Make a wish for 2009….
December 27, 2008
by The New Agenda
|40 Comments
2009: A Year of Opportunity
With 2009 just around the corner, The New Agenda wants to hear from you, our members.
What would you like your organization to focus on in 2009? What should be the number one goal for us to accomplish together next year?
Please join us in this open thread.
We want to hear all your thoughts, ideas and opinions!
I wish we could have at least one team captain in every state actively holding meetings and accomplishing whatever they want in their local community. I hope we will be able to use this movement for something positive and good, as well as “slapping around” people when we need to.
Ooops I thought of another one. We need to do something about Women’s History Month and educational materials for schools etc. If we don’t get busy, there will be no little feminists to take our places when we all retire to Florida.
I would like to see a real media for women. What there is now is only advertising venue for products aimed at women and it is calculated to appeal to males who want to advertise to women (Oxygen). So I would like to see a web site go up where talented girls and young women can post the stories they write and women can read those authentic stories. It could work toward a place where women could post a few chapters to a book and then people could pay to download the rest if they are interested. This would serve the purpose of giving authentic woman’s work a place to live without being approved by male editors, it would give women something interesting to read and it could serve as a base for eventual movies that are about real woman (as opposed to the fashion industry or the bridal industry.) So this would all start by encouraging young girls who have not been beaten down by the male system to write.
Constance,
That’s a great idea. Wouldn’t it be nice if more women were in charge of and involved with the media. I could watch an entire movie (non-disney) and not see a single boob. I have boobs and I like boobs in general I suppose but wow am I sick of them bouncing through every movie I try to watch.
We should continue a mediawatch and media presence as well.
I caught the tail end of some news story on tv and the anchorman actually said, “I’ll bet her husband had something to say when she went home that night..”
And altho Katha Pollitt did finally mention Rick Warren’s misogyny in her interview with Rachel Maddow, the Warren story continues to center around homophobia, instead of homophobia *and* sexism. We need to have a swift strong and vocal response to every instance of sexism, so that sexism becomes as recognized and reviled as are homophobia, anti-Semitism and racism.
Oh, and has everyone seen that NOW has a survey up as to what they should concentrate on now that we have such a feminist friendly administration coming in?
I think they should concentrate on deprogramming their membership from the Ocult.
Here’s one that requires a press release:
The CIA is using Viagra to get info from our enemies….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....008/12/25/ AR2008122500931.html?hpid=topnews
In other words, the aging tribal warlord in Afghanistan is being given tools in which to dominate his four young brides. We had a “global gag” rule which actually cost lives because it shut down clinics.
But it’s a-ok to distribute Viagra in this fashion? I say we have a Global Flagging Penis rule. Let them flag.
Zee on December 27th, 2008 12:54 pm
We should continue a mediawatch and media presence as well.
I caught the tail end of some news story on tv and the anchorman actually said, “I’ll bet her husband had something to say when she went home that night..”
Zee I saw that too and meant to make a note but I fell asleep and forgot
It was at the end of a special I think on FOX and the segment was about a female journalist I think who was defending Wright and saying the way he was being treated was racist. I can’t remember the anchor who made the comment but it was exactly what you remember him saying. Does that jog your memory at all?
All great ideas above!
Pressuring Obama and Clinton to improve women’s lives across the globe is the number one priority but…
It would be wonderful if the New Agenda could start up an on-line daily newspaper written by non-sexist men and women, or set up a ‘Newsbusters-style’ website aimed at highlighting the sexist bias in the conservative and liberal media.
Also, as mentioned on Dr Long’s website, the true story of Hillary Clinton’s career (and S Palin’s) MUST be told to the wider population. I feel the conservative press will restore Palin but no existing media is going to restore Clinton’s, so we have to.
Primary Goal:
Establish a strong foundation as an organization. Without that, moving forward will be erratic and disorganized.
In no particular order: Get your non-profit status. Develop a business plan. Create a budget along with a plan as to how to achieve your financial goals. Create an organizational chart. Decide how you want to be an activist org (top/down, bottom/up, both) and plan ways to implement your approach. In addition to a Board of Directors, consider having an Advisory Board. This is often a way to increase credibility by adding names of people who might not be willing to serve of the Board of Directors, but who are willing to lend their name to an Advisory Board. Clean up your mission statement. Create a Resource Center. Revisit why you have decided to have many of your co-founders remain annonymous and consider making things more transparent in order to gain more legitimacy. Develop a list of action categories (i.e. elected officials, education, equal pay, violence against women, etc.). Figure out a formal membershiop structure and consider dues if the org finds that financial resources are necessary. Etc.
