The Shriver Report rolls out..
October 19, 2009
by Amy Siskind
|Maria Shriver and NBC kicked off their weekly broadcast around The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything.
Here’s a clip from yesterday’s opening salvo on NBC’s Meet the Press:
First off, Podesto is factually incorrect – politics are not a lagging indicator. Women in politics make up 17% of our senate and congress. Women in corporate America, as measured by the percentage in Fortune 500 management positions, is actually less than 17%. Women make up just 13 of the Fortune 500 CEOs (2.6%), and roughly 15% of Fortune 500 management – the latter number being a decline from 17% in 2005.
Maria Shriver goes on to say that it is so hard to work in corporate America or politics that women don’t want it. What does that statement accomplish?
I’m hoping that instead of bemoaning the status quo, that Shriver and NBC will give some salient solutions on how to pave the way to make things better. Else, Shriver and NBC run the risk of the this report moving women backwards.
If politics actually were a lagging indicator, the wealthy and powerful, around the world and throughout history would not commit so many resources to it. Come to think of it, Podesta would be doing something else wouldn’t he.
Shriver’s comment is off the mark. Women, like men make sensible decisions. When the deck is stacked, you find a different game. If the odds of success are minimal and the cost of participation enormous, your find a different route (e.g. Palin).
Good news – there is a public discussion. Thank you Maria Shriver and NBC.
So far I am not pleased. The battle of the sexes is over? Fabulous, we can all go home now and live in a post feminist utopia.
75%-78% of people approve of women in the workforce, so we should all be happy about the progress? Well, that means one in four do not approve of women being paid for their labor. Great, that means if you work with 20 people, five of them are questioning whether you should even have the right to be there at all. Fabulous.
And lastly, it’s time for us to stop pretending women “chose” to work. As if women who want to eat really have a “choice.” Now Shriver might have a choice, but most of do not and neither did our grandmothers or great grandmothers. Women have been working since the dawn of time, we just traditionally have been unpaid for our labors. And women prior to the 1950′s were certainly not lounging around by the pool, bemoaning the fact that they didn’t have the right to choose to go to work. We’ve been paid pennies or not paid at all, but we have always worked.
Okay, so Shriver says something about women in politics being knocked around but I’m not sure if she means knocked around in the sense that most politicians are knocked around, or knocked around on that extra and extreme misogynistic level (which can also make it challenging for women to WIN).
Also, she mentions something about women viewing success and power differently than men. What does she mean by that? Does she thing we are happy just to be that lawyer but not be the DA? Because it’s too damned stressful? Does she think we are happy to be the executive or the government official without being the head honcho?
I’d like to state that it is becoming very stressful for women NOT to be the DA, nor the CEO, Senator, Congressperson or President. And this will continue to be stressful situation for women until we have 52 percent representation.
One in four doesn’t approve, and the other three don’t either — they just haven’t run into it yet personally.
Seriously. Just befcause someone SAYS they think women leaders are just peachy doesn’t mean squat to me. It’s just the first half of the “I’m Not Sexist But” thesis. You know the one: “I’m not sexist, but women just aren’t as smart as men. I’m not sexist, but I don’t like women bosses. I’m not sexist but that bitch needs a slapdown. I’m not sexist but she was drunk, man.”
I don’t buy it. If I want to know if yo’re sexist, I’ll watch you for a while and then I’ll tell YOU. I’m not asking.
I have not even wasted my time with this. So what is the deal? All the sudden CNN, NBC and Time magazine are talking about women. Is anyone listening? How did the Media Cartel make the big decision to go with this topic simultaneously? I mean really CNN and NBC doing reports on women after their woman mocking coverage of the last election is sort of like Oprah deciding to do an NFL chat show. She would have no credibility and they have no credibility. And what is with Aryana Huffington as a representative of women on CNN? She gave a voice to liberal sexism during the 2008 elections. If these people want and audience they need to stop talking to themselves. No one is listening. Women are 52% of the population and media have no credibility on women’s issues.
Time Magazine, part of the Shriver Report coalition, reports that their polling shows that women “don’t care about equality.” What a bunch of crap….
Hmmm Time and CNN are the same company and somehow they have linked up with NBC I guess. Well everything these media companies do is about money so this is probably nothing more than an attempt to sell commercials to companies who want to advertise to women.
really good comments here.
the white house and the liberal media teaming up to tell us what great progress women have made. this whole show sounded too good to be true.
yes a lot of women work outside the house and that by itself is supposed to change society to such a great deal. as far as I have heard from some former East German and Russia, where there were no housewifes and women had entered in equal amounts all type of professions including engineering and science, society had nto changed for the better to women from my perspective. and they even had childcare, healthcare, retirement. but who stood for hours in the lines to get the necessary household items and food? women of course. who took care of children elderly? women of course. did women get the respect that formerly men got in the professions? No. doctors and engineers were not particularly well paid. and when you get back to second word war. the communist armees running over Germany were known of the most atrocious behavior and frequency of rape compared to the three other victorious parties.
the fact that women earn money and work outside the house is no indicator of progress for women.
the eradication of violence against women rape, sex trafficking, domestic violence and calling women derogatory names like B… and W… that would be an indicator that we have achieved something.
As Wendy Norris relates in her piece on the Shriver report, the media (a wholly owned subsidiary of the patriarchy, lest we forget) is ignoring the feminism-supporting data in the report, while trumpeting the premature post-feminist wishful thinking contained therein:
I’m with Gloria Steinem – I think we should read the report and use it as a springboard for discussion rather than dismiss it due to the media whitewash:
The Shriver report is available here: http://awomansnation.com/
I really think that Palin may run in 2012 and Hillary may win in 2016. I fully expect to see a woman become President in my lifetime. There are a lot of men who are disgusted with politics and the corporate lifestyle too. Getting more women in office will doubtless help but if we don’t make society more nurturing, there will come a point of diminishing returns for both women and men.
For a comprehensive rebuttal to The Shriver Report, Google “No Bull Mom.”
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