough for the people who vote them in. (Applause.)

And this is also an important part of the plan. If you already have insurance — and it seems that there are a lot of people who are worried that they’ll lose what they have under this plan — but under this plan, if you already have insurance, you’re set. Nothing changes. You keep your insurance, you keep your doctors — and you’re blessed. (Laughter.) This plan just puts in place some basic rules of the road to protect you from the kinds of abuses and unfair practices that we’ve heard.

Under this plan, insurance companies will never again be allowed to deny people like Debi and her son coverage for preexisting conditions. Sounds like a good thing. So whether you have breast cancer, diabetes, asthma, or hypertension — or even just had a C-section, or some mental health treatment that you had in your past — none of that will be a reason to refuse you coverage under the plan that my husband is proposing. Because when you’re fighting an illness, he believes that you shouldn’t also have to be in the process of fighting the insurance companies at the same time. (Applause.) It’s a basic idea.

Under this plan, insurance companies will no longer be able to drop your coverage when you get too sick, or refuse to pay for the care that you need, or to set a cap on the amount of coverage that you can get. And it will limit how much they can charge you for out-of-pocket expenses, because getting sick in this country shouldn’t mean that you go bankrupt. That’s a basic principle of this plan.

And finally, this plan will require insurance companies to cover basic preventative care. Seems simple. (Applause.) From routine checkups, to mammograms, to pap smears — and this would come at no extra charge to the patient, so folks like Roxi can get the chance to get the kind of screenings that she needs to save her life, because we already know that if we catch diseases like cancer early — we know this — it’s much less costly to treat, and we might just be able to save some lives. We know this.

So, under this plan, we can save lives and we can save money. It’s not just good medicine but it’s good economics as well.

So I think this is a pretty reasonable plan. I don’t know about you. (Applause.) But I know many of you believe it’s a good plan as well. And I know that many of the groups that you represent believe that what we’re doing here, this fight, is important. It’s important to this country, it’s important to women, it’s important to families that we succeed.

And now more than ever, as Tina said, as Secretary Sebelius said, we need to act. No longer can we sit by and watch the debate take on a life of its own. It is up to us to get involved, because what we have to remember is that now more than ever, we have to channel our passions into change.

That’s nothing that you all haven’t done before, right? (Laughter.) You all have been the driving force behind so many of our greatest health care achievements, whether it’s been children’s health insurance; to funding breast cancer research, stem cell research; to passing the Family Medical Leave Act. The folks in this room, you’re the ones that made those phone calls, right? That you wrote those letters, you knocked on those doors. You’re the ones that helped make that happen.

And that’s exactly what we need you to do today for health insurance reform. We are going to need you over the next few weeks to mobilize like you’ve never mobilized before. We need you to educate your members about what the plan really is and what it isn’t, because education is the key to understanding, and it’s going to take phone calls to explain, to talk things through, to make sure that people understand not just what’s at stake but what this all means.

And we know there will be all sorts of myths and misconceptions about what the plan is and isn’t, so it’s so important that you make sure that people know the facts, and at least they make their decisions based on the truth of what this plan is and isn’t. We need you to make your voices heard right here in Washington. And you all know how to do that. (Laughter.)

And no, it won’t be easy, because there are always folks who are a little afraid of change. We all understand that. We talked about this all during the campaign. Change is hard. Sometimes the status quo, even if it isn’t right, feels comfortable because it’s what we know. So it is understandable that people are cautious about moving into a new place in this society. There will always be folks who will want things to stay just the way they are, to settle for the world as it is. We talked about that so much. This is one of those times.

But look, I am here today, standing before you as the First Lady of the United States of America, because you all didn’t settle for the world as it is, right? (Applause.) You refused to settle. And as a result of many of your efforts, as a young girl, I was able to dream in ways that I could have never imagined, that my mother could never have imagined, that my grandmother could never have imagined. And thanks to so many of you, I am raising these beautiful young women, you know — (applause) — who are going to be able to think so differently about their place in the world because of the work that you’ve done.
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Health care reform is part of that movement. Health insurance reform is the next step. So we’re going to need you all, focused and clear, picking up the phones, talking, calling, writing your congressmen and women, making this something that is the highest priority for all of us, so that we can make sure that every single family in this country can move forward as we hope that they can; that they don’t have to worry about whether they can insure themselves. They don’t have to worry about whether their kids are going to break an arm. That’s what kids do, they break stuff. (Laughter.)

So I am grateful for all of you, for the work that you’ve done, and for what I know that we can do together over the next several weeks. But we have to be, what, fired up and what?

AUDIENCE: Ready to go!

MRS. OBAMA: And ready to go. A little fired up and ready to go. So thank you so much. God bless you all, and God bless America. (Applause.)



Copyright 2009. The Zaftig Redhead. All Rights Reserved.