My wish:
I would like TNA to push the idea/concept/strategy that Cynthia currently calls “the interim path” (voting for women regardless of party and position). For me, the main goals are parity in government and ending misogyny. Parity will help end misogyny and working to end misogyny will help to achieve parity. The interim path is one simple strategy to achieve these goals. Obviously, we would employ other strategies but I’m focusing my wish on the interim path. I think we should come up with a catchy name for it and push it using the media. I think many people would, at first, feel uncomfortable with the idea of such a simple voting philosophy and make fun of it, call us radical, crazy, irrational, etc. That’s okay, that probably gets good media coverage and will introduce the concept to people’s minds. However, we will continue to explain the logic behind it over and over again. Eventually, it will sink in little by little, person by person. Once people get used to hearing it and discussing it, it will not seem so radical. They will get more comfortable with it and many will employ it.
This is my “wish” for TNA. However, it is also already my personal agenda. I’m not a very good sales person and I’m known for being too opinionated but I’ve already had some successes. Many of my family and friends think I’m nuts but a few have decided they agree with me! Of course, many in-between but I’ll be working on them. I think TNA would surely do a much better job at convincing people than me!
The goals of ending misogyny and representational parity are complicated and hard to sell. Maybe a simple strategy is an easier sell and thus more effective way to achieve our complicated, challenging goals.
Happy New Year!
I would agree with all above.
All hope TNA holds the Obama team’s feet to the fire to achieve their agenda for women http://change.gov/agenda/women_agenda/
I fear that the strategy of supporting any woman for elected office, regardless of their ideology, can quickly fall into the “Be careful what you wish for” category.
I remember when Thurgood Marshall retired, african-americans were calling for President Bush to replace the court’s only black member with another one. So Bush chose Clarence Thomas.
So now all my black friends hate Thomas far more than any other justice. They consider him to be the most anti-black justice by far, and a convenient cover for the right side of the court when ruling against their interests.
We do have issues we care deeply about, and the Clarence Thomas episode reminds me that no one can damage a group more deeply than a member of the group whose beliefs are aligned against it. No one is more dangerous than a traitor.
Or to put it more bluntly: No one can hurt women more than the WRONG woman.
I SO agree with Nancy that it is a major mistake to support any woman for elected office regardless of her ideology. The analogy with Clarence Thomas is perfect. We must encourage those with whom we share at least a basic philosophy and not throw our support behind just any woman because of her gender.
Does it seem reasonable to support Caroline Kennedy in her quest for the Senate, when she failed to support Hillary Clinton, the most experienced person, for the Democratic party’s nomination as candidate for POTUS? Would you continue to support Nancy Pelosi whose actions clearly contributed to the selection, rather than election, of Barack Obama? How about Donna Brazille? If she was the only female candidate in a race for election as a public official, would you support her?
I am highly conflicted on this issue and cannot in all honesty feel comfortable supporting those women whose actions have unreasonably thrown other well qualified and experienced women under the bus.
I am dismayed at the vagueness of the question. “A wish list” sounds like little girls at a slumber party.
This is a war for women’s rights. You can rely on Obama or any other man to give you anything. Fight for it. Take it. Make a plan (founders) this is your responsibility. Then create an action center where women can go find how they can be part of the plan.
Besides all of the very good concrete recs about getting a solid non-profit together (been there–>so tough, slow and steady…), I wanted to make sure everyone knew about the Fem2.0 conference in February. I registered and hope to make it and meet many energized people…
http://www.fem2pt0.com/
Thanks for sharing that information Cynthia.
I just asked them to contact me. TNA has many members in DC, perhaps some could attend.
Josie on December 27th, 2008 2:43 pm
It would be wonderful if the New Agenda could start up an on-line daily newspaper written by non-sexist men and women, or set up a ‘Newsbusters-style’ website aimed at highlighting the sexist bias in the conservative and liberal media.
