The radio show was great tonite.

I think we know what we need to work on, and it’s a long list. I think the planning, strategyzing and tactical moves are what we need to think about.

We need a voice in the media. The question is how do we get one and can we get a voice without having to compromise the message to such an extent that it’s drowned out anyway. Maybe the use of targetted boycotting can create an avenue for gaining access to the media and influence over the message.

One thing I think we need to think about is the differences between the women’s movement and others such as the civil rights and gay rights movements. Women are not and do not form a community. Many other groups do. We are parts of other communities, but don’t make up a community of our own in the same way that there is a “black community” for example.

Gender dynamics are very complicated and because we give birth to men, we sleep with them, they are our brothers, fathers, husbands and sons, we are not a separate “community” from them. The familial relationships we have with men often isolate us from our cause. Because of this reality, we need different approaches, support systems and strategies to moving us forward.

Educating children and adults about women’s history and oppression in this country and the world is severely lacking. and is very important The civil rights movement is a big part of what our kids are learning in the public school systems. Almost every 10th grader knows of MLK Jr. and Melcolm X, but most college educated women don’t know about Alice Paul, Elizabeth Caddy Stanton, Margret Sanger and so on. I learned of Susan B. Anthony in high school, while learning about the abolitionist movement to end slavery. It wasn’t until I was in college and taking women’s studies courses that I learned of her women’s rights work. We have taught a whole generation about the Civil Rights movement and the history of black slavery and segregation in this country, but they know almost nothing of women’s struggles and our History. This is truley appaulling. This is a big peice of the puzzle and until people understand our history and oppression, we will not move forward. Through education, we can create a collective consciousness about sexism and misogyny that does not currently exist. The success of erasing our history and struggle is exactly what has kept us invisible.

Sorry for being all over the place, but I’m just thinking out loud.

Thanks for listening my thoughts.

3. Title: …appoint a woman as Secretary of Commerce, instead of ‘to Commerce.”

Great work! You managed to weave a lot of different things into the whole with a good sense of logic and flow. Not easy to do. Thank you for doing the research, organizing the info and writing a great piece!

Two tips for future reference

1. When using acronyms (like UNIFEM) always spell out the name of the org so readers who don’t know what it means (I include myself in that ignorant bunch) can be educated. Otherwise, such junctures can become a wall the reader hits and some don’t continue on (thanks to the increasingly short attention span of the American public).

2. The reference to infastracture jobs comes late in the piece and a bit out of the blue. Perhaps more logical to put up in the first paragraph to help make sense of the opening claim regarding women’s concerns about being left out of the stimulus package.

You said “300 million jobs”. Is this a typo? I’ve heard Obama talk about 5 million, 17 million less than Clinton created, but not 300 million.