What Every Woman Should Know is a bi-weekly series on American Women’s History.

Editor’s note: Beginning this month, The New Agenda Blog will be featuring regular columns from a diverse group of terrific contributors. Anna Belle Pfau, who blogs at Peacocks and Lilies, is an amateur historian who specializes in American women’s history. Every other week she’ll be writing about key historical moments that, as she says, “every woman should know.”
The progression of rights for American women is a story of unlikely alliances. The Seneca Falls Women’s Right’s Convention …

For those of you asking:  ”Yes – it is in the works.”
Since Governor Richardson has withdrawn his name for Secretary of Commerce, The New Agenda will be issuing a press release to propose and push for a list of qualified women candidates.
It has also not gone unnoticed that Colorado and Illinois recently filled their vacant senate seats with men.
Stay tuned….

Elizabeth Wurtzel writes on The Daily Beast about the difference between criticisms of Sarah Palin and Caroline Kennedy. According to Wurtzel, the objections to Palin were sort of sexist; the objections to Kennedy are not.
I dunno—I read the following comment about Caroline Kennedy on a feminist blog recently:
I think her new interest in elective office is because she will soon be an empty-nester.
Why couldn’t she just become a real estate agent like so many women of privilege of a certain age who find themselves in need of a hobby or …

Okay, so maybe it was just annoyance at the DMV, but it reminds me of how sexism is pervasive in every aspect of our lives…

Sexism can be subtle, or it can be conspicuous and brutal, but it is deeply ingrained in our society. Women go about their daily lives navigating through a world designed by and for men, who take for granted that the system is designed for them. Sometimes the reminders slap you in the face, like the treatment of women in the 2008 election cycle. But sometimes the …

Wives do not have a “right” to divorce abusive husbands, according to Rick Warren.
Warren, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to deliver the Inaugural Invocation, instructs his parishioners that the Bible says physical abuse is no excuse for getting a divorce.
Warren explains:
Having been involved as a pastor in situations of abuse, there’s something in me that wishes there were a Bible verse that says if they abuse you in such kind of way, then you have a right to leave them.
“God,” Warren says, “hates divorce.”

(The following message was sent to our members. If you would like to receive action alerts, member alerts and other information, please send us an email at JoinTheNewAgenda@yahoo.com)
A MOVEMENT IS BORN
As the New Year dawns, we invite you to look back on the successes of our first months together. The 2008 Presidential Election was our wake-up call. Whether we supported Senator Hillary Clinton or Governor Sarah Palin, this election beamed a bright light on the misogyny and sexism that is rampant in our culture. Moving quickly, we harnessed the anger, …

I’m a big believer in proclaiming “Women of the Year,” because I believe in identifying positive role models who give us all something to aspire to.
It also helps to give us hope when some of our goals, such as electing a woman to the White House, seem at times to recede before us like those refracted heat waves that appear to form shapes and then vanish in the desert, leaving us wondering where is our palm-lined pool of shimmering water? Nothing but miles and miles of dry, hot desert when …