======================
Both these are good ideas, but imo the most useful would be the ‘on-line newspaper.’ We need to reach the people who now just barely watch MSM and have no time or attention for any ‘Newsbusters’ level of complexity.
I’ve made a start at a simple ‘on-line newspaper’ type of project with my http://midstreamnews.blogspot.com We’re posting excerpts from and links to some of the few clean, unslanted, unsexist stories that do show up in Mainstream Media.
I’d love to see similar projects springing up. We could all link to each other’s.
In the meantime imo we should all keep plugging DailyPuma.com It’s a wonderful resource for all Puma blogs and can give the exposure to make the difference for any news projects we set up.
For me, the most important project facing us is the education of our children both male and female. If we get the ball rolling on moving women ahead again in business and politics but fail to educate the next generation, then we will come to another stunning halt. What good will it do to get parity in government if the next generation doesn’t understand why it’s important? It will take more than one generation to make women in positions of authority so commonplace as to just continue to happen. We need to propagate the next standard bearers while we work for what we want or everything we do will be for naught.
I think the answer to “would you support X woman who has vigorously done X against women” would be no, of course you wouldn’t. If there is no woman on the ballot you can support you have the choice to spoil the ballot. Since you’ve already ‘spoiled’ it, say why. Write that in.
Sis – Not sure how it works in Canada, but here, “spoiling” a ballot means you’ve made a mistake, whereby you send in the spoiled ballot and request a new one. Most elections has several races and issues on the ballot, so I don’t think negating one’s entire ballot is a wise way to go. As for writing in why one has “spoiled” their ballot – If they do that on the actual ballot they intend to cast, the entire ballot will likely be rendered moot since no addititonal marks are allowed. A voter can always decide to not vote for certain races if they want to and vote for other things, like propositions, etc.
Thia: I agree regarding movie boobs. Not that there is anything wrong with them, I just don’t need boobs superimposed on each and every topic in “entertainment”. Here is what I think the problem is. There is this class you take in zoology where they park you at the zoo and you score every move your animal makes for hours on end. And you find that there are different behaviors, male to male, male to female and female to female. So with men in charge of media what they have done is photograph women doing behaviors which in the natural world are only female-male behaviors but these behaviors are definitely not female-female behaviors. Women do not typically see other women exhibiting these behaviors and they don’t want to see them. When forced to see female-male behaviors women have a negative primal reaction to them and find them fake, pathetic, anger inducing etc but certainly not something they want to see. So I doubt you can get men to make any entertainment women will flock to, women are simply not going to pay money to see the world through distorted male eyes. And the men who make this crap have observed it taking place and will defend it as reality. Well it is their reality but the male experience is not the normative experience and surly is not the only valid experience. And of course there is a certain group of women who work in male media who are highly invested in maintaining the status quo too. So I think it is a waste of time and creativity to try to change what men have created in the media world. Women should spend their energy developing a real female media through female eyes.
Here is something else womens groups can do. I think many women subscribe to TV cable service as a habit or because they don’t know the alternatives. And by subscribing they are subsidizing malecentric garbage and businesses. So I think womens groups should push the idea of canceling cable and downloading the few shows you want to watch. Inform women on how to do this. It will help with their budgets and it will help drive the current malecentric media model out of existence.
So how do you download shows?
Afraid I don’t know! I don’t have cable, but I like that idea. I do have issues watching sexist trash. But I don’t watch much anyways. There are much better things to do.
Just a thought…the minute you choose to support or oppose a woman candidate because of ideology, you become nothing more than more of the same.What impresses me most about your group( our group) is that it is open to the left and right, issues of abortion and the like are not divisive here as they are elsewhere. your mission statement is excellent as it is, a large tent emphasising common issues.
One issue dear to me is sex slave trade. Estimates are that upwards of 200mill women are slaves somewhere. Check out the website: exoduscry.com
for more info on this.
Thanks Bruce. We have been watching that issue. A member sent us an article about a case of a 10 year-old girl in Irvine, CA being a child slave. There is so much to take on. Our big picture goal is to empower women from the top and bottom.
Bruce in my opinion all women working as prostitutes or in pornography are in the sex slave trade. A woman doesn’t have to be tied down, drugged, and taken across borders to be a sex slave. Neither does she have to be ethnic, from a third world country, or of another race.
