The New Agenda is advancing a notion that is somewhat revolutionary to many women and men in this country:  that representation of women in positions of power is more important to the advancement of women than desirable policies.
You know, the argument you hear from your friends.  I vote for the “best” candidate – even if a woman is running.  That some male candidates can be better supporters of women’s issues than female candidates.   Is this  true?  Many studies suggest the opposite:  that the advancement is most impacted by representation.
For example, …

Traveling warp-speed to a theater near you, the latest Star Trek movie tells the prequel story of how the crew of the S.S. Enterprise came to their pioneering voyage.
There’s nothing like a new Star Trek movie to bring out the inner geek in me. So indulge me and remember with me the women pioneers of the original Star Trek series. First take a minute to picture the female characters on TV at the time: the schoolteacher who dated Sheriff Andy Taylor, the granny who boiled up possum …

May is Infrastructure Month at The New Agenda. While we are busy working on the infrastructure of our organization, we are encouraging our members and readers to submit blog pieces to be published. This piece is written by Celeste Kitchens and is her opinion, not necessarily that of The New Agenda.
Imagine there is an open spot on a high court in which decisions that affect your life are made by a group of 9 people. There are two top contenders, among other incredibly qualified people. One is the …

Virginia Rometty of IBM, Denise Morrison of Campbell Soup, and Ursula Burns of Xerox
If Business Week’s crystal ball is accurate, the next generation of corporate Chief Executive Officers could contain a higher percentage of women.  Hope springs eternal!
As we wrote last month, currently women compose just 15 of the Fortune 500 CEOs.  Let’s say that another way:  men compose 485 of the Fortune 500 CEOs. In a blog piece a couple of weeks ago here, we questioned why some were celebrating that women had reached 15 out of 500, or …

During Women’s History Month, I saw many comments about school curricula being deficient regarding women in part because (with some note able exceptions like Mercy Otis Warren) traditional history books have been written mostly by men. Well, it’s happening again. Today, when our children need to research a topic, where do they turn? Wikipedia. And who is writing Wikipedia? Mostly men. Women make up only 13% of Wikipedia contributors, according to a new survey.
Commenting on the phenomenon to Reuters, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director …

Cross posted with the permission of MomsRising.org.
It’s no surprise to the vast majority of us who have both a job and family responsibilities that something’s not working at work. The American workplace is perfectly suited for the American workforce…of the 1950s. Even today, when 46% of the U.S. workforce is made up of women and 81% of women have children by age 44, most good jobs in the U.S. (those with good benefits and pay and opportunities for advancement) are designed around the ideal of a worker who is available …

This week The New Agenda was featured in Politico which described our organization as:
…a group dedicated to putting more women in high-level government positions.
Amen to that!
Here’s an update on a couple of female candidates that TNA is keeping an eye on:  Meg Whitman and Leslie Crocker Snyder.

Meg Whitman
Meg Whitman is running for Governor of California.  This week, Meg launched MEGaWOMEN, a website dedicated to women.
Here’s why MEGaWOMEN was formed:
California is home to 13 million adult women and more than 850,000 women-owned businesses. The Coalition provides dynamic women throughout California — …

Cross posted with the permission of The Red Pump Project
Written by Rolake Balogun, a college sophomore from Chicago, IL
College students are some of the most sexually active people on this planet. We’re placed in the perfect arena for sexual connections, with our raging hormones and parents no where to be found (meaning no curfews….YES!). Sexual healing is our theme song. We live it up, we have fun, we go crazy, we……catch STDs. I go to University of Illinois and sadly, genital herpes is quite rampant among the students, affecting about …

The New Agenda hosted a Violence Against Women Forum on April 18th. All of the panelist spoke about the disturbing trend in violence against our teenage girls. Please help us spread this important video.

In the weeks after hip-hop artist Chris Brown allegedly beat and strangled singer Rihanna, a stomach-turning phenomenon happened across America: acceptance. It’s been widely reported that in Boston, 46% of teens surveyed said that Rhianna was responsible for the violence, and 44% said that physical violence is a normal part of a relationship. …

May is Infrastructure Month at The New Agenda. While we are busy working on the infrastructure of our organization, we are encouraging our members and readers to submit blog pieces to be published. This piece is written by Bruce Nahin and is his opinion, not necessarily that of The New Agenda.
In the early 1970′s while a student at UCLA I first came in contact with what was then known as the Women’s liberation movement. I embraced it and was an early subscriber to Ms magazine and to various feminist groups. …