If she is prostituted, whether on the streets, in the Hilton, or in front of a camera (pornography being nothing but filmed prostitution) she’s a sex slave, and part of the sex slave trade.
In regard to the educational materials, which I am very interested in, perhaps we could collaborate with the National Women’s History Museum? They have a curriculum section on there website but it looks like they could use more. And more flashy materials.
Here is a very good idea I saw posted elsewhere:
http://pumapac.org/2008/12/28/.....ent-266287
Here’s another idea. I really liked the video of Lynn Tilton. I like the Women Who Help Women series. I also like learning about women like Lynn Tilton. One thing that the election made obvious to me is that our country is uncomfortable with powerful women. Maybe TNA can spread the word about powerful women who already exist in the world. Not only will these women stand as examples and role models for children and for us, but they will also show the world that powerful women do exist, know what they are talking about, do good things and the world hasn’t fallen apart yet! Readers of the blog will learn about the women and tell their friends, family, etc. Just a grassroots way to spread the good news. Maybe if people are more comfortable with powerful women, they will be less likely to put up misogynistic media treatment of women candidates and maybe even vote for them!
1.)Get the 501 status in place and get cash coming in
2.)continue media watch and attack on all fronts the likes El Groper and Chris ‘Mr. Tingle’ Matthews and don’t let their offensive conduct fade out of sight
3.)vote gender always
4.) somehow recruit more men
goesh,
Our membership is approximately 15% male.
Anna: I don’t know how to download shows I want to watch! My kids do it for me so I know it is possible (I breed my own IT people). I know there is a legal way and an illegal way. It seems to be easy as they go in the computer room, type for a minute or so then walk away. When I want to watch it they spend about another minute putting it on the screen. I like the interaction with my children so I never figured it out for myself but it seems like something every woman should know and probably every female under 20 does know. If we make an easy cheat sheet we could probably help millions of women dump cable, stop subsidizing malecentric and often sexist content and improve their household budgets in these rough times.
Constance,
It depends on which show you want to watch. I don’t watch any of them illegally because to me that is stealing. But I do watch some for free on the networks or you can pay for the ones you can’t get free like on I-tunes. The networks keep the most recent 2-4 episodes of their most popular shows on their websites. You could watch free shows on the networks’ websites and fill up a whole day.
Re: Political Activism
Finish whatever we feel remains to be done re: Cabinet Watch.
Move on to action related to Senate seats that will be appointed.
Start focusing on the 2010 mid-term elections.
There’s hardly any curmudgeon who will not step aside for “Fair Use”. It’s legal to watch, read, copy, send out, and material that will be used for educational purposes.
There is, really truly, no such thing as copyright. The internet blew that fallacy to smithereens. And if you don’t believe me, google legal and gov sites on it. You’ll fight your way through pages of legalese gobbledeegook, to arrive at: no one knows where it lives, or who feeds it.
Re: Trying to figure out legal issues related to copyright, a FANTASTIC legal resource that is run by lawyers to empower the general public to learn about and even take care of certain legal matters on their own is: NOLO PRESS. They demystify many areas, walk you through step by step what you need to do, etc. Fantastic. And, they make fun of themselves as lawyers – lawyers willing to tell lawyer jokes. I highly recommend this resource. I used their book on how to form a non-profit corporation many many years ago and did it successfully at the first attempt, simply by following their steps. Who knows how much more complex is may be to do now (it felt complex enough then!). Can’t say enough good stuff about them!
Thia – Just read through all the posts. Your second one is right on (and also hysterical re: the Florida reference!). But, truly. I hope we won’t get singularly focused on elections so that we miss many other areas that lay the groundwork for future generations to be more aware of women’s accomplishments, for us to correct and enhance how history is told in school books, etc. I love your idea!
saw this at teamsarah.org, thought it might be of interest
“Women are complex and seldom are defined by a political party’s doctrine or dogma. We may lean left or right or be in the center on different issues, all at the same time. We have power in pooling our resources and working together, celebrating what we have in common instead of being exploited and divided by our differences. We can all learn from each other, I look forward to learning from your viewpoint.”
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The New Agenda is a 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls by bringing about systemic change in the media, at the workplace, at school and at home